A Way to the Soul of the Mentally ill by Gertrude Schwing

Abstract

Despite the skepticism and indifference to group psychotherapy that existed in the 1950s and 1960s within the psychoanalytic community in general and among the staff and administration of the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas in particular, a few clinicians there forged ahead in pursuit of incorporating this modality as an accepted treatment. After gaining some acceptance first in the hospital, we experienced a slow rate of growth, except with our trainees who were generally enthusiastic about group work. Many of them were intrigued first by their exposure to the group dynamics seminars and later by the didactic courses and supervised group work that eventually came to be required by the accrediting body for residency programs of the American Psychiatric Association. Visiting senior consultants and teachers, mainly associated with the American Group Psychotherapy Association, as well as an esteemed clinician from the Tavistock Clinic, also lent credibility and legitimacy to our effort. When group treatment began to be adopted by units of the Menninger Hospital in the early 1970s, there was a significant sea change in the attitude of the organization and group psychotherapy became a well established modality.     

Psychoanalysis and the Education of the Child by Gerald H. J. Pearson

A conceptualization is presented which encourages a renewed exploration of the way in which psychiatric patients discuss their medications in the group therapy setting. It is suggested that process-oriented group therapiststend to harbor subtle prejudices which may inhibit examination of this material. If we listen to medication-related discourse more carefully, we find that patients disclose important information about hopes and fears about treatment, self-efficacy, attitudes about control and authority, and other sensitive or disowned parts of experience. The process of interactions about medicines often reveals interpersonal difficulties, particularly around intimacy. Suggestions for intervening more effectively with this type of material are presented. The importance of medication attributions in revealing curative fantasies is discussed.     

The puzzling rabbis

Religion is one of the cultural systems that attempts to deal with human puzzlement. This paper uses the metaphor of the puzzle to make sense of what has always been a disconcerting feature of rabbinic Judaism, namely, the rabbis’ (200–600 C.E.) blatantly ad hoc manner of interpreting Scripture. The rabbis seem to know in advance what a verse must mean and go to great lengths to find a legitimation of that reading in the verse in question. Typically this ad hoc quality of rabbinic interpretation is explained as a means whereby the rabbis provide ‘prooftexts’ for new practices without Scriptural warrants. But what from one perspective appears as an attempt to find prooftexts is from another perspective an attempt to solve a puzzle. Conceptually speaking, solving a puzzle and finding prooftexts are worlds apart. This paper treats the rabbis as an inter‐generational community of puzzle solvers involved in the quest to discover how the oral Torah is already contained in the written Torah. Like all matching puzzles, this one is necessarily ad hoc.

The intellectual seeks in various ways, the casuistry of which extends into infinity, to endow his life with a pervasive meaning, and thus to find unity within himself, with his fellow men, and with the cosmos (Weber 1925, 1978 p. 506).

Analysis into parts is not really so important in these societies as is the periodic construction or reconstruction of the whole. The whole is what is truly edifying, and its reconstruction is a purpose which puzzlement can subtly serve (Fernandez, 1986, p. 179).     

Capuchin monkeys’ use of human and conspecific cues to solve a hidden object-choice task

Learning by watching others can provide valuable information with adaptive consequences, such as identifying the presence of a predator or locating a food source. The extent to which nonhuman animals can gain information by reading the cues of others is often tested by evaluating responses to human gestures, such as a point, and less often evaluated by examining responses to conspecific cues. We tested whether ten brown capuchin monkeys (Cebus [Sapajus] apella) were able to use cues from monkeys and a pointing cue from a human to obtain hidden rewards. A monkey could gain access to a reward hidden in one of two locations by reading a cue from a conspecific (e.g., reaching) or a human pointing. We then tested whether they could transfer this skill from monkeys to humans, from humans to monkeys, and from one conspecific to another conspecific. One group of monkeys was trained and tested using a conspecific as the cue-giver and was then tested with a human cue-giver. The second group of monkeys was trained and tested with a human cue-giver and was then tested with a monkey cue-giver. Monkeys that were successful with a conspecific cue-giver were also tested with a novel conspecific cue-giver. Monkeys learned to use a human point and conspecific cues to obtain rewards. Monkeys that had learned to use the cues of a conspecific to obtain rewards performed significantly better than expected by chance when they were transferred to the cues of a novel conspecific. Monkeys that learned to use a human point to obtain rewards performed significantly better than expected by chance when tested while observing conspecific cues. Some evidence suggested that transferring between conspecific cue-givers occurred with more facility than transferring across species. Results may be explained by simple rules of association learning and stimulus generalization; however, spontaneous flexible use of gestures across conspecifics and between different species may indicate capuchins can generalize learned social cues within and partially across species.     

Association Between Socio-Ecological Risk Factor Clustering and Mental,Emotional, and Behavioral Problems in Hispanic Adolescents

Compared to non-Hispanic whites, Hispanic adolescents in the U.S. report higher rates of several mental, emotional, and behavioral problems such as substance use, sexual risk behaviors, and internalizing and externalizing problems. There is evidence of common pathways in the development of mental, emotional, and behavioral problems with certain subgroups of Hispanic adolescents being at greater risk. In the present article, we report analysis of baseline data for 959 Hispanic adolescents who participated in one of two randomized controlled trials evaluating a family-based preventive intervention. Utilizing latent class analysis, we identified subgroups of Hispanic adolescents based on socio-ecological risk and protective factors (e.g., parent–adolescent communication, parental involvement in school). Three distinct socio-ecological risk subgroups (high, medium, and low risk) were identified and exhibited significant differences from each other across a majority of socio-ecological risk and protective factors. Adolescents in higher socio-ecological risk subgroups reported greater mental, emotional, and behavioral problems across all outcomes. Individual comparisons revealed significant differences between the low socio-ecological risk group and both the medium and high socio-ecological risk group in lifetime alcohol use, smoking, and sex, as well as internalizing and externalizing problems. Implications for intervention include focusing on specific risk subgroups and targeting shared risk and protective factors rather than specific mental, emotional, and behavioral outcomes.     

Heterosexual, lesbian, and gay male relationships: a comparison of couples in 1975 and 2000

This study examined the differences among lesbians, gay men, and heterosexuals at two points in time (1975 and 2000) using responses of 6,864 participants from two archival data sets. Groups were compared on variables representing equality of behaviors between partners in seven realms: traditionally "feminine" housework, traditionally "masculine" housework, finances, support, communication, requesting/refusing sex, and decision-making. In addition, the current study compared monogamy agreements and monogamy behaviors reported by the two cohorts of couple types. Overall, the results indicate that on the equality variables, there have been many statistically significant behavioral shifts among the different sexual orientations across 25 years. In addition, all couple types reported substantially greater rates of monogamy in the year 2000 than in 1975. The present study has important clinical implications for therapists working with couples because it provides new baseline evidence regarding how couples now interact with one another (especially about monogamy) and how this has shifted over time. In addition, it elucidates the differences that still exist between different couple types, which could serve to inform couple therapists as they strive to become more culturally competent working with same-sex couples.