Family interaction and child psychopathology: A comparison of two observation strategies

We examined two systems of assessing family interactions that are in common usage: a home based observation of free parent-child interaction and a clinic based observation of a structured mother-child problem solving discussion. Participants were 18 depressed, 27 conduct disordered and 16 comparison children and their mothers. Results indicated that: 1) these observations may yield very different data about child, and to a lesser extent, parent behavior, 2) parental affect in the clinic was related to their level of aversive behaviour in the home, 3) levels of both aversive and positive behavior for children and their mothers were correlated within each setting, 4) accuracy of diagnostic classifications made on the basis of the observational data were highest for comparison and conduct disordered children, but lowest for depressed children observed in the clinic, and 5) the inclusion of data on mothers' behavior increased classification accuracy for conduct disordered children only.     

Occupational choices of daughters of practicing rabbis

This paper examines the psychological impact that rabbis, as character types, have on their daughters. It describes how the father's impact psychologically predisposes these women to enter the helping professions in disporportionate numbers, and it shows how these job choices are often a means of coping with psychological issues connected to their upbringing.She is a candidate to become a psychoanalyst at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalytic Psychology.     

The final portrait of Christ

Artistic presentations of Jesus are as numerous and varied as the artists who created them. Whether on canvas or in music, Jesus has been portrayed as a redeemer, revolutionary, teacher, and clown. While some people are inspired by a particular presentation of Jesus, others are angered and incensed at what they perceive to be blasphemous. An example of the latter is Martin Scorsese's film, The Last Temptation of Christ. This article examines why people responded so negatively to this and other artistic presentations of Jesus. It suggests they have failed to recognize how the portrayal reflects a personal experience of the artist and is not meant to be a final portrait of Christ. And on a more unconscious level, these works of art evoke feelings within people which they fear to acknowledge and which they escape by condemning the work.     

Religious celibacy from the celibate's point of view

What do celibates consider the adaptive and maladaptive aspects of their celibate religious lifestyle? What role has celibacy played in understanding the differences between those who persevere and those who choose to resign from celibate religious life and/or ordained ministry? Using data from extensive interviews, this exploratory study begins to focus some of the perceived effects of celibacy upon personal development for both those who persevere in celibate religious life and those who resign.     

Family Functioning of Male Alcoholics and Their Female Partners during Periods of Drinking and Abstinence

Family functioning of 20 alcoholic male veterans and their female partners was assessed in relation to drinking (wet) and abstinent (dry) intervals. Repeated measures analyses performed on the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD) indicated that on all 7 scales of the FAD, alcoholics and their mates perceived family functioning to be better during dry than wet periods. In contrast to their alcoholic mates, female partners gave healthier ratings to all FAD scales except Roles in the dry condition and Affective Involvement in the wet condition. According to published cutoff scores for healthy and unhealthy family functioning, alcoholics as a group viewed their wet and dry family functioning as unhealthy, although the female group regarded the family's dry Problem Solving and Behavioral Control as healthy. These findings suggest that the family functioning of alcohol-involved couples is biphasic, oscillating between drinking and abstinent periods.     

The phases of renewal: Steps to integration of the self in psychotherapy

This is a study of the psychology of self-renewal. The myth of Psyche is examined since it is among the finest rebirth stories antiquity has left us and can be read as representative of the renewal process in general. The story as such, points to a number of psychological states of being necessary for the self to pass through if change is to occur. Renewal can be understood as a series of ontological situations, and these can be structurally considered in terms of phases. This in turn, provides a general theoretical framework for a psychological analysis of self-renewal. The phases of renewal, derived from the Latin, are:immanence, obstruence, descendence, experience, ascendence, emergence andtranscendence. The case of Lee is used to illustrate the process of integration of self in psychotherapy.     

Energy and psychical pain

Several relationships between energy and psychical pain are developed in this paper. These concepts are a-structural and existential in spirit, although developed in the framework of some analytic formulations on personality. A key concept developed is that the nature of psychical pain is determined, in part, by the manner in which the state of psychical energy associated with the pain departs from a given healthy ideal.     

A reappraisal of Teresa of Avila's supposed hysteria

This essay offers a reassessment of Teresa's severe seizures which were such a characteristic feature of her mysticism. The diagnosis of hysteria is no longer viable, at the very least given its abandonment by clinicians. An alternative analysis is developed by phenomenologically comparing Teresa's seizures to parallel experiences of subjects in LSD-assisted psychotherapy. Using Stanislav Grof's categories, it is argued that Teresa's seizures are perinatal symptoms. As such, they represent the emergence and reintegration of extremely primitive psychological systems and might be described as the growing pains of transpersonal consciousness. They reflect not degenerative psychopathology but progressive movement toward higher states of consciousness.He has published articles in the fields of metaphor and the psychology of mysticism. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the national meeting of the American Academy of Religion in New York in 1982.