The place of annihilation anxieties in psychoanalytic theory

Survival-related clinical reports are abundantly found in the works of classical, object-relational, and self psychological writers, but are underrepresented in major theoretical formulations on anxiety. Fears of being overwhelmed, merged, penetrated, fragmented, and destroyed, as contents of unconscious and conscious fantasies, are regularly interrelated with the typical dangers. Fifteen preliminary propositions invite closer study of such apprehensions and provide definitional components. Annihilation anxieties are triggered by survival threat; are found early but can be engendered throughout the life cycle; constitute a basic danger; are residuals of psychic trauma; have specifiable subdimensions; may occur in presymbolic form or be associated with fantasies in conflict/compromise formation; may arise with or without anticipation; may be accompanied by controlled or uncontrolled anxiety; are motives for defense; and may be associated with particularly recalcitrant resistances. The study of annihilation anxieties in relation to the basic danger series has both theoretical and clinical advantages, especially for understanding traumatic, anxiety, phobic, psychosomatic, addictive, narcissistic, borderline, and psychotic manifestations, as well as sexual problems (including perversions), nightmares, dissociative and panic states, and especially difficult resistances.     

A simulation-based assessment of the value of enhancing the credibility of policy analysis

Credibility has been proposed recently as a standard for assessing the value of policy analysis. While various strategies for enhancing the credibility of policy analysis are available, little evidence exists concerning to what extent and under what circumstances implementing such strategies does, in fact, increase the value of policy analysis in terms of improving organizational decisionmaking. In this paper computer simulation—a methodological approach that has not been widely used to date in the field of knowledge application—is used to begin, to fill this gap. Specifically, the “garbage-can” model of decisionmaking developed by Cohen, March and Olsen (1972) has been modified to reflect a possible contribution of policy analysis to decisionmaking. Using this model, the extent to which enhancing credibility results in improved organizational decisionmaking under various circumstances is examined. Marvin B. Mandell is an assistant professor of policy sciences at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. His present research is focused on quantitative techniques for policy analysis and evaluation and the use of analytical information in decisionmaking.     

School psychology: Its educational and societal connections

School psychology can be viewed either as a pragmatic response to the pressing and immediate needs of the schools ore as an outgrowth of ideological and technological forces in society. This paper argues that beliefs more than needs shaped the history of the profession. School psychology emereged because professional educators held psychological beliefs (and because a psychological testing technology was available to turn those beliefs into practice). Thus, adherence to psychological and developmental principles made age-grading and appropriate response to the sudden influx of large numbers of new students into the schools, and the acceptance of child-centered educational theories led logically to the study of individual children's needs, especially of those who were atypical. Both educators and psychologists subscribed, at least in principle, to the mainstream social ideology of individualism. School psychology became a means for translating such national values (e.g., individualism) and educational principles (e.g., individualized instruction) into school practice.     

Emotion and the physician-patient relationship

This paper develops a framework of the role of empathy in patient care and explicitly links the framework to important outcomes. Following a definition of empathy and clinical examples, evidence is reviewed on the relevance of empathy to increasing patient satisfaction, increasing adherence with physician recommendations, and decreasing the frequency of medical malpractice suits.     

‘Chasing' in gambling behavior: personality and cognitive determinants

The phenomenon of ‘chasing' has been identified as one of the central characteristics of the behavior of pathological gamblers [American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., DSM IV). Washington, DC: APA]. It consists of more frequent involvement, increased persistence and elevated monetary risk in an effort to recoup money that has been lost. The present research makes a distinction between within- and between-session chasing, and attempts to examine the determinants of within-session chasing in a reasonably valid laboratory analogue. Male college students who gambled (N=248) were given US$10 and an opportunity to gamble. They could: (1) decline to gamble and keep their US$10 (nonplayers); (2) gamble and win even more money by quitting at a more optimal time (nonchasers); or (3) gamble longer than they should, resulting in the loss of all available money (chasers). Zuckerman's impulsivity factor (from the ZKPQ) discriminated chasers from nonchasers. Breen and Zuckerman's Gambling Beliefs and Attitudes Survey (GABS) discriminated players from nonplayers. A sensation-seeking explanation of within-session chasing was not supported. The results are discussed in terms of the impact of impulsivity on within-session chasing. It is suggested that the GABS may serve as a general measure of ‘affinity' to gambling, and could be useful in examining the process of between-session chasing, that is, returning on another day to ‘get even'.     

A comparison of children with serious emotional disturbance served in residential and school settings

The National Adolescent and Child Treatment Study (NACTS) was designed to study children identified and served by the public mental health and special education systems as seriously emotionally disturbed. Children (N=812) and their parents (N=740) participated in the first wave of data collection in this longitudinal study. Subjects lived in six states, with approximately half in psychiatric residential treatment centers and the other half in public school special education programs. A multi-method, multi-source methodology was employed. The sample is characterized by externalizing problems, poor adaptive functioning, and substantial academic deficits. Residential children were more likely to have blended families, were more likely to have previously received residential treatment, and had higher rates of conduct disorder, anxiety, and attention deficit disorder, as measured by the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children. The two groups did not differ on intelligence, age of onset, or rates of schizophrenia or depression. The data suggest the presence of greater at-risk factors in the residential group and different paths of entry into special education and residential treatment programs.     

Loving, liking, looking and sensation seeking in unmarried college couples

This study examined the relationships between sensation seeking or sensation seeking similarity and relationship satisfaction in college couples. Fifty-eight couples were tested with the Sensation Seeking Scale form V and the Loving and Liking Scales, and each couple was observed for eye gaze behavior. Eye gaze was found to be unrelated to the questionnaire measures of relationship involvement and a low but significant negative relationship was found between the female partner's love rating and mutual gaze and focus. As in previous research, couples' sensation seeking scores were significantly correlated, indicating tendencies toward assortative mating. However, only the women's relationship satisfaction scores were related to discrepancies in the couples' SSS scores. Individual sensation seeking scores correlated negatively with relationship satisfaction for both sexes. The latter effect was explained in terms of the high sensation seeker having a variety of interests outside of their primary relationships, and stronger tendencies for boredom and independence.     

Developmental changes in assigning agent relations in Hebrew: The interaction between word order and structural cues

Developmental changes in the interaction between word order and structural cues was investigated by having Hebrew-speaking children between 4 and 10 years of age interpret NVN utterances that balanced the complementary and contradictory effects of work order and two types of morphological cues, inflections that mark subject-verb gender agreement and an object particle. In Hebrew, gender inflections are highly complex and irregular while the object particle is highly regular and distinctive. Both word order and structural cues affected interpretations by subjects of all age groups, though the role of structural cues increased with age. For all groups, the objec particle was a dominant cue. The likelihood of assigning the agent relation to the first or second noun systematically varied with the relative weights of cues that supported and opposed each assignment. Comparisons were made between processing of Hebrew and processing of Serbo-Croatian and Turkish.