When depression breeds contempt: reassurance seeking, self-esteem, and rejection of depressed college students by their roommates.

To test Coyne's (1976b) theory of depression, students' levels of depressive symptoms, reassurance seeking, and self-esteem were assessed at Time 1, and their same-gender roommates' appraisals of them were assessed 5 weeks later. Mildly depressed students engaged in the type of reassurance seeking described by Coyne. Among men, but not women, mildly depressed students were rejected if they strongly sought reassurance and had low self-esteem but not if they did not seek reassurance or had high self-esteem. Although induction of depressed symptoms in roommates did occur, this contagion effect did not account for the depression-rejection relationship. The prediction that unsupportive, intolerant, or unempathic others would be particularly likely to respond with rejection to reassurance-seeking depressed students with low self-esteem received partial support. Implications for future work on the interpersonal aspects of depression are discussed.     

Money and psychodynamic group psychotherapy.

Money may be the most upsetting and therefore the most avoided topic in group psychotherapy. To overcome this resistance, the leader must secure prospective members' willingness to speak openly about financial matters. Financial issues particular to group therapy emerge when money is normalized as a topic for discussion. These include lowering or not raising fees, rescheduling, leaves of absence, combined and conjoint therapy, and nonverbal behaviors. Several case examples are provided. Members' strong feelings toward the leader around financial transactions often find expression in angry accusations. Suggestions for dealing therapeutically with countertransference reactions to these accusations are offered.     

Psychodynamic group psychotherapy.

The author provides an overview of critical factors in the working phase of group psychotherapy from the perspective of psychodynamic theory. The discussion is organized around a clinical vignette to illustrate various types of intervention such as past, here and now, future; individual, interpersonal, group as a whole; in group--out of group; affect-cognition; and understanding--corrective emotional experience. The critical "windows into the unconscious," transference, counter-transference, and free association, are also discussed in terms of the clinical example. The author concludes his article with a few thoughts about the future of psychodynamic theory in relationship to group treatments.     

Comparison of bulimics, obese binge eaters, social phobics, and individuals with panic disorder on comorbidity across DSM-III-R anxiety disorders.

Eighty-two women, presenting as normal-weight bulimics, obese binge eaters, social phobics, and individuals with panic disorder, were compared on anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. All were administered the Anxiety Disorder Interview Schedule-Revised and completed the Michigan Alcohol Screening Test, Drug Abuse Screening Test, and Self-Consciousness Scale. A striking proportion of eating disorder subjects were comorbid for one or more anxiety disorders, the most frequent diagnoses being generalized anxiety disorder and social phobia. The results suggest that the place of anxiety in bulimia nervosa goes beyond that discussed within the context of the anxiety reduction model. Conflicting comorbidity findings among this and prior investigations are noted, however, and discussed in terms of the issue of differential diagnosis between eating and anxiety disorders.     

Predictors and consequences of childhood depressive symptoms: a 5-year longitudinal study.

A 5-year longitudinal study investigated the interrelationships among children's experiences of depressive symptoms, negative life events, explanatory style, and helplessness behaviors in social and achievement situations. The results revealed that early in childhood, negative events, but not explanatory style, predicted depressive symptoms; later in childhood, a pessimistic explanatory style emerged as a significant predictor of depressive symptoms, alone and in conjunction with negative events. When children suffered periods of depression, their explanatory styles not only deteriorated but remained pessimistic even after their depression subsided, presumably putting them at risk for future episodes of depression. Some children seem repeatedly prone to depressive symptoms over periods of at least 2 years. Depressed children consistently showed helpless behaviors in social and achievement settings.     

Illness, Family Theory, and Family Therapy: I.Conceptual Issues

This article examines and clarifies controversies about the concept of illness in the field of family therapy. We contend that illness, as traditionally understood in all cultures, is a relational, transactional concept that is highly congruent with core principles of present-day family theories. Family therapists need not buy into a biotechnical, reductionistic reframing of illness as disease. Rather, it is more appropriate to conceptualize and work with illness as a narrative placed in a biopsychosocial context. Such a narrative includes how shared responsibility for coping and for finding solutions can take place, without becoming involved in disputes about causal models.     

Procedural Justice and Culture

The past fifteen years have seen the development of a considerable research literature on the social psychology of procedural justice (see Lind & Tyler, 1988, for a review). Procedural justice research reveals some serious shortcomings in the exchange theories that have traditionally dominated Western analyses of the social psychology of groups, and in so doing, the procedural justice literature has important ramifications for cross-cultural psychology. Results from a number of studies conducted in the United States and Western Europe show that individualistic, self-interest based models of human behaviour are insufficient to explain procedural justice phenomena. Instead, procedural justice effects frequently reveal strong group-oriented concerns and motivations even in cultural contexts generally thought to be characterized by individualistic orientations. The research literature also shows that if a group's procedures are judged to be fair, people are more likely to show group-oriented behaviour and to hold more favourable attitudes toward the group and its leaders. These findings have led to the development of a theory of justice judgments—the Lind and Tyler group-value theory—which is based on group norms and relations rather than on social exchange theory. We describe a general model of social behaviour that integrates group- and individually-oriented behaviour, and we discuss the implications of the model for social and cross-cultural psychology.