An exploratory study of videotapes of long-term group psychotherapy of outpatients with major and chronic mental illness

This study explored patterns emerging in videotaped sessions of group psychotherapy with seven outpatients of a large mental health facility. The 22 sessions spanned the 12th to 27th months of the group's existence. Group members had long histories (25–50 years) of symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia. Each session was rated on the Group Environment Scale. One session from a group in its earlier stages was also rated on the same instrument to give some indication of baseline patterns. Analyses of changes across the 15 months were not statistically significant. However, some GES subscales, including Cohesion, Independence, and Self-Discovery, showed relatively high mean levels across the 15-month period. These elevations are discussed as suggesting the codevelopment of orientations that have sometimes been viewed as incompatible and unattainable for schizophrenics. Interpreted clinically, the GES patterns help to elaborate recent findings about the relatively good success of long-term group therapy with such populations. The study, although merely suggestive, illustrates the potential for gleaning solid and clinically useful data from group psychotherapy research.The authors would like to thank Drs. Jill Rierdan, Nina Fieldsteel, Joseph Christy, and an anonymous reviewer for their suggestions, Kendra Bryant for serving as the reliability rater, and Janet Eltinge for her skilled videotaping.     

Progressive and imaginal relaxation training for elderly persons with subjective anxiety.

Elders exposed to either progressive or imaginal relaxation procedures reported significant relaxation effects and showed improvement on measures of personal functioning. The results of the Physical Assessment Scale of the Relaxation Inventory indicated that relaxation responses were acquired within and across sessions. Large, consistent changes in relaxation occurred in all 4 sessions. The Symptom Checklist-90-R, which measures self-reported personal adjustment, showed significant positive changes following relaxation training and at 1-month follow-up. Elders who imagined muscle tension release profited as much as those engaged in actual muscle tension-release activities. This finding is of importance for older adults who may experience physical limitations that contraindicate muscle-tension-release procedures.     

Motion perception and aging.

The authors used a correlated motion paradigm to investigate the effects of aging and gender on motion sensitivity. In 2 experiments with a total of 50 elderly and 50 young subjects, motion thresholds were significantly higher for elderly women. The correlated motion signal, which was embedded in random motion, may have been coherent to subjects in much the same way a form is in Witkin's Embedded Figures Test (EFT). In Experiment 2, EFT scores were obtained. A significant positive relationship between motion thresholds and EFT performance was found within each age group. Although gender-related perceptual style differences may contribute to motion perception effects, the authors argue that a common neural factor contributes to performance on both the EFT and the correlated motion task.     

Cultural practices of Hispanics: implications for the prevention of AIDS

Hispanic Americans have one of the highest rates of HIV seroprevalence among all ethnics groups in the US, with high rates being especially noticeable among women and children. Were it known which cultural factors have the most influence on whether Hispanics engage in high-risk behavior for HIV transmission, prevention interventions could be targeted accordingly. To that end, this study was mounted to identify which Hispanic cultural factors relate to condom use. 117 males and 73 females aged 17-56 years of mean age 25.67 were surveyed in Washoe county, Nevada. These mostly young adults had recently immigrated to the western US. It was initially posited that fate orientation, male- female relationships, family relationships, machismo behavior, and religion would have equal influence with respect to condom use. Analysis found that condom use was largely associated with and determined by men who are the principal buyers of condoms. A machismo attitude toward protecting women by using condoms was also associated with condom use. Neither fate orientation with respect to AIDS, nor religion were important determinants of condom use, even though 86.5% of the respondents were Catholic. The degree to which respondents adhered to traditional Hispanic cultural values was influenced by the degree of education and acculturation. On the basis of these findings, the authors suggest targeting AIDS prevention messages to males, while emphasizing the protection of women through condom use. They also suggest that both education and acculturation levels be assessed before implementing prevention programs.     

The construction of the self: An evolutionary view

Contemporary research on the construction of the self emphasizes the products rather than the process of self-development. Borrowing from the writings of William James and contemporary views of natural selection, we propose a model ofevolutionary self-construction. Grounded in the principles of evolution and the philosophy of pragmatism, evolutionary self-construction proposes a process that guides the seeking of “truth” inpossible selves. According to this view, the self develops in response to uncertainty reduction with the “correct” self identified via the “sentiment of rationality.” Selves presently identified as correct are considered to be “instruments of action” that facilitate the interaction between an individual and the environment. Selected selves can then be developed to one’s best advantage and presented in an optimal fashion. This model helps organize contemporary frameworks around a common theme and embraces affect as a central component in the development of the self. A previous version of this paper was presented at the 98th annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA.     

Everyday memory performance across the life span: effects of age and noncognitive individual differences.

Gerontologists have long been concerned with the impact of individual-difference factors on memory. This study used a large sample (N = 2,495) of adult volunteers aged 18 to 90 years to determine if a set of individual-difference variables--vocabulary, education, depression, gender, marital status, and employment status--mediates the effects of aging on a wide range of laboratory-analogue tests of everyday memory. The data indicated that age was consistently the most significant predictor of memory performance, followed by vocabulary and gender. Vocabulary totally mediated age effects on a prose memory measure, and partial mediation of aging effects--primarily by vocabulary and gender--was observed on 5 other memory tests. These data suggest that when health samples of volunteers serve as research subjects, these individual differences can affect some memory test scores, but age remains the best overall predictor of memory performance.     

Adult age differences in the rate of learning serial patterns: evidence from direct and indirect tests.

Subjects performed a serial reaction time task (adopted from Nissen & Bullemer, 1987) that contained a repeating pattern of spatial locations. In Experiment 1, following 20 repetitions of a 10- or 16-element pattern, reaction time was equally disrupted for both younger and older people when the sequence became random. In Experiment 2, the response times for subjects encountering the 10-element pattern were compared with those of subjects encountering a random sequence. These response time functions diverged at the same point in training for the 2 age groups. Thus, on this indirect measure of response time facilitation, both experiments revealed age similarity in the rate of pattern learning. In contrast, on a subsequent direct test of pattern learning that required prediction, the younger people earned a higher percentage correct score than the older in both experiments. Age-related dissociations between direct and indirect measures of learning and comparisons with memory-impaired populations are discussed.     

Adult age differences in short-term memory and subsequent long-term memory for actions.

Short-term memory for actions was investigated for young adult and elderly adult subjects with the Brown-Peterson procedure at retention intervals of 0 and 15 s. The short-term memory trials were followed by the long-term recall of the prior to-be-remembered actions. The 15-s retention interval was filled either with no activity or with 1 of 3 different interfering activities. Verbal interference had little effect on short-term memory at either age level. Actions performed in the interval either by the subjects or by the experimenter produced significantly lower recall scores at each age level, with the decrement being more pronounced for the elderly than for the young subjects. The long-term memory results indicated that successful short-term recall enhanced later long-term recall, regardless of age level.     

Dimensions of affective experience in three age groups.

The dimensions by which adults of differing ages experience emotion were studied by self-administering questionnaires administered to older adults (n = 828) recruited from Elderhostel programs, middle-aged (ages 30-59) children of Elderhostel attenders (n = 231), and young adult (ages 18-29) subjects recruited from college classes or through Elderhostel participants (n = 207). Elders were higher in emotional control, mood stability, and emotional maturity through moderation and leveling of positive affect and lower in surgency, psychophysiological responsiveness, and sensation seeking. These findings are consistent with the hypothesized increase in self-regulatory capacity with age. These cross-sectional differences cannot, however, be distinguished from cohort-related explanations; they require considerable replication across different types of subjects and further characterization of the dimensions in terms of their functions for self-regulation.     

The relationship between attitude,assertiveness and condom use

The Australian study investigated condom-specific assertiveness and condom use as a means of prevention infection from sexually transmitted diseases. 211 men participated including 83 homosexual men (aged 19-62 years) and 128 heterosexual men (aged 17-49) who completed a questionnaire that comprised demographic details such as age, monogamy, and sexual activity as well as attitudinal and assertiveness measures. General assertiveness was measured by the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS) which had been widely used across a wide range of social situations. Assertiveness relating specifically to situations involving condoms was measured by the Condom Assertiveness Scale (CAS). Intention to use condoms was positively related to favorable attitudes, which were related to condom-specific assertiveness for both groups. For the heterosexual men only, general social assertiveness was negatively related to attitudes toward condoms. For both groups, the condom-specific measure of assertiveness was positively correlated with attitudes toward condoms. Condom-specific assertiveness was positively related to general social assertiveness as measured by the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule for the homosexual, but not for the heterosexual men. The negative relationship between general assertiveness and attitude to condoms among the heterosexual men implies that the risk reducing behavior of condom use did not seem to accord with the perceptions of masculinity and social assertiveness among heterosexual men. Thus, female partners of such heterosexual men exhibiting negative attitudes toward condom use combined with assertiveness would have to overcome resistance to insist on the use of condoms. Recently some advertising campaigns have been directed at women. The promotion of condom use among heterosexual men has to deal with the perceptions of condom use as unmasculine behavior.