From eating disorders to women's situations: Extending the boundaries of psychological inquiry

This paper seeks to extend feminist critiques of the prevalent psychiatric approaches to the eating disorders. It also includes a critique of feminists' writings that make assumptions similar to, and hence suffer from some of the same theoretical weaknesses as, the prevalent clinical literature. The main purpose is to contribute to the development of a social-historical approach to the study of the relentless pursuit of thinness among women. The social-historical approach is contrasted with individualistic psychological, family systems and multidimensional accounts of anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Potential directions suggested by feminist and social-historical analyses of the relentless pursuit of thinness among women are briefly described.     

Conceptualising,designing and drafting a monthly multi-family therapy programme and manual for adolescents with anorexia nervosa

The written transmission of therapists' expertise in manuals is an important issue which is highlighted in the literature. Manuals are essential for research, training and therapeutic guidance. However, the conceptualisation, design and drafting of therapy manuals have received little attention. Our team conceptualised and designed a 10-monthly session multi-family therapy programme for adolescents suffering from anorexia nervosa. This paper presents the methodology used to evolve from training and theoretical models to designing a programme and drafting the accompanying manual. We then describe how our team reached a consensus regarding the role to be attributed to food-related symptoms in the programme. These arduous tasks were rewarded by fruitful discussions among team members, which led to a shared theory of treatment. The methodology presented here is drawn from both the experience of specialised teams and from that of families in providing care to adolescents with anorexia nervosa.     

Pretrial EEG coherence as a predictor of semantic priming effects

Twenty subjects were presented 240 randomized trials of a lexical decision task (LDT) while connected to a 16-electrode EEG montage. EEG data were acquired for 2 sec prior to the onset of each LDT trial. Alpha (9-13 Hz) coherence, alpha power, and 3- to 30-Hz power from five different combinations of EEG electrodes were used to predict semantic effects in the LDT trials. High pretrial coherence in the Right Hemisphere and Left Posterior-Parietal regions was associated with greater semantic facilitation (faster reaction times) in related-prime trials and greater semantic inhibition (slower reaction times) in unrelated-prime trials, relative to neutral-prime trials. No power variables were associated with semantic effects. Results support an information flow model of the functional significance of EEG coherence to cognitive processing.     

A comparison of sexually dysfunctional, maritally disturbed and well-adjusted couples

Married couples seeking sex therapy, marital therapy, or no form of therapy were compared with respect to personality, sexual and marital functioning. The Sexual Dysfunction and Marital Difficulties groups (15 and 10 couples respectively) were obtained from the waiting lists of a sexual dysfunction service and marital therapy unit. Non-Problem subjects (15 couples) were from a volunteer sample. Personal adjustment, sexual and marital functioning were assessed by means of the Eysenck Personality Inventory, a Sexual Behavior Questionnaire, the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Survey, and the Azrin Marital Happiness Scale. Results indicated that although all three groups were within the normal range, problem couples had higher ‘neuroticism’ scores than did Non-Problem couples. Marital Problem couples were the most debilitated. Their marital adjustment was lowest, and their sexual functioning was comparable to the Sexual Dysfunction group. Marital adjustment of the Sexual Dysfunction couples was significantly higher than that of the Marital Difficulties couples. Therapeutic and theoretical implications of the differentiating characteristics in the three couple categories are discussed.