Pain as purgation: The role of pathologizing in the life of the mystic

Since Descartes, man has been defined in terms of body and spirit only. Yet there is a third term that is of crucial importance for the founding of a psychology of suffering. The realm of psyche, or soul, is a middle ground between the spirit and the body in which the psychological forces of one's life find expression. A psychological approach to the anguish of the suffering soul can be found within the writings of the early desert fathers as well as in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. The penitent must learn patience in the face of his suffering, before he can experience the joy of spiritual maturity.A famous anchorite came to take counsel on high things with the abbot Pastor, but the old man turned away his head, and the anchorite went away aggrieved. His disciple asked Pastor why he had refused to talk with a man so great and of such reputation in his own country, and the old man said that his visitor could speak of heavenly things, but that he himself was of earth. If he had spoken to me of the passions of the soul I could have answered him: but of the things of the spirit I am ignorant.Mr. Fischer is a member of the Psychology Department, University of Dallas, Irving, Texas 75060.     

Conceptual development in learning-disabled and normal boys

In two related studies, a pictorial sorting task served as the means of measuring conceptual development in LD and normal boys. The studies found no differences in the bases on which groups were formed (perceptible attributes, function, or nominal class membership) or in the manner in which groups were structured (thematically, in complexive groups or superordinate groups). Furthermore, parallel developmental trends were found in both LD and normal subjects groups. These findings are not consistent with early studies of concept formation in brain-damaged subjects, most of whom were retarded. Subjects in the present studies were selected on the basis of clinical diagnosis of LD and average IQ. The findings of the present studies suggest that generalizations about conceptual abilities of LD children of normal intelligence should not be based on early studies of the effects of brain damage.     

The psychiatrist Heinroth--a critical reflection

Heinroth (1773-1848) belongs to the founders of psychiatry in Germany. He represented an idealistic, spiritualistic psychiatric school that had a strong leaning towards materialist ideas. He believed that mental disturbances were caused by guilt and sin. But, besides these speculations, he also expressed views that led to view psychiatric and psychotherapeutic insights. One of these was his postulated psychogenesis of mental disturbances. His thoughts on the importance of social, biographical and psychosomatic factors also contributed to the development of psychiatry.     

Logistic latent trait models with linear constraints

Two linearly constrained logistic models which are based on the well-known dichotomous Rasch model, the ‘linear logistic test model’ (LLTM) and the ‘linear logistic model with relaxed assumptions’ (LLRA), are discussed. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of unique conditional maximum likelihood estimates of the structural model parameters are derived. Methods for testing composite hypotheses within the framework of these models and a number of typical applications to real data are mentioned.     

Age and depression: unique and shared effects

The degree to which psychosocial variables associated with depression were also associated with age was examined in 3 samples of community residents 50 years of age or older (N = 4,617). Most of the expected concomitants of depression were found. With only a few exceptions, age was not correlated with depression-related psychosocial variables. Rather, age was most strongly associated with levels in neuropsychological and psychophysiological functioning. In addition, the magnitudes of the correlations in women compared with men and in young-old age groups compared with old-age groups were examined. A number of significant differences emerged, and their implications for theories of depression are noted.     

Controlled attending as a function of melodic and temporal context

Melodic and rhythmic context were systematically varied in a pattern recognition task involving pairs (standard-comparison) of nine-tone auditory sequences. The experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that rhythmic context can direct attention toward or away from tones which instantiate higher order melodic rules. Three levels of melodic structure (one, two, no higher order rules) were crossed with four levels of rhythm [isochronous, dactyl (A U U), anapest (U U A), irregular]. Rhythms were designed to shift accent locations on three centrally embedded tones. Listeners were more accurate in detecting violations of higher order melodic rules when the rhythmic context induced accents on tones which instantiated these rules. Effects are discussed in terms of attentional rhythmicity.