The ‘mad scientists’: Psychoanalysis,dream and virtual reality2

The author explores the concept of reality‐testing as a means of assessing the relationship with reality that prevails in dream and in virtual reality. Based on a model developed by Jean Laplanche, she compares these activities in detail in order to determine their respective independence from the function of reality‐testing. By carefully examining the concept of hallucination in the writings of Freud and Daniel Dennett, the author seeks to pinpoint the specific modalities of interaction between perceptions, ideas, wishes and actions that converge in the ‘belief’ and in the ‘sense of reality’. The paper's main thesis consists of the distinction that it draws between immediacy‐testing and reality‐testing, with the further argument that this distinction not only dissipates the conceptual vagueness that generally surrounds the latter of the two concepts but also that it promotes a more precise analysis of the function of reality in dream and in virtual reality.     

Harmonious and Obsessive Passion for the Internet: Their Associations With the Couple's Relationship1

Based on a motivational perspective of passion, we investigated the associations between passion for the Internet and level of self‐determined motivation toward the couple's relationship. Our results show that an obsessive passion toward the Internet was associated with lower self‐determination in the couple, greater conflict in the relationship, and low levels of dyadic adjustment. In contrast, harmonious passion toward the Internet was associated with greater self‐determination in the couple, less conflict, and greater dyadic adjustment. Results suggest that use of the Internet is not necessarily associated with negative interpersonal outcomes. Rather, it appears that the way the activity has been internalized is associated with how individuals internalize their reasons for behaving in other domains.     

Temperamental Vulnerability and Suicide Risk After Attempted Suicide

The aim was to extend recent findings of suggested temperamental features in attempted suicide and to explore possible domains of vulnerability to suicide risk after attempted suicide. Fifty-four psychiatric inpatients hospitalized after a suicide attempt underwent lumbar puncture for analysis of CSF 5-HIAA concentration and also completed the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP) before discharge from the hospital. Suicide attempters scored high on Somatic Anxiety, Psychic Anxiety, and Muscular Tension, and low on Socialization, findings that support recent findings in suicide attempters followed up after an emergency room visit. Five patients committed early suicide, i.e., within 3 years, and the overall long-term suicide mortality after attempted suicide was 13%. There were significant correlations between survival time among early suicides and CSF 5-HIAA (r = .87;p = .054), and the following KSP scale t scores: Somatic Anxiety (r = ?.96;p < .05), Impulsivity (r = ?.88; p < .05), and Socialization (r = .90; p < .05). KSP Socialization showed correlations with CSF 5-HIAA (r = .89; p = .046) among the early suicides. Features of temperamental vulnerability to suicide risk after attempted suicide might involve anxiety proneness, impulsivity, low socialization, and low CSF 5-HIAA.     

Can Messages Make a Difference? The Association Between E‐Mail Messages and Health Outcomes in Diabetes Patients

This investigation examined the impact of social support messages on patient health outcomes. Forty‐one American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian patients received a total of 618 e‐mail messages from their healthcare provider (HCP). The e‐mail messages were divided into 3,565 message units and coded for instances of emotional social support. Patient glycosulated hemoglobin scores (HbA1c) showed significantly improved glycemic control and emotional social support messages were associated with significant decreases in HbA1c values. Patient involvement with the system, measured by system login frequency and the frequency of uploaded blood glucose scores to the HCP, did not predict change in HbA1c.     

Perceptual evaluation of the speech before and after fluency shaping stuttering therapy

An often-cited criterion for assessing the effect of a stuttering therapy is the ability of the stutterers to produce normally fluent speech. Many modern stuttering therapies use special techniques that may produce stutter-free speech that does not sound completely normal. The present study investigates this problem in the framework of the Dutch adaptation of the Precision Fluency Shaping Program.

Pre-, post-, and -year follow-up therapy speech samples of 32 severe stutterers who were treated in a four-week intensive therapy are compared with comparable samples of 20 nonstutterers. For that aim the samples were rated on 14 bipolar scales by groups of about 20 listeners. The results show that the speech of the stutterers in all three conditions differs significantly from the speech of the nonstutterers. The pretherapy speech takes an extreme position on a Distorted Speech dimension, due to the large proportion of disfluencies. The posttherapy speech has extremely low scores on a Dynamics/Prosody dimension, a‘1 while the follow-up therapy speech differs from the normal speech on both dimensions, but now the distances are smaller. These results are discussed in relation to the severity of the stuttering problem in the group of treated stutterers. Finally, implications for future research on therapy evaluation are discussed.     

The deceleration of inappropriate comments by a natural consequence

The characters of this study were two boys in a class for pupils with learning disabilities. The subject was a nine-year-old boy who emitted certain inappropriate comments in class. The manager throughout this study was a peer of the subject.Following a period of initial assessment, which revealed that the inappropriate verbalizations occurred about twice each day, the peer-manager, contingent on each inappropriate remark, moved away from the subject to another desk. Furthermore, before he moved, he explained to the subject why he was displeased. The peer-manager, after a period of time, returned to his original location contingent on appropriate verbalizations of the subject.This technique proved effective in that the subject rarely responded inappropriately throughout the remainder of the school term. Further, it was reported that follow-up observations taken the next year, when the pupil was in a different class, revealed that the inappropriate verbalizations had not reoccurred.