A Constructive Formulation of Gleason's Theorem

In this paper I wish to show that we can give a statement of a restricted form of Gleason's Theorem that is classically equivalent to the standard formulation, but that avoids the counterexample that Hellman gives in Gleason's Theorem is not Constructively Provable.     

Gender,politics, and the theoretical virtues

Traits like simplicity and explanatory power have traditionally been treated as values internal to the sciences, constitutive rather than contextual. As such they are cognitive virtues. This essay contrasts a traditional set of such virtues with a set of alternative virtues drawn from feminist writings about the sciences. In certain theoretical contexts, the only reasons for preferring a traditional or an alternative virtue are socio-political. This undermines the notion that the traditional virtues can be considered purely cognitive.I am grateful to participants in the Indiana University Workshop on Social Values in the Context of Justification for their comments on an earlier, spoken, version of this paper.     

The self-narrative and acute psychosis

The aim of this study was to apply the narrative approach in analyzing family therapy meetings in cases of acute psychosis. The self-narrative is essential in acute psychosis since it is either collapsed or not coherent enough. The results indicate that it is important to create concrete practices that produce stories concerning the patient in relation to others. The self-narrative must be re-authored by the patient even though it is socially constructed. This is achieved by creating multiple perspectives of self-narratives in so-called therapy meetings with the patient, family members, and staff members representing different professionals.     

Vasopressin, glucose homeostasis, and sucrose taste preferences

Previous research indicates that vasopressin-containing (LE) rats are capable of adapting to the stress of food restriction, whereas vasopressin-deficient (DI) rats cannot adapt to this stressor. It has been postulated that abnormalities in glucose metabolism may be one of the factors leading to the demise of food-restricted DI rats. The present study was conducted to determine if taste preferences are altered in DI animals and if the presentation of exogenous glucose, in the form of sucrose solutions, can ameliorate the effects of the stress of food restriction. Four different concentrations of sucrose solutions were presented to LE and DI rats under the food-restricted condition. In both strains, an 8% sucrose solution was preferred over 0%, 16%, and 32% concentrations, with DI rats consuming more of this concentration than LE rats. Thus, when DI rats had the opportunity of maintaining glucose homeostasis by exogenous supplements, they maintained body weight, displayed no stomach pathology, and survived.     

Involving the family in the evaluation and treatment of the child patient: A psychodynamic approach

The purpose of this article is to provide psychotherapists with a tool for family evaluation using the basic principles of psychodynamic work; and to introduce a transitional format for therapists who have practiced family evaluations in their training institutions and now need to adapt this model to the private practitioner's office. A case example illustrates: (1) Use of the therapist's unconscious for diagnosis of the child and its family, (2) joining the family's intersubjective space, and (3) use of play and therapist's neutrality as ways that the psychodynamically oriented clinician involves the family in the evaluation and treatment of the child.     

Stress and family support as predictors of distress and rejection in people who care for a relative with schizophrenia

Relatives (N=121) of adult schizophrenia patients were interviewed to investigate predictors of their level of psychological distress and of rejecting attitudes toward the sufferer. The relatives' total stress, particularly that associated with poor communication skills in the sufferer, predicted several measures of their psychological distress, and the same variables plus turbulence of sufferer behavior (i.e., violence and disruptiveness) predicted rejection of the sufferer by the relative. In each case, adequacy of family support moderated the influence of the stressors, although this effect was more marked for distress outcomes than for rejection. The results have important implications for the sorts of professional and peer support which relatives may need to encourage their performance of this potentially burdensome role. In addition, the results fit a classic stress management model and provide a feasible alternative to the Expressed Emotion Model of the relationship between relatives' rejection and patients' illness severity.     

Gender,psychological well-being and somatic cardiovascular risk factors

The purpose of this study is to determine associations between cardiovascular risk factors and subjective experience of psychological general well-being with special reference to gender-related differences. One hundred fifty white-collar workers in a car manufacturing plant in Sweden participated in a health care screening program. Subjective experience of psychological well-being was significantly correlated with cardiovascular risk factors among both men and women. There were, however, marked differences between the genders. For men, the following specific psychological variables were significantly correlated with cardiovascular risk factors: estimation of general health, anxiety, self-control and vitality. For women, more complex significant relationships between the two sets of variables were found. Moreover, the direction of the correlations differed between the genders. For example, men with cardiovascular risk factors, such as increased blood pressure, blood lipids and body mass index, reported significantly morepositive estimation of their general health. For women the relation was the opposite with a significantly positive correlation (p-0.004) between experience of good health and a low risk factor profile indicating the concordance between physiological and psychological parameters. Possible reasons for these sex differences are discussed.     

Social-Cognitive and Behavioral Correlates of Aggression and Victimization in Boys' Play Groups

A contrived play group procedure was utilized to examine the behavioral and social-cognitive correlates of reactive aggression, proactive aggression, and victimization via peers. Eleven play groups, each of which consisted of six familiar African-American 8-year-old boys, met for 45-min sessions on five consecutive days. Social-cognitive interviews were conducted following the second and fourth sessions. Play group interactions were videotaped and examined by trained observers. High rates of proactive aggression were associated with positive outcome expectancies for aggression/assertion, frequent displays of assertive social behavior, and low rates of submissive behavior. Reactive aggression was associated with hostile attributional tendencies and frequent victimization by peers. Victimization was associated with submissive behavior, hostile attributional bias, reactive aggression, and negative outcome expectations for aggression/assertion. These results demonstrate that there is a theoretically coherent and empirically distinct set of correlates associated with each of the examined aggression subtypes, and with victimization by peers.     

An Evaluation of the Health Belief Model for Predicting Perceived and Actual Dietary Quality1

The health belief model was evaluated for its ability to predict perceived and actual dietary quality. The assessment relied upon data collected from 1,502 respondents by the US. Department of Agriculture in its 1991 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals and the Diet and Health Knowledge Survey. The health belief model provided good prediction of perceived dietary quality, but provided moderate to weak prediction of 7 measures of actual dietary quality that were calculated from food intake records. Implications are suggested for using the health belief model to understand the determinants of dietary quality.     

Requiem for “schizophrenia”

In this article a brief overview of the treatment of chronic psychosis for the last two centuries is covered, with particular emphasis on many scientifically demonstrated causes of chronic organic psychosis and their medically successful treatment, including recent neurotransmitter manipulations. With respect for the important contributions of Bleuler, the term “schizophrenic” is considered as an unscientific and unprovable nosological construct, which has hampered the successful resolution of chronic psychosis and has outlived its usefulness in the lexicon of modern psychiatry.