The chaplain as therapist

Summary In this presentation I have explored the dynamics that go on in therapy, showing how similar dynamics occur in pastoral relationships primarily in terms of the transference and countertransference phenomena. I have also called attention to issues or areas of concern that arise in therapy, equating them with issues with which theology has historically dealt, i.e., the relation of the natural to the supernatural, the problem of authority, the place of values in life, and the importance of individual responsibility. Finally, I have noted the importance of the chaplain's utilizing of psychodynamics in his ministry and specifically those areas where he should become informed and skilled, i.e., in the area of personality development as a way of understanding himself and in the factors that promote change and growth in another person. I have briefly noted the value of psychodynamics at the time of grief or loss.I hope that the focus upon the theme the chaplain as therapist will stimulate us to look at our ministry again. For those to whom this subject is new, may there be an interest in exploring it as an enriching dimension of ministry. For those who are already familiar with the impact that psychotherapy can have upon their ministry, may there be further experimentation at greater depth and broader latitude of some of the areas suggested in this treatment of the topic.This paper was presented at a joint session of the Protestant and Roman Catholic Chaplains at the 41st annual convention of the Association of Western Hospitals, Las Vegas, Nevada, April 20, 1971.     

Attenuated hypothesis or attenuated test of hypothesis?

After discussing several of the criticisms made by Professor Jensen, it is concluded that the Spearman hypothesis, as currently worded, has been disconfirmed. The near-zero correlation between blacks and low socio-economic status (SES) whites is not an artifact of the methodology. Neither is it a sampling fluke. The logic of sampling error does not apply to the arbitrary selection of intercorrelated tests from an undefined population. It is important also that low and high SES white differences are highly correlate with general factor loadings in a very heterogeneous selection of tests. Research attention should be turned to the difference in outcome of the race and SES comparisons.     

Frequency judgment accuracy as a function of age and school achievement (learning disabled versus non-learning-disabled) patterns

The accuracy of children's judgments of relative situational frequency was examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1 children with normal achievement in Grades 2 and 3 were compared with such children in Grades K and 5, as well as with three groups of low-achieving children in Grades 2 and 3. These latter groups consisted of children low in reading achievement, those low in math achievement, and those identified as learning disabled. Frequency judgment accuracy increased from kindergarten to Grades 2 and 3. No other comparisons yielded significant differences. Experiment 2 confirmed both the above age difference and the absence of any frequency judgment deficiency on the part of the low-achieving groups.     

Arousal and recognition memory: The effects of impulsivity,caffeine and time on task

Systematic changes in performance on memory tasks have been observed as a function of the number of prior items or lists learned. In an attempt to determine whether this was an ‘attentional’ phenomenon the effect of arousal (as indexed by Impulsivity and manipulated by caffeine) on memory performance was examined. One hundred college students were given either 4 mg of caffeine/kg body weight or a placebo and then shown four lists (two 24-item and two 80-item) of four letter words. A forced-choice recognition test for the last 20 items was given immediately after each list. The performance of the high impulsives who were given a placebo (least aroused subjects) declined as a function of the number of prior lists learned. Low impulsives (more aroused) showed significantly less decline. Caffeine significantly improved recognition memory especially on the final lists. Decrements in memory performance, as a function of number of prior litsts, are thus reduced by the same variables which reduce vigilance decrements. It is suggested that common explanations will be required.     

Internal spatial relationships in young children's drawings

Attempts to represent the occlusion of a farther object by a nearer one are infrequent in the drawings of 5- and 6-year-olds. Instead they typically draw the objects side by side or one above the other. This does not appear to reflect a limitation of skill (P. Light & E. MacIntosh, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1980, 30, 79–87) and it is hypothesized that it reflects the children's concern with the array of objects per se, as opposed to their own particular view of it. In the present study relatively complex objects were used in order to test the hypothesis that young children's drawings do in fact systematically reflect spatial relationships within the array. Ninety-seven children between 5 and 8 years of age drew two arrays, each being drawn four times in different orientations vis à vis the child. As predicted, the younger children's drawings contained much array-specific information but often no indication an all of the child's viewing position. In contrast, the older children's drawings were predominantly view specific, often containing little information about the arrays.     

Flexibility of attention between stimulus dimensions

Three experiments examined the flexibility of attention to the color and location dimensions of visual stimuli. Displays typically consisted of two curved lines, one a target and the other a distractor. Subjects were precued to the location of the target, and they made a speeded response to that item’s direction of curvature. In Experiment 1, a color difference between the stimuli facilitated selective attention to targets. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this effect was not automatic. Although component color differences were necessary for selective attention, they were not sufficient unless they reliably specified the target. Furthermore, when color was informative but the target was in an unexpected color, performance was markedly impaired. A third experiment, using a response-deadline technique, showed that stimulus color was resolved before stimulus location and that attention can be exclusive to the color dimension. The results were interpreted in terms of a model assuming that stimulus color and location are processed independently. Subjects attend to the dimension resolved most quickly which can reliably specify the target.     

Beyond the search surface: visual search and attentional engagement.

Treisman (1991) described a series of visual search studies testing feature integration theory against an alternative (Duncan & Humphreys, 1989) in which feature and conjunction search are basically similar. Here the latter account is noted to have 2 distinct levels: (a) a summary of search findings in terms of stimulus similarities, and (b) a theory of how visual attention is brought to bear on relevant objects. Working at the 1st level, Treisman found that even when similarities were calibrated and controlled, conjunction search was much harder than feature search. The theory, however, can only really be tested at the 2nd level, because the 1st is an approximation. An account of the findings is developed at the 2nd level, based on the 2 processes of input-template matching and spreading suppression. New data show that, when both of these factors are controlled, feature and conjunction search are equally difficult. Possibilities for unification of the alternative views are considered.     

Shape constancy: The effects of changing shape orientation and the effects of changing the position of focal features

Five experiments examined the time taken to judge that two consecutive elongated geometrical shapes had the same structure, irrespective of their orientation. Shape transformations either changed the orientation of the principal axis while maintaining the relative locations of focal features or maintained the orientation of the principal axis while changing the relative locations of focal features, or they changed both. Experiment 1 demonstrated that changes in the orientation of the principal axis were more detrimental to matching than were changes in the locations of the shape’s focal features. Indeed, the time taken to match same-orientation shapes was the same as that taken to match shapes that maintained the same position in the visual field. Further experiments showed that this result was not due to differential apparent motion in the transformation conditions, that it was not due to response bias, and that it generalized across shapes. However, the result was different when subjects could predict the location of the to-be-matched stimulus. In this case, performance was principally affected by the position of the focal feature of the shape and not by the shape’s orientation. It is suggested that the results reflect the efficiency with which subjects can construct matching representations for the stimuli When subjects cannot predict stimulus locations, they generate representations by describing shape structure relative to the shape’s principal axis. When the axis of the to-be-matched shapes is constant, subjects can use the same procedure in generating this representation for both shapes, facilitating matching relative to the case in which the orientation of the axis changes. When subjects can predict the stimulus location, they selectively attend to the focal features of shapes, minimizing the effects of shape orientation.