Organizational size and perceptions in a residential treatment program

Centralization of a residential mental health treatment program from three small houses to one large facility provided a naturally occurring opportunity to study the effect of organizational size on the perceptions held by clients and staff. Quantitative data were repeatedly collected on their perceptions of themselves, the organization as a whole, and subgroups within the organization during their involvement in both the small and large social contexts. Results of repeated measures analyses of variance provided considerable support for the theoretically derived hypotheses of heightened anxiety, self-impoverishment, more negative views of the psychosocial environment, and greater psychological distance in the large organizational context.     

Increased Stability of Self-Concept in Students Served by a College Counseling Center

Subjects were 18 undergraduates who were clients of a college counseling service and 25 controls matched for age, IQ, and honesty of self-report. Hypotheses tested were: (a) that at the beginning of treatment experimental clients (group E) would show more variability of self-concept on a test-retest questionnaire (with a week intervening between testing) than would controls (group C); and (b) that eight weeks after the second testing group E would show significantly increased stability on test-retest with an alternate form questionnaire while group C would not show similar changes. Both hypotheses were confirmed beyond the .05 level of confidence. Increased stability of self-concept should follow psychotherapy because of increased self-understanding and abandonment of unrealistic self-referrent ideas. Results were interpreted as supporting Rogers' concept of essential changes in psychotherapy and offering a promising method for assessing effects of therapy. Suggestions for further research are made.     

Ego psychology of depression with implications for treatment

Summary Concepts suggested by autonomous ego theory and a phenomenological approach to emotions make it possible to think again about depression and its treatment in order better to explain clinical observations.Depression appears to be a secondary emotion, not primary, made up of the following ingredients: 1) one or more primary emotions—anxiety, anger, guilt, and grief particularly, as well as self-pity, loneliness, alienation, apathy, and despair—precipitated in 2) an ego inadequate in channeling emotions constructively, 3) the associated phenomenological tendencies inherent within the emotions, and 4) the sense of helplessness that ensues. Thus the treatment required would consist of a systematic, somewhat detached, cognitive approach to the problems the emotions are indicating, and what should be done to resolve them. These problems include those precipitated by the workings of the emotions as things-in-themselves. The treatment is oriented toward enhancing the patient's understanding of the disorder and his coping ability to the end that the patient is not weakened even as he is relieved.Director of Community Services of the Cleveland State Hospital, has been a frequent contributor to journals of psychiatry and pastoral care. He was recently president of the Cleveland branch of the Academy.     

Is alcoholism a disease?

Commentators have repeatedly attacked the traditional view that alcoholism is a disease. Their arguments that alcoholism is a central aspect of life, a deviant life style, or a form of learned behavior are examined in the light of the history and philosophy of medicine as well as current bio-behavioral research. Our conclusion is that alcoholism, as a lawful pattern of observable signs and symptoms that deviate significantly from a norm of health, is a bio-psychosocial disease.     

The politics of physiological psychology Ivan Pavlov’s suppressed defense of scientific freedom and its consequences

This statement, first presented at a plenary session of the Pavlovian Society on 9 October 1992, in Los Angeles, California, attempts to assess the recently released speech delivered by Ivan Pavlov in 1923, but publicly brought to light only in 1991, on the subject of “Communist Dogmatism and the Autonomy of Science.” This speech, noteworthy for the courage of the delivery under adverse circumstances no less than the contents of its remarks, compels a new estimate of the place of science in a totalitarian system boasting an ideology of physiological psychology. It also sheds new light on the Russian Nobel laureate and pioneer in the areas of behavior modification induced by the functions of the higher nervous system. These remarks take an in-depth view of American radical and Marxian appraisals — how they followed the Soviet lead in harnessing Pavlov to the Communist cause, and in attempting to discredit the work of Sigmund Freud. This lethal combination of Communist political needs and ideological proclivities served to rationalize the implementation of slave labor as work therapy during the Stalinist era. The linkage of Pavlov to Makarenko in education and Michurin in biology serves as a case study in the manufacture of tradition. The collapse of the Soviet system permits a recasting of the history of science and Pavlov’s place in Russian life. Such new conditions also provide a lesson in the distortive role of ideology in the evolution of modern science.     

Personal growth and personal development: Concepts clarified

A distinction can be drawn between personal development and personal growth. Despite their similarities, linguistic analysis shows the two concepts to convey different ideas. Personal development is a process concerned with specific aspects of the individual: the development of 'what', and the ways this can be planned, achieved and evaluated. Personal growth, on the other hand, is a more generic process having to do with the totality of the individual; it is always judged in terms of values. This difference is vital in counsellor training, where the emphasis should necessarily be on those aspects of personal development that are relevant to specific training objectives and client needs, rather than on personal growth per se.