Facilitating autonomy in passive-dependent persons: An integrative model

Passive and dependent qualities are commonly found in psychiatric patients suffering from a variety of disorders. While such tendencies are often secondary to an Axis I clinical syndrome, they are occasionally more persistent and refractory. The present article attempts to provide therapeutic guidelines useful when working with clients displaying stable personality traits of passivity and dependency. An attempt is made to adapt and combine several therapeutic techniques to be applicable to passive-dependent clients. More specifically, problem-solving approaches and self-control strategies can be used to facilitate autonomy if precautions are taken to reduce the dogmatic and didactic styles commonly employed with these techniques. The Socratic method of interviewing is posited as a useful means of developing problem-solving skills without creating unnecessary dependence on the therapist. Self-control strategies can help reduce the reliance on others as the primary source of satisfaction for dependent clients. In this way, passive-dependent clients may become more self- reliant and autonomous in their daily functioning.The author would like to thank Patti Watson, Katie Brooks, and Estyn Williams for comments made on an earlier draft of this article.     

Discovery as correction

In recent years, there have been some attempts to defend the legitimacy of a non-inductive generative logic of discovery whose strategy is to analyze a variety of constraints on the actual generation of explanatory hypotheses. These proposed new theories, however, are only weakly generative (relying on sophisticated processes of elimination) rather than strongly generative (embodying processes of correction).This paper develops a strongly generative theory which holds that we can come to know something new only as a variant of what we already know — and that the novelty of this variant is not thereby eliminated nor beyond our powers of characterization, a double requirement that is vital for resolving the Meno paradox. In this light, the discovery of a new hypothesis is taken as the correction of an antecedent hypothesis in response to the discrepancies between the predictions generated by that antecedent hypothesis and the desired result (e.g. the actual data to be explained). This process comprises two parallel operations: the first, which demonstrates the positive role of the facts in generating new explanations, involves a mapping between multiple hypotheses and sets of predictions generated from those hypotheses, for the purpose of taking the actual data as a determinable variant of neighboring sets of predictions. This mapping permits the facts to indicate how corrective adjustments in the working hypothesis should be made; the second operation, which demonstrates the positive role of explanations in generating new facts, involves a mapping between differently construed versions of the actual data and the conceptualizations derived from those perceptual versions, for the purpose of taking the working hypothesis as a determinable variant of these neighboring conceptualizations. This mapping permits a given hypothesis to generate predictions increasingly closer to the actual facts.The proposed theory provides the basis for a reformed conception of justification. Because hypotheses are meaningful only as variants of neighboring hypotheses, and because such variation is corrective, their justification in the reformed sense will incorporate not only their justification in the traditional sense, but their generation as well.     

Risk factors and the Child Behavior Checklist in a child mental health center setting

The relationship between risk factors and the severity and type of childhood disorder, as measured by parent-completed Child Behavior Checklists, was examined for 768 children, ages 4–16, seen at a child mental health center. Regression analyses revealed no significant relationships between any combination of risk factors and the total number of behavior problems, internalizing, or externalizing scores for the entire group, males and females separately, or for the age and sex groupings of 6- to 11- and 12-to 16-yearolds. Chi-square tests revealed no relationship of profile type with any risk factor or with total number of risk factors. Implications for broad-based child assessment and risk factor research within a clinical population are discussed.We wish to thank Orin Bolstad, Linda Magnuson, and Julian Taplin for their assistance in this project.     

Accelerated development of cardiac sympathetic responses in spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) rats

The functional development of cardiac and adrenal medullary responses to reflex activation of the sympathetic nervous system was studied in preweanling spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) and Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) normotensive rats. Pups of the two strains received injections of insulin or saline at 2, 4, 8, 12, or 16 days of age and were sacrificed 3 h later. Insulin administration produces a significant decrease in circulating levels of glucose which in turn results in a centrally mediated increase in sympathetic outflow. The induction of ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) in heart and the depletion of epinephrine from the adrenal medulla served as tissue markers of functional sympathetic neurotransmission. WKY and SHR pups had comparable levels of ODC activity in heart under basal conditions. In contrast, levels of catecholamines in the adrenals were greater in SHR pups at 2 and 4 days of age. Following insulin administration, SHR pups exhibited a greater induction of cardiac ODC activity at 2, 4, and 8 days of age compared to age-matched WKY controls. However, there were no differences between SHR and WKY pups in the magnitude of the adrenal medullary response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia. These alterations in sympathetic-target tissue development during the first postnatal week of life may contribute in part to the higher arterial pressures maintained by SHRs throughout the lifespan.     

Sexual experience and preference for males or females in the female rat

The influence of sexual experience on preference behavior was investigated in adult female rats. In the first experiment, preference behavior for sexually active males versus estrous females was investigated in female rats who were experienced with mounting behavior. Preference of these mount experienced females was compared to preference of females who were naive in this respect. Mount experience with estrous females induced a female-directed preference in ovariectomized female rats, irrespective of whether the females were treated with OIL or with testosterone-propionate (500 micrograms TP, injected once 48 h prior to testing). Sexually naive, OIL-treated females did not show a preference for males or females, but TP induced a preference for a male. Individual differences in mount frequency were not correlated with preference behavior. In the second experiment, the influence of experience with feminine sexual responses on preference behavior was investigated. OIL-treated and TP-treated females oriented equally toward males and females when they had been given the opportunity to copulate with males prior to the preference tests. The results strongly suggest that prior sexual experience is an important determinant of preference behavior. The female's behavior during sexual interactions was, however, not predictive of later preference.     

Time went by so slowly: Overestimation of event duration by males and females

In three experiments, 469 subjects watched a short videotape of a bank robbery and later estimated the duration of the tape. Subjects invariably overestimated the durations. Accuracy of time estimation was unrelated to amount of free recall (Experiment 1) or accuracy of memory (Experiment 2). Females overestimated to a greater degree than males (Experiments 2 and 3). A more stressful version of the event produced greater overestimates than a less stressful version (Experiment 3). The relationship between induced arousal and time estimation appears to be different for men and women.     

A brief neuropsychological screening battery to detect brain damage in a psychiatric population

Seventy-five patients admitted to the psychiatric unit of a general hospital were administered a brief neuropsychological screening battery. Discharge diagnoses obtained from the medical records revealed that 20% had brainbased pathology. A discriminant function analysis resulted in a five-variable model (Symbol-Digit Modalities Test, educational level, Psychiatric-Organic subscale of the MMPI, and Shipley Vocabulary and Abstraction scores) which correctly classified 84% of the subjects, with 87% correct identification of the brain-damaged group. A jackknife cross-validation procedure resulted in comparable hit rates.     

Counseling in Malaysia: An Emerging Profession

The emergence of counseling in Malaysia illustrates the importance of a strong professional association and counseling training programs at the university level.