Computing stress

This article is based on a review of recent literature on “computing stress”; that is, on the psychological stress effects of working with computer systems. Current research into the sources of computer-related stress has tended to concentrate on those employees who operate Visual Display Units (VDUs), either on a full-time professional basis as word-processor (WP) operators, data-entry clerks, secretaries, or those dealing with enquiries from the public; or employees who use the VDU irregularly as part of their other duties. A few studies have looked at specific occupation groups, such as printers (Kalimo & Leppänen, 1985), information technology professionals (programers and analysts), process workers, and college students (Sproull, Kiesler, & Zubrow, 1984). Generally, however, research has been carried out on office workers, more often women, carrying out administrative tasks. An attempt is made to identify those potential work-related stressors that have been isolated by these studies, and also included are criticisms of the general methodologies used in many of them.     

Automatic monitoring of temperature and/or location: A computer-controlled radiotelemetry system

A radiotelemetry system for continuous monitoring of the temperature and/or location of small animals is described. All the functions of system control are carried out by an on-line microcomputer (TRS-80 Model III), resulting in a versatile system capable of alternating recording the temperature/location of multiple subjects with other behavioral or physiological events, such as activity level. We describe the use of this system in monitoring body temperature in hamsters and in recording the incubation pattern of breeding ring doves.     

The Ramsay Family in Virginia Woolf''s To the Lighthouse: A Study of Arrest at Stage Three of Family Development as Delineated in Solomon''s "A Developmental, Conceptual Premise for Family Therapy"

The five stages of family development and their phase-specific tasks as delineated by Michael A. Solomon in an article that appeared in this journal (1973) are given dramatic representation by Virginia Woolf in her novel To the Lighthouse (1927). The novel begins with the Ramsay family system arrested at the third stage of development; and it is only after the death of Mrs. Ramsay that the remaining family members begin to attend to the phase-specific tasks of stages four and five, and family development commences.     

Family Secrets:

Family secrets are examined in a two-part article. Part I explores the dynamics of secrets in the relational context. Terminology is proposed for different types of family secrets as well as for different roles within the relational context. Guidelines for identifying family secrets are presented, and typical patterns accompanying or underlying secrets are explored. Different stances toward secrets are discussed, with particular emphasis on ethical issues. Finally, individual and relational consequences of secrets are proposed. Part II extends this discussion to the management of family secrets in marital and family therapy. Ethical and strategic dilemmas facing the therapist are examined as are consequences of secrets in treatment. A particular therapeutic stance is recommended and illustrated with examples of both reparative and preventive applications.     

A Single Intervention: A Visit to the Family

The following letter is reported unchanged except for disguised names. Concern with repairing disrupted relationships of adult members of a family with their own parents has been a matter of growing interest to a number of family therapists; Bowen (1), Boszormenyi-Nagy (2), and Framo (3), among others have stressed the importance of sending family members back to their families of origin. This report makes no effort to formulate the process in any particular theoretical framework (i.e., as reestablishing connectedness after an “emotional cut-off” or rebalancing a ledger of fairness, or whatever) but is intended only to illustrate the kind of outcome one may hope for in prescribing such a maneuver. It is offered simply as a clinical note. The letter needs little prefatory explication. Mr. Jack Newburgher had been a patient in psychoanalytic treatment for four years, with a quite successful outcome. On two occasions in the course of his therapy a joint session had been held with Mr. Newburgher and his wife, Muriel, when changes in his behavior had precipitated crises in the marital relationship. His therapy had terminated about two years before the visit referred to in the letter. Mr. Newburgher had called and asked for a joint consultation with Muriel about an acute family problem they were experiencing. Some — not all — of the background material was described, not nearly as coherently as it is reported in Muriel's letter, but in sufficient detail to make it plain that she was in distress about having to withdraw completely from her parents and that their family was in disarray as a consequence of her distress. The acuteness of the emotional disturbance, against a background of a lifelong adversary relationship between Muriel and her father and a history of ten years of illness on her fathers' part, suggested that the distress was the product of Muriel's anxiety and guilt over a decision to cut herself off completely from her parents. As a consequence, Muriel was urged to visit her family of origin, with the caveat that she might indeed discover them to be malignantly self-centered people indifferent to their effect on her and her family, but that she would at least have the gratification of having tried. The reference to “speaking French” was to the therapist having suggested that, on the other hand, she might find that her parents expressed their feelings in a different modality from her definitions of how feelings should be expressed, much as though their native tongue were French and she were insisting that they must speak to her in English.