Rapprochement in Sight? Postmodern Family Therapy and Psychoanalysis

This paper explores aspects of the theory and practice of psychotherapy with the aim of identifying similarities in the approaches of both family therapists and psychoanalytic psychotherapists. The author calls for a dialogue between the disciplines, and makes specific reference to the potential value of this in relation to training and research.     

Predictors of Condom Use Among African American Males at High Risk for HIV1

This study compared the influence of HIV risk behaviors and condom use attitudes on condom use among heterosexual African American males. Three models were tested: (a) HIV risk, (b) condom use attitudes, and (c) a model combining the previous two. Brief street intercept interviews were administered to African American males in 2 matched pairs of census tracts. Results are based on 589 males reporting vaginal sex in the last 30 days. The General Linear Test (GLT) was used to test the ability of regression models to reduce error variance. The condom use, attitude model was sufficient to predict frequency of condom use regardless of partner type. The strongest predictors of condom use were condom use enjoyment, social norms, self-efficacy, and social influence.     

Subjective decision making in medical school admissions: Potentials for discrimination

Medical schools place considerable emphasis on admissions interviews in the selection of students. Interviews, with unwritten performance criteria and subjective evaluation, contain the potential for unconscious discrimination against certain groups of applicants. This study investigates the contribution of interview scores to the total evaluation of male and female applicants for admission to one medical school in the United States. Findings reveal that interveiw scores are counted more heavily for females than males in arriving at a final ranking for admission. Further, females were rated lower in general than males on interview evaluations. While the magnitude of the associations is small, the combined effect points to a potential for discrimination, however unintended, against women applicants in the present case study.The authors appreciate the valuable criticisms of and comments on an earlier draft from Drs. Sidney Fleming, Dorothy Brinsfiled, Glenn Clark, Maurice Jurkiewicz, and Michael Kutner, some of whom may still take exception to parts of this article.     

The narcissistic therapist meets a narcissistic patient

The presence of narcissism in both therapist and patient results in a collusion that preserves the narcissistic integrity of the therapist and validates the narcissistic injury of the patient. Not only is the narcissistic behavior of the patient condoned, but narcissistic excesses in the therapist are tolerated. The unconscious identification on the part of the therapist with the patient produces anxiety in the therapist which results in treatment that intensifies the pathology of the patient.     

Importance of shared genes and shared environments for symptoms of depression in older adults.

The Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale was administered to 68 identical and 161 fraternal twin pairs reared apart and 114 identical and 138 fraternal pairs reared together to ascertain relative genetic and environmental contributions to individual differences in self-reported depressive symptoms. Intraclass correlations and model fitting indicated that genetic influences explained 16% of the variance in total depression scores and 19% for the Psychomotor Retardation and Somatic Complaints subscale, but heritability was minimal for the Depressed Mood and Well-Being subscales. Influence of family rearing context played a substantial role in explaining twin similarity, whereas unique life experiences accounted for the greatest proportion of variance. Significant age group differences were observed, with heritability greater in twins of 60 years of age or older than in twins under 60, especially for Psychomotor Retardation.     

Men's and Women's Beliefs about the Influence of the Menstrual Cycle on Academic Performance: A Preliminary Study1

A preliminary investigation of beliefs about the influence of the menstrual cycle on work performance was conducted. Undergraduate students were asked to make a pass/fail decision about a borderline exam mark based on a wide variety of educational, medical, and personal information about the candidate and to rate the importance of various factors in their decisions. Three versions of the questionnaire were used, varying only in the menstrual cycle status of the examinee. The results showed that students do believe that the premenstrual and, particularly, menstrual phases have a negative impact on performance. However, in this context, they were considered of minor importance compared with educational and personality factors.     

Mothers' attributions and expectancies regarding their conduct-disordered children

As an extension of Patterson's family coercion model, we hypothesized that parental attributions about the causes of child misbehavior and parental expectancies concerning the effectiveness of parenting techniques are involved in the establishment and maintenance of coercive exchanges. Mothers of 40 conduct-disordered children and 40 matched control children completed questionnaires measuring their attributions regarding the causes of their children's misbehavior and their expectations concerning the general and personal effectiveness of parenting techniques. Results supported the hypotheses: parents of conduct-disordered children were more likely to regard their children's misbehavior as intentional and to attribute it to stable, global causes beyond the parents' control. They also were less likely to see their own parenting as effective. We speculate that these parents hold cognitive stances of blame and helplessness that contribute to aversive parent behavior as well as to parent withdrawal in the face of escalating child aggressiveness.This article is based on a doctoral dissertation conducted by Anne Davison Baden while at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and was presented in part at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, August 1989.     

Managing computer integrated manufacturing (CIM): A review of themes,issues, and practices

Large scale changes from traditional to computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) make fundamental alterations in the way work gets done in an organization. The incorporation of sophisticated computerized machinery into the work flow, however, is only the catalyst for a range of human resource and organizational issues. A review of the literature suggests that the management of these issues in the transition from traditional to computerized systems is critical to success. The review is presented within a time frame that encompasses the major themes of a CIM change effort. These themes include the decision phase or automation consideration, the developmental phase, the bridging phase that spans the gap between planning and implementation, and the implementation phase. Important management issues are summarized at each step, including cost justification, management commitment, planning, vendor and union relationships, employee resistance, education and training, job redesign, and organizational restructuring. Wherever applicable, specific practices and real-world examples for effectively managing these issues are presented.     

The shattered mirror: Treatment of a group of narcissistic patients

Increasingly, group psychotherapy takes its place as a valid treatment model for patients with severe character pathology. This paper explores the impact of group treatment on a homogeneous group of patients with narcissistic character problems. The clinical example serves to illustrate the particular dynamics of this patient population; addresses the challenges inherent in treating these patients in a homogeneous, long-term therapy group; and, finally, underscores the countertransference pitfalls in such a clinical situation. Nonetheless, the successful working through of some of these patients' terrifying pathology supports the important of continuing experience and research into this arena.The author wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the invaluable assistance of J. Scott Rutan, Ph.D., in the planning and preparation of this clinical report.     

An anxiety-related bias in semantic activation when processing threat/neutral homographs

Three experiments are reported comparing high and low-trait anxious subjects in terms of their patterns of semantic activation in response to ambiguous primes, with one threat-related and one neutral meaning. Such primes were followed by targets related to either their threat or neutral meaning, or by unrelated targets, in a lexical decision task. Experiments 1 to 3 employed stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 750 msec, 500 msec, and 1250 msec, respectively. At 500-msec SOA all subjects showed facilitation for both meanings. At 750-msec SOA the only significant priming effect was that for the threat-related meaning in the high-anxiety group, and a similar trend was found at 1250-msec SOA. Consideration of the patterns of priming for targets following ambiguous threat/neutral primes suggest that at the longer SOAs, high-anxiety subjects consciously “lock on” to a threatening interpretation if one has been made available by earlier automatic spreading activation.