Some Thoughts on Language Use in Therapy

Drawing on the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and his own experience as a therapist and educator/trainer, the author describes some of the issues involved in helping therapists to find their way out of various muddles and mazes that are deeply embedded in language.     

Borderline and schizophrenic patients: A comparison using the MCMI-II

In the present study we examined the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II scores of psychiatric patients with a diagnosis of either borderline personality disorder (BPD;n=13) or schizophrenia (n=13). The analyses revealed that the BPD patients were significantly elevated on a number of scales in addition to the Borderline scale. The second goal of this study was to assess the discriminative validity of the Borderline and Thought Disorder Scales with both base rate (BR) cutoffs and the number of endorsed prototypic items. The Borderline scale demonstrated the most diagnostic power when using BR cutoffs, whereas the Thought Disorder scale performed poorly, no better than chance levels, with all cutoffs.This research was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant 410-89-0335 and by a grant from the Department of Research and Programme Evaluation, Brockville Psychiatric Hospital. The authors thank Renate Simmons for her assistance.     

Determinants of Response Recovery in Extinction Following Response Elimination

Elimination of autoshaped responding by random or negatively-contingent response-reductive procedures may leave a previously acquired association intact; however, two previous studies suggest that response elimination by backward conditioning may have more permanent effects. In Experiments 1 and 3, the autoshaped responding of pigeons was eliminated by a backward or negative contingency. Although speed of recovery during a subsequent extinction phase was greater following the backward contingency in Experiment 3, level of recovery did not differ as a function of response elimination procedure in either experiment. A possible basis for the discrepancy between the present and previous findings is the contingency arranged between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli (CS and US, respectively) during forward conditioning. In Experiments 1 and 2, probability of US presentation following the CS (p(US|CS) = 0.4 or 1.0) was varied within (Experiment 1) or between (Experiment 2) groups of birds. In both cases, level of recovery was higher following training under (p(US|CS) = 0.4). The results are consistent with a memory retrieval theory in which unreinforced trials function as a retrieval cue for not responding.     

A follow-up study on short-term treatment of agoraphobia.

The differential effectiveness of three treatment packages for agoraphobia was tested. Patients received one of three short-term treatments: Breathing Retraining and Cognitive Restructuring, graded Self-Exposure in vivo, or a combination of both. No differential effects were found between the treatment conditions at posttest and at an 18 months follow-up. Improvement at follow-up assessment was associated with whether patients had further treatment during the follow-up period. No relationship was found between further improvement and demographic variables, pre- and posttest scores on psychological questionnaires or the use of medication at follow-up. Implications of these findings are examined.     

Suppression of emotional and neutral material

Previous studies have indicated that suppression of a thought results in an immediate increase of the frequency of this thought and/or in a rebound effect, i.e. in a heightened frequency of this thought later on. The present study (n = 53) examined the relationship between suppression and emotionality of the to-be-suppressed material. More specifically, it was investigated whether suppression of an emotional story results in stronger immediate enhancement or thought rebounds than suppression of a neutral story. There was a clear initial enhancement effect in the group suppressing a neutral story: subjects who tried to suppress experienced more target thoughts than subjects who did not try to suppress. In the neutral-story conditions, no rebound effect occurred. In the groups exposed to an emotional story, there was neither evidence of initial enhancement nor of a rebound. As most obsessions are related to emotional themes, the present findings cast doubt on the claim that the rebound phenomenon represents a valid laboratory model for clinical obsessions.     

Blocking of the response-reinforcer association: Additional evidence

Response rates maintained by free-operant schedules are sometimes reduced when a brief signal is interposed between the response and reinforcer. Early interpretations of this rate reduction were in terms of associative competition between the response and signal, analogous to blocking and overshadowing effects obtained in Pavlovian conditioning. But subsequent evidence has disputed this interpretation by showing that the signal enhances response rate in several circumstances. The present study attempted to define the conditions determining the different effects by investigating the role of signal location in the delay-of-reinforcement interval. When it occurred immediately after a response, response rate was enhanced. When it occurred at the end of the delay interval, immediately preceding the reinforcer, the signal decreased response rate. A similar decremental effect occurred when the signal occurred in the middle of the delay interval, contiguous with neither the response nor the reinforcer. Similar blocking effects occurred with a response acquisition procedure. The results demonstrate that blocking effects do indeed occur in instrumental conditioning but that the usual procedure of using signals immediately contingent on responding confounds such blocking effects with the competing effects of conditioned reinforcement/marking.     

Gender and ethnic differences in psychosocial stress and generalized distress among Hispanics

This study examined the relationship between gender, ethnicity, psychosocial stress and generalized distress in 593 Hispanic immigrants, Mexican Americans, and Anglo Americans using the Hispanic Stress Inventory (HSI) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Findings revealed that immigrant females had higher scores on the Cultural/Family Conflict sub-scale of the HSI and on the CES-D than immigrant males. Also, higher levels of generalized distress and psychosocial stress associated with the immigration process were found among immigrants from Central America when compared with Mexican immigrants. Central Americans' stress appraisal ratings on specific HSI items related to pre-migration trauma were significantly higher than the ratings of Mexican immigrants. Our findings indicate that research and clinical service delivery models must be sensitive to the vast heterogeneity within the Hispanic population with respect to differences in the experiences of psychosocial stress as related to gender and ethnicity.This project was partially supported by Grant USPHS MH24854 to the third author from the National Institute of Mental Health, Division of Biometry and Applied Science, Minority Research Resources Branch.     

Effects of post-trial administration of naloxone and beta-endorphin on shock-induced fighting in rats

To study the involvement of endogenous opioid peptides in the development of shock-induced fighting, naloxone (2 mg/kg) or beta-endorphin (10 micrograms/kg) was administered subcutaneously immediately after the session and during nine consecutive daily sessions to rats repeatedly exposed to electric shocks. beta-Endorphin blocked the development of shock-induced fighting while naloxone facilitated it but only when shock-induced fighting occurred at a low rate. The effects of beta-endorphin were time dependent since when beta-endorphin was injected 90 min after the shock session instead of immediately after, its impairing effect disappeared. In addition, naloxone blocked the impairment produced by beta-endorphin. Differential postsession treatment of each member of pairs of rats with naloxone and beta-endorphin resulted in a higher probability of rats treated with naloxone to be dominant over rats treated with beta-endorphin in the test situation. These results are discussed in relation with the possible involvement of endogenous opioids in the modulation of the physiological consequences of defensive behavioral responses to shock.