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.     

Mentally retarded persons as parents: Prevalence and the situation of their children

This paper describes a research program on mentally retarded parents and their children. For this nation-wide study, two structured questionnaires were sent to all municipalities in Norway. Both questionnaires were sent to public health nurses and were followed-up by a structured telephone interview based on the questionnaires. The primary aim of the study was to survey the number of children born to mentally retarded parents. In addition, the children's needs and functional abilities were to be assessed. Twenty-three mentally retarded persons had given birth in the course of the past twelve months. A total of 126 children with mentally retarded parents were identified, with an incidence of 27 children per year, and a prevalence of approximately 430 children under 16 years of age in a population of 4 mill. People with a mean of 1.05 child per family. About 43% of the children of mentally retarded parents appeared to have learning difficulties. Forty percent of the children suffered from failures of care. Between 25% and 68% of the children with learning problems had poorly developed motor or language abilities, sense modalities or psycho-social status.     

A Legacy of Silence: Bioethics and the Culture of Pain

For over 20 years the medical literature has carefully documented the undertreatment of all types of pain by physicians. During this same period, as the field of bioethics came of age, the phenomenon of undertreated pain received almost no attention from the bioethics literature. This article takes bioethicists to task for failing to recognize the undertreatment of pain as a major ethical, and not merely a clinical, failing of the medical profession. The nature and extent of the problem of undertreated pain is examined, as well as possible reasons for its disregard by bioethicists. The factors contributing to undertreated pain in the clinical setting are considered, as well as the hazards posed by recent failures to address ethically questionable clinical practices. Finally, suggestions are offered for refocusing the attention of bioethicists to this significant problem.     

Perceiving geographical slant

People judged the inclination of hills viewed either out-of-doors or in a computer-simulated virtual environment. Angle judgments were obtained by having people (1) provide verbal estimates, (2) adjust a representation of the hill’s cross-section, and (3) adjust a tilt board with their unseen hand. Geographical slant was greatly overestimated according to the first two measures, but not the third. Apparent slant judgments conformed to ratio scales, thereby enhancing sensitivity to the small inclines that must actually be traversed in everyday experience. It is proposed that the perceived exaggeration of geographical slant preserves the relationship between distal inclination and people’s behavioral potential. Hills are harder to traverse as people become tired; hence, apparent slant increased with fatigue. Visually guided actions must be accommodated to the actual distal properties of the environment; consequently, the tilt board adjustments did not reflect apparent slant overestimations, nor were they influenced by fatigue. Consistent with the fact that steep hills are more difficult to descend than to ascend, these hills appeared steeper when viewed from the top.     

Towards authentic conversations. Authenticity in the patient-professional relationship

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the significance of the existential notion of authenticity for medical ethics. This is done by analyzing authenticity and examining its implications for the patient-professional relationship and for ethical decision-making in medical situations. It is argued that while authenticity implies important demand for individual responsibility, which has therapeutic significance, it perpetuates ideas which are antithetical both to authentic interaction between patients and professionals and to fruitful deliberation of moral dilemmas. In order to counteract these consequences, an alternative idea of authenticity is introduced. According to this idea, authenticity is not regarded primarily as individual sovereignty, but as an ability to participate in a dialogue in which the subjectivity of both partners is respected. Such practice, based on mutual trust and responsibility, would enhance common decision-making and overcome the alienation between patients and professionals.     

Sensorimotor synchronization: Motor responses to pseudoregular auditory patterns

Musically trained and untrained subjects (N=30) were asked to synchronize their finger tapping with stimuli in auditory patterns. Each pattern comprised six successive tonal stimuli of the same duration, the first of which was accented by a different frequency. The duration of interstimulus onset intervals (ISIs) gradually increased or decreased in constant steps toward the end of the patterns. Four values of such steps were used in different trials: 20, 30, 45, and 60 msec. Various time-control mechanisms are hypothesized as being simultaneously responsible for subjects’ incorrect reproduction of the internal temporal ratios of the stimulus patterns. The mechanism of assimilation (of a central tendency) led subjects to enforce a regular (isochronous) structure on the patterns. The influence of other time-control mechanisms (distinction, subjective expression of an accent, sequential transfer) was expressed mainly in differences between intertap onset intervals (ITIs) and the corresponding ISIs at the beginning of the patterns. The duration of the first two ITIs was in the majority of the trials in an inverse ratio to the ratio of the respective ISIs. The distortions resulting from the timing mechanisms concerned were more pronounced in the performance of nonmusicians than in that of musicians.     

Racial differences in behavior disorders of children

This study compared black and white children on the Behavior Problem Checklist. Data on 1,162 white and 614 black children were obtained from school records and from teachers and were analyzed using multiple regression analysis of variance. Blacks were judged to have a greater frequency of behavior disorders than whites. A number of interactions of race with other variables were found, and their meanings were discussed.     

Sharing behavior and racial preference in children

Three groups of white children, 43 preschoolers and first-graders, 46 third-graders, and 44 fifth-graders, were asked to choose either a white child or a black child as a recipient of sharing and also as a companion for several social interaction situations ordered for social distance. The preschoolers and first-graders preferred to share and interact socially with the white child. The third-graders and the fifth-graders displayed a weaker preference for the white child over the black child on the sharing task, no preference in situations of high social distance, and a preference for the white child in situations of low social distance. The results from ancillary measures suggested that the choices of the younger children were motivated by a generalized color preference but that the choices of the older children were guided by an awareness of the social meaning of racial categories.The investigation was supported by the Research Advisory Council of East Tennessee State University.     

Sentence processing: Evidence against the serial,independent stage assumption

The assumption that the processing stages involved in sentence comprehension are serially and independently executed was tested in two separate experiments using two new sentence types. One experiment was a sentence-picture verification task, the other was not. In Experiment I, subjects viewed sentences such as It's false that the dots are red and indicated, by pressing the appropriate response key, which of two colors would make the sentence true. In Experiment II, subjects verified sentences such as It isn't true that the dots aren't red against pictures of colored dots. On the strength of Sternberg's additive factor method, present findings challenge the validity of the serial, independent stage assumption, and results are alternatively discussed in terms of a capacity sharing model.This research was supported by PHS research grant MH 23401 to Sam Glucksberg, principal investigator.