Neuroticism,Somatic Complaints,and Disease: Is the Bark Worse than the Bite?

Perhaps because negative emotions are frequently expressed in physiological reactions, psychosomatic theories have often identified Neuroticism and its component traits (including anxiety, anger, and depression) as causal influences on the development of disease. These views are apparently supported by correlations between physical symptom reports and measures of Neuroticism in males. Data from 347 adult women in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging replicate this finding for total physical complaints and for most body systems. However, analyses of mortality in the literature and in the present article show no influence of Neuroticism, suggesting that symptom reporting may be biased by Neuroticism-related styles of perceiving and reporting physiological experiences. Researchers in this area are urged to employ objective measures of medical status, and to be alert to possible biases of self-selection and selective perception in interpreting associations between Neuroticism and disease.     

Semantic Satiation,Aftereffects, and Recognition Memory for Positive,Negative, Neutral,and Mixed Lists of Words

The Psychological Record - By avoiding the confound between the physical and semantic properties of words, it was possible to demonstrate the effects and aftereffects of semantic satiation....     

Regional cerebral glucose metabolism in aphemia: A case report

Local cerebral metabolism was determined in a patient suffering aphemia following cerebral infarction using the 18FDG-PET technique. The syndrome was characterized by profound ictal nonfluency with sparing of other language functions. Speech subsequently improved so that content and grammar were appropriate but mild dysprosody persisted. Conventional CT showed no lesion of the left hemisphere while PET revealed a discrete focus of hypometabolism on the left which partially resolved on serial studies. The metabolic lesion could be localized to the region of the inferior precentral gyrus and the adjacent subcortical space.     

Risk factors and the Child Behavior Checklist in a child mental health center setting

The relationship between risk factors and the severity and type of childhood disorder, as measured by parent-completed Child Behavior Checklists, was examined for 768 children, ages 4–16, seen at a child mental health center. Regression analyses revealed no significant relationships between any combination of risk factors and the total number of behavior problems, internalizing, or externalizing scores for the entire group, males and females separately, or for the age and sex groupings of 6- to 11- and 12-to 16-yearolds. Chi-square tests revealed no relationship of profile type with any risk factor or with total number of risk factors. Implications for broad-based child assessment and risk factor research within a clinical population are discussed.We wish to thank Orin Bolstad, Linda Magnuson, and Julian Taplin for their assistance in this project.     

Self-perceived and independently observed competence of young adolescents as a function of parental marital conflict and recent divorce

The self-perceived and independently observed cognitive and social competence of young adolescents as a function of parental conflict and recent divorce was investigated. Subjects were 40 young adolescents between the ages of 11 years 1 month and 15 years 1 month. A 2×2 factorial design was used, with the independent variables being parental marital status (married vs. recently divorced) and parental conflict (high vs. low). Dependent variables included the following measures of adolescent competence: adolescent-completed measures of self-perceived competence, teacher-completed measures, behavioral observations, and school grades. The results indicated that the level of parental conflict, rather than parental marital status, appears to be the critical variable associated with adolescents' independently observed levels of cognitive and social competence. In regard to adolescents' self-perceived levels of cognitive and social competence, parental marital status was found to be the critical variable. The implications of these findings are discussed.This research was supported by the William T. Grant Foundation and the University of Georgia's Institute for Behavioral Research.     

Albert Ellis' personal responses to the Survey of Rational-Emotive Therapists

This article presents Albert Ellis' personal responses to the Survey of Rational-Emotive Therapists and his answers to a number of questions that the first and second authors asked Ellis regarding some of his responses. Ellis also commented on how adequately he thought the results of the survey appeared to represent the current philosophies and practices of RET.     

Conflict of interest between therapist-patient confidentiality and the duty to report sexual abuse of children

All 51 jurisdictions in the United States require physicians to report suspected child abuse. In most jurisdictions, reporting requirements override both confidentiality and privilege associated with the physician-patient relationship. The authors review the literature relevant to the conflict between privacy and reporting abuse and report the results of a national survey of therapists at sex offender treatment units. They discuss ethical problems experienced under these statutes by therapists who attempt to provide treatment for sex offenders, and by therapists who are required to report past instances of child abuse even when there is no evidence of ongoing abuse.     

Intimate homicide: An analysis of violent social relationships

Homicide which occurs in intimate social relationships was studied using data from three Western Canadian cities. Variables which may be related to the relationship and homicide are also examined. Unstable relationships are clearly differentiated from other relationships and are more likely to result in homicide. Implications for future research are discussed.