Psychotherapy with families of psychosomatic patients

Paradigmatic complexes in family psychotherapy have been indicating a revolutionary change and the creation of new paradigms for the past thirty years. Starting with the application of the general systems theory and the development of those concepts that have been emerging regarding psychosomatic illnesses we discuss the epistemological confusion created, the methodological problems and the dissociation between theory and practice. We suggest a double process of investigation of the family structure using a knowledge of the basic attitudes and the development of a psychotherapy programme within the family of the psychosomatic patient.     

Orientation-invariant transfer of training in the identification of rotated natural objects

The effects of stimulus orientation on naming were examined in two experiments in which subjects identified line drawings of natural objects following practice with the objects at the same or different orientations. Half the rotated objects were viewed in the orientation that matched the earlier presentations, and half were viewed at an orientation that mismatched the earlier presentations. Systematic effects of orientation on naming time were found during the early presentations. These effects were reduced during later presentations, and the size of this reduction did not depend on the orientation in which the object had been seen originally. The results are consistent with a dual-systems model of object identification in which initially large effects of disorientation are the result of a normalization process such as mental rotation, and in which attenuation of the effects is due to a shift from the normalization system to a feature/part-based     

The relationship of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other illegal drug use to delinquency among Mexican-American, black, and white adolescent males

This study examined the relationship between drug use and delinquent behavior among 348 high school males (154 whites, 172 Mexican-Americans, and 22 blacks) and 89 adjudicated delinquent males confined to a maximum-security facility for violent and repeat offenders (37 whites, 25 Mexican-Americans, and 27 blacks). Data were collected in the spring of 1986 using self-administered questionnaires. Analyses were performed separately for each racial subgroup. Simple correlations revealed that self-reported alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other illegal drug use were all significantly related to both minor and violent delinquency for all three racial groups. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the use of these substances accounted for 40% to 47% of the variance in minor delinquency and for 59% of the variance in violent delinquency among blacks, 53% of the variance in violent delinquency among Mexican-Americans, and 34% of the variance in violent delinquency among whites. The best predictors of violent delinquency were the frequent use of illegal drugs other than marijuana and use of tobacco, in that order, among Mexican-Americans; the frequent use of other illegal drugs, marijuana, and tobacco, in that order, for whites; and the frequent use of illegal drugs, followed by marijuana, for blacks.     

Coping and job performance

An organizational field study comprising 42 subjects examined the relationship between growth-oriented coping and subsequent job performance. Growth orientation was measured using the 7-item growth scale obtained from the Lazarus Ways of Coping Checklist. The hypothesized relationship between growth orientation and job performance was confirmed. Individuals obtaining high evaluations of managerial performance emphasized growth-oriented strategies in their behaviors. Further research directions are introduced.     

The Ways of Coping instrument: reliability and temporal stability for a sample of employees

Convergent support is demonstrated for the use of seven empirically derived scales of the Ways of Coping instrument developed by Lazarus and his colleagues. While the instrument is widely used, until now the internal consistency of the coping measures and stability of the factor structure have yet to be shown for a sample of employed adults. While type of job and type of coping incident reported are not dependent, analysis indicates that work and nonwork groups differ across several coping dimensions. Research implications and directions are addressed.     

AIDS prevention for intravenous drug users in the community: Street-based education and risk behavior

Conducted a study of behavior change associated with a street-based AIDS education project targeted to intravenous (IV) drug users in San Francisco. Two cross-sections were sampled from drug detoxification clinics and street locations in 1986 (n = 438) and 1987 (n = 623). Significant increases were reported in the percentage of IV drug users who used bleach to decontaminate syringes, who did not share needles in past year, and in condom use. A significant reduction in an index of the number of needle-sharing partners was reported. Respondents ranked treatment program as most important source of AIDS information prior to implementation of the program, and ranked outreach workers as most important after implementation. Findings suggest that this community-based outreach program had at least some impact on knowledge about AIDS and may have led to reductions in behaviors known to transmit HIV.     

Negatively biased recall in children with self-reported symptoms of depression

This study investigated differences in depressed and nondepressed children's recall of positively and negatively reinforced behavior. Twenty-six children with self-reported symptoms of depression in the fourth through sixth grades were compared with a matched sample of 26 nondepressed children to determine if there was a negative bias in depressed children's recall. Subjects first generated guesses of the most common associations to each of a series of 40 words. Later, when compared with their nondepressed peers, the children with depressive symptomology were less accurate in recalling which words they had answered correctly and remembered fewer of their own correct responses. They also did more poorly when asked to recall the correct answers that had been provided by the investigator. The two groups did not differ, however, in their recall of which items had been answered incorrectly or in their recall of their previous wrong responses. These results suggest that children with self-reported depressive symptomology do not remember negative experiences more than do nondepressed children; rather, they recall positive experiences less well. Selective forgetting of positively reinforced behavior could be a serious handicap for depressed children in school. It could also play an important role in the maintenance and perhaps even the etiology of depressive symptomatology in children.We wish to thank Bruce Compas for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.