Family coping strategies and the rural Appalachian working poor

Naturalistic research methods were used in this study to collect the voices, ideas, and opinions of rural, working poor, Appalachian families from Southeast Ohio about the stress of poverty in family life and family coping in the face of poverty. This data should be of interest to the professional family therapist who practices with the working poor.     

Live supervision in the postmodern era of family therapy: Issues,reflections, and questions

This article asserts that the family therapy field is approaching an epistemological shift from structuralism and positivism to postmodernism and relativism. The confluence of these movements: feminism, constructivism/constructionism, and cultural relativism is cited as a major impetus for the shift. Live supervision is examined within the context of this transformation, with a discussion of implications for the future.     

Supervising the person of the therapist: Issues,challenges and dilemmas

A major critical issue in marriage and family therapy today is the professionalization of the discipline. Thus the focus on training individuals for a career in marriage and family therapy necessitates the revisitation of the debate over personal growth versus skill development. The trend toward training the person of the therapist, however, would suggest that the field is moving toward the integration of self awareness and skill in the therapeutic system. With the popularization of training the person of the therapist comes other issues, challenges, and dilemmas for the field, including the crucial issue of training gender and culturally sensitive therapists. The potential for creating dual relationships when training the person of the therapist is both a dilemma and a challenge.     

The role of spatial frequency in the processing of hierarchically organized stimuli

Can spatial frequency differences between local and global forms account for differences in the way different levels of structure are analyzed? We examined this question by having subjects identify local or global forms of hierarchical stimuli that had beencontrast balanced. Contrast balancing eliminates low spatial frequencies, so that both local and global forms must be identified on the basis of high spatial frequency information. Response times (RTs) to global (but not local) forms were slowed for contrast-balanced stimuli, suggesting that low spatial frequencies mediate the global RT advantage typically found. In contrast, interference between local and global forms was little affected by contrast balancing or by shifts of attention between local and global forms, suggesting that it does not result from inhibitory interactions between spatial frequency channels or from temporal precedence of low versus high spatial frequency information. Finally, shifts of attention between local and global forms were also little affected by contrast balancing, suggesting that they were not based on spatial frequency.     

Sado-masochism as a defense against merging: Six case studies

This paper reports on several patients who use sado-masochism as a defense against an unconscious wish for and fear of merging. The sado-masochism can be expressed as a sexual perversion or in a difficult ungratifying interpersonal relationship. These relationships have some of the quality of addictions in that the patients have a compulsive need to continue them and find it extremely difficult to leave them. Therapy must focus on helping the patient become more separate, rather than on other problems which may also be present. Initially, the therapist needs to take an educational stance in regard to the process the patient must complete, rather than the more traditional analytic stance.     

The Psychophysiology of Sensation Seeking

This article summarizes studies relating the trait of sensation seeking to electrodermal and heart-rate responses and cortical evoked potential arousal. Stimulus factors of novelty, intensity, and stimulus significance are important. High sensation seekers tend to give stronger physiological orienting responses than lows to novel stimuli of moderate intensity, particularly when such stimuli are of specific interest. Lows tend to show defensive responses as defined by heart-rate acceleration. The cortical reaction of the highs tends to be augmented by intense visual or auditory stimuli, while that of the lows tends to be reduced or unresponsive to variations in stimulus intensity. Differences between psychophysiological responses of high and low sensation seekers are interpreted as reflective of different evolved biological strategies for processing novel or intense stimulation.     

SEEING TWO AS ONE:

Abstract -Object tokens are episodic visual representations that mediate the ability to track visual events as they move about and change over time. Multiple tokens also allow the viewer to individuate multiple instances of a single type of object. In the present study, we established a functional link for object tokens in two seemingly disparate visual phenomena: apparent motion and repetition blindness [RB]. In RB, repeated items are more difficult to perceive than unre-peated items. Using displays in which two sets of alphanumeric characters streamed in opposite directions across a computer screen in apparent motion, we found increased RB for targets appearing within a single apparent motion stream, relative to targets in different apparent motion streams. The results are inconsistent with refractory period or memory retrieval accounts of RB and support the role of object tokens in both apparent motion and RB.     

Process characteristics of worry and obsessive intrusive thoughts

One hundred and twenty-five university students were administered a battery of self-report measures to assess worry disposition and content, frequency of obsessive intrusive thoughts, and 10 conceptually derived appraisal dimensions of worry and obsessional intrusions. Process ratings indicated that the worrisome thoughts were considered more disturbing than the ego-dystonic intrusive thoughts. Worry was also distinguished by a focus on the possible consequences of negative events, whereas concern about the personal meaning of the thought was a unique process dimension for obsessive intrusive thoughts. Both content and process variables are important in differentiating worry and obsessive-like intrusive thoughts in a nonclinical population.     

On seeing oneself as “left out”: The chronically complaining patient in psychotherapy

A clinical observation regarding patients who complain about feeling left out and/or second best provides the framework for this paper. What is expressed is a form of separation anxiety coupled with a loser self-concept. It is suggested that these patients represent a milder form of the moral masochism. Early theoretical formulations include Freud and his emphasis on the superego and Reich's emphasis on the masochist's fear of being left alone. Kramer's little man phenomenon is an example of a more current theoretical formulation which takes account of the complexities of the ego, and composite self and identity in the clinical phenomena observed. A case of a latency-aged child is provided.