Dermatozoon delusion in hypoparathyroidism--reflections on the genesis of delusions

Firstly two female patients with hypoparathyroidism and basal ganglia calcifications are described who developed after long course of illness delusions of parasitosis. The pathological cerebral changes responsible for delusions of parasitosis are mostly localized in the brain-stem. Regarding the two case histories and the former literature the relationship between peripheral paresthesias and a supposed disturbance of central processing is discussed.     

Results of modifying the standard program of insight and relaxation psychotherapy

The inventory of methods used in insight and relaxation psychotherapy were taken as a basis for elaborating three additional psychotherapy programmes with the aim of better satisfying the needs of groups with different indications in respect of outpatient psychotherapy. The results obtained with these programmes were tested statistically, using groups of appropriate control subjects, by means of the pre- and post-test data of the MMPI, PAULI, d2 and a five-point self-estimation scale. The trend shown by the results achieved so far confirms that this differentiated therapeutic approach is correct. Further tests with large samples are necessary.     

Theory-practice contradiction in therapy-relevant psychodiagnosis

In the contribution the recent situation of the therapy-important psychodiagnostic is discribed as characterized through a contradiction. On one hand there's an substantial pressure for an effective treatment, on the other hand we have only a few well developed theoretical models and practical instruments. Three empirical questions in the experience of conflicts are investigated: First the rather few percentage of conscious conflicts as consequence of the substantial unconsciousness from central motives; second the still relative abstract definition of needs, and third problems in diagnostic of the so called personality strukture'. The article is closed with a discussion of some new possibilities of a action-related diagnostic of conflicts and motives.     

The role of the face in human emotion: first system or one of many?

Evidence relating to the hypothesis on facial feedback which ties the experience of discrete emotions to feedback from innately patterned facial expressions is discussed. Strong evidence is deduced for a more general form of the hypothesis, but the requirements of necessity and sufficiency representing the strictest form are only satisfied within narrow limits of experimental manipulations which are not common to all investigations. Evidence is deemed to support a relationship between facial expression and emotion, but facial expression is regarded as one of many systems and cannot be assigned an exclusive role (either as first system or as necessary system).     

Auditory-successive selective attention for learning disabled and normal boys

Improvement in auditory-successive selective attention was noted across the age range of 9 through 16 yr. In contrast to comparable paradigms with visual-simultaneous materials, 30 learning disabled and 30 normal boys did not differ. Results of research on selective attention may be affected by task materials and encoding requirements.     

Psychometric studies on the specificity of psychological performance disorders of epileptic patients

Using a psychological test battery for registration of psychic/psychomotoric speed and flexibility/perseveration we examined 78 epileptic patients with different forms of epilepsy and the same number of brain healthy control persons, parallelised in sex, age, education, profession and intelligence. The registrated data were varianz-, correlation- and factoranalised. We found a deceleration of psychic/psychomotoric speed as a primary basic disorder in epileptics. Decreases of flexibility independent of speed were not ascertainable.     

The effect of cuing after backward conditioning trials

Rats were given backward pairings of a tone (CS) and shock (US) and were then tested for response to the CS in a lick suppression test. Animals given a cuing or reminder treatment prior to the test exhibited enhanced suppression in the presence of the tone relative to a variety of control conditions. The cue-induced suppression enhancement did not appear to result from sensitization or short-term motivational changes nor did it seem to depend on second-order conditioning of the test context. The effect appeared more robust as the number of backward conditioning trials preceding the cue increased. The results were discussed in terms of current explanations of backward conditioning effects.