Pastoral work,metacommunication and myth

The writer discusses two phenomena the pastoral counselor encounters in work with families and individuals: family survival myths and individual survival myths or fatal statements. Family survival myths are inefficient defense mechanisms, directed at the support of the parental relationship and the maintenance of the family balance. Fatal statements are expressions inherited from the family of origin. They function as myths and are intended to help one survive. From his perspective the pastor can, through a process of metacommunication, open the possibility to discuss the myth and so help people to free themselves from an unhealthy and life inhibiting bondage.     

A note on sufficient conditions that a common factor will be determinate in an infinite domain of variables

It is proved for the common factor model withr common factors that under certain condition s which maintain the distinctiveness of each common factor a given common factor will be determinate if there exists an unlimited number of variables in the model each having an absolute correlation with the factor greater than some arbitrarily small positive quantity.The author is indebted to R. P. McDonald for suggesting the proof of Guttman's determinantal equation for the squared multiple correlation in predicting a factor from the observed variables used in the parenthetical note.     

Personal meaning as therapy: The roots and branches of Frankl's psychology

In recent years, Victor E. Frankl, the Viennese psychiatrist who is the founder of what has come to be known as the Third Viennese School of Psychology — Freud and Adler constituting the founders of the other two schools — has emerged as the leading proponent in psychotherapeutic circles of the centrality of the experience of “meaning” in mental health.” The goal of human life, argues Frankl, is to find meaning and order in the world for “me” personally and “us” collectively — both as an individual and a social sense of purpose and orderliness of the inner and outer environment. This paper attempts to identify—within the framework of the Jewish mystical tradition — the sources and origins of Frankl's scientific constructs in psychotherapy, and their manifestations in psychoreligious therapeutics.     

The logic of viewpoints

In this paper a propositional logic of viewpoints is presented. The language of this logic consists of the usual modal operatorsL (of necessity) andM (of possibility) as well as of two new operatorsA andR. The intuitive interpretations ofA andR are “from all viewpoints” and “from some viewpoint”, respectively. Semantically the language is interpreted by using Kripke models augmented with sets of “viewpoints” and with a new alternativeness relation for the operatorA. Truth values of formulas are evaluated with respect to a world and a viewpoint. Various axiomatizations of the logic of viewpoints are presented and proved complete. Finally, some applications are given.     

Nondeterministic three-valued logic: Isotonic and guarded truth-functions

Nondeterministic programs occurring in recently developed programming languages define nondeterminate partial functions. Formulas (Boolean expressions) of such nondeterministic languages are interpreted by a nonempty subset of {T (“true”), F (“false”), U (“undefined)}. As a semantic basis for the propositional part of a corresponding nondeterministic three-valued logic we study the notion of a truth-function over {T, F, U} which is computable by a nondeterministic evaluation procedure. The main result is that these truth-functions are precisely the functions satisfying four basic properties, called \( \subseteq \) -isotonic, \( \subseteq \) ^?-isotonic, hereditarily guarded, and hereditarily guard-using, and that a function satisfies these properties iff it is explicitly definable (in a certain normal form) from “if..then..else..fi”, binary choice, and constants.     

Emotional deceit: False words versus false action

What speaks louder, false words or false action? Raters assessed the anxiety level of 10 actors portraying their actual anxiety level and simulated displays of high anxiety. Raters were required to base judgments on either video cues alone or audio cues alone. Findings indicate that false words speak louder than false action, with audio-based judgments generating greater judgmental error in both straight and dissembled anxiety conditions. Although raters expressed equal confidence in judgments based on either verbal or nonverbal cues, results indicated that verbal cues played a larger role in emotional deceit. Differences between real and simulated anxiety cues were delineated, suggesting ways of detecting emotional deception. Results were discussed in light of current thought regarding channel contribution in deception.     

Cognitive performance deficits induced by exposure to response-independent positive outcomes

Private secondary school students differing in achievement motivation took part in a learned helplessness experiment using a triadic design and noncontingent rewards. A clear learned helplessness effect was observed in both high and low achievement motivation groups. The findings confirmed those from an earlier study using younger subjects drawn from a lower socioeconomic background. However, the results of both experiments were quite different from those of another recently reported investigation using university students that found facilitation as well as an interaction between achievement motivation level and treatment (Jardine & Winefield, 1981). It is concluded that the development of learned helplessness probably depends on the kind of environment in which noncontingent outcomes are experienced.     

Encoding dimensions of subject-performed tasks

Summary In an experiment modelled upon the classical paradigm on release from proactive interference (PI), subjects were required to remember series of actions they had performed (e.g., roll the ball, fold the paper). The objects involved in these subject-performed tasks (SPTs) served as a basis for build-up and release of PI. The objects used in the first few trials of the experiment belonged to the same class (e.g., parts of the body), causing a build up of PI. A shift to a different class of objects (e.g., kitchen utensils) along four different dimensions (taxonomic category, weight, color, and size) was introduced to cause a release of PI. On the basis of PI-release experiments with words it was expected that shifts in taxonomic category would result in a greater release than shifts within any of the physical dimensions. However, the results revealed that the amount of PI release was, in general, larger than expected, and essentially the same for all four dimensions investigated. The results are discussed in terms of the nature of the memory representation of SPTs, and with regard to possible processing differences between SPTs and verbal information. In addition, methodological suggestions for furthering the understanding of the encoding and storage of action events are advanced.     

Training in child and adolescent group therapy: Two surveys and a model

Although group therapy is widely used in the treatment of children and adolescents, there has been little attention paid to establishing training standards and developing comprehensive programs for training psychiatry fellows in child and adolescent group psychotherapy. The authors conducted two surveys of child and adolescent training programs. After reviewing the literature, they present the data from their surveys, compare similarities and differences, and discuss trends. Finally, they propose a model for training in child and adolescent group therapy.