Contemporary theories of group psychotherapy: a systems approach to the group-as-a-whole.

The author discusses how subgroups represent the basic focus of the systems-centered group therapist. Particular attention is given to boundary issues and to how therapy takes place by facilitating the process of discriminating, communicating, and integrating perception of differences in the apparently similar and similarities in the seemingly different. Communication occurs at the boundaries between systems at all levels of the hierarchy: the group, the subgroup, and its members. Clinical vignettes are provided to illustrate important process issues, such as work with difficult patients, levels of intervention, and group resistance and defense.     

Self-criticism in adulthood and recalled childhood experience.

We investigated in a sample of 75 medical students the hypothesis that higher levels of self-criticism, a major vulnerability factor for depression, are related to retrospective reports of less satisfactory parenting, even when the potentially confounding factors of mood state and social desirability response set are controlled. At each of 2 measurement times, there were significant cross-sectional correlations between parental ratings and both depression and self-criticism, but the associations with self-criticism were no longer significant when depression was controlled. However, even after controlling for the effects of mood state and social desirability, persons with high levels of self-criticism at both measurement points (high trait self-criticism subjects) reported significantly worse relationships with their mothers than did the remaining subjects. They were also more likely to report below average relationships with both parents jointly.     

Confirming the latent structure and base rate of schizotypy: a taxometric analysis.

Meehl's (1962, 1990) model of schizotypy and the development of schizophrenia implies that the structure of liability for schizophrenia is dichotomous and that a "schizogene" determines membership in a latent class, or taxon (Meehl & Golden, 1982). The authors sought to determine the latent structure and base rate of schizotypy. They applied Meehl's (1973; Meehl & Golden, 1982) MAXCOV-HITMAX taxometric analytic procedures to a subset of items from the Perceptual Aberration Scale (PAS; Chapman, Chapman, & Raulin, 1978), a prominent psychometric index of schizotypy, derived from a randomly ascertained nonclinical university sample (N = 1,093). The results, in accordance with Meehl's conjectures, strongly suggest that schizotypy, as assessed by the PAS, is taxonic at the latent level with a general population taxon base rate of approximately .10.     

Forms of memory failure in schizophrenia.

Effortful and automatic memory task performances were examined in 36 schizophrenic patients and 18 normal control Ss. Tasks included free recall, recognition, and frequency estimation. Patients demonstrated impairment in recall, in recognition, in semantic encoding, and in frequency estimation. Deficits were observed across tasks despite differences in attentional demands. The results suggest a basic compromise of memory function, which is consistent with recent neuroimaging evidence of structural or physiological abnormalities in frontal and temporal lobe structures in schizophrenia.     

Predictors and consequences of childhood depressive symptoms: a 5-year longitudinal study.

A 5-year longitudinal study investigated the interrelationships among children's experiences of depressive symptoms, negative life events, explanatory style, and helplessness behaviors in social and achievement situations. The results revealed that early in childhood, negative events, but not explanatory style, predicted depressive symptoms; later in childhood, a pessimistic explanatory style emerged as a significant predictor of depressive symptoms, alone and in conjunction with negative events. When children suffered periods of depression, their explanatory styles not only deteriorated but remained pessimistic even after their depression subsided, presumably putting them at risk for future episodes of depression. Some children seem repeatedly prone to depressive symptoms over periods of at least 2 years. Depressed children consistently showed helpless behaviors in social and achievement settings.     

Longitudinal relationships among pain, sleep problems, and depression in rheumatoid arthritis.

This research evaluated the relationship between pain and sleep problems, and the role of pain and sleep problems in depression, in a sample of 242 patients who had been diagnosed with definite or classical rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Patients completed the Pain scale of the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and self-reports of sleep disturbance at two data waves over a 2-year interval. Cross-sectional multiple regression analysis revealed that the sleep problems variable was independently associated with depression at Time 1. Longitudinal multiple regression analyses demonstrated that prior pain predicted subsequent adverse changes in sleep problems, whereas sleep problems did not affect pain over time, and prior pain and the interaction of high pain and high sleep problems were independently associated with depression from Time 1 to Time 2. These data suggest that pain may exacerbate sleeping difficulty in RA patients, and that both factors may contribute to depression over time.     

From front line to home front: a study of secondary traumatization.

While the long-term effects of combat trauma on veterans have been studied extensively, its impact on veterans' wives has yet to be investigated. This study examined the implications of combat-induced psychopathology--wartime combat stress reaction (CSR) and current posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--in a sample of 205 wives of Israeli combat veterans of the 1982 Lebanon war. Results show that both CSR and PTSD were associated with increased psychiatric symptoms in the wives. In addition, current PTSD was particularly found to contribute to impaired social relations among veterans' wives in a broad range of contexts, from inner feelings of loneliness, through impaired marital and family relations, and extending to the wider social network. Implications of these findings for treatment and further research are discussed.     

Illness, Family Theory, and Family Therapy: I.Conceptual Issues

This article examines and clarifies controversies about the concept of illness in the field of family therapy. We contend that illness, as traditionally understood in all cultures, is a relational, transactional concept that is highly congruent with core principles of present-day family theories. Family therapists need not buy into a biotechnical, reductionistic reframing of illness as disease. Rather, it is more appropriate to conceptualize and work with illness as a narrative placed in a biopsychosocial context. Such a narrative includes how shared responsibility for coping and for finding solutions can take place, without becoming involved in disputes about causal models.