Tinnitus als soziale Infektion?

Background

11 out of 35 male employees of a central alert team with rescue coordination function developed a tinnitus disorder. This clinical case-study highlights the psychodynamic background of this accumulation.

Methods

Employees were investigated by psychometric questionnaires and semistructured psychodynamic biografical interviews. Additionally aspects of group dynamics and organisational structure were assessed.

Results

All staff members reported adverse work conditions. Medical and psychometric examination of the tinnitus patients did not reveal severe pathological findings. The interviews identified psychodynamic conflicts dealing with autonomy and regulation of self-esteem. All tinnitus patients reported a very adverse or punitive father relation and difficulties in performing a stabile male role and self-image. Group dynamics was dominated by paranoid and regressive tendencies complicated by maladaptive coping, crude perception of external facts and a pronounced experience of aggressive impulses.

Conclusion

The remobilisation of infantile powerlessness, ineffectiveness and helplessness triggered by adverse work conditions and the introduction of a new culture of personal responsibility within the work organisation together with an impaired coping of separation conflicts enforced by traumatic aspects of the relation with the father may have promoted the tinnitus symptomatology. Additionally, due to the missing awareness of the importance of such group dynamical processes the employers contributed to an increasing psychosocial distress, which promoted the accumulated manifestation of tinnitus as a conflict expressive symptom.     

AUGMENTING SIMPLIFIED HABIT REVERSAL IN THE TREATMENT OF ORAL-DIGITAL HABITS EXHIBITED BY INDIVIDUALS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

We investigated whether a simplified habit reversal treatment eliminates fingernail biting and related oral-digital habits exhibited by individuals with mild to moderate mental retardation. Although simplified habit reversal did little to decrease the target behaviors for 3 of 4 participants, simplified habit reversal plus additional treatment procedures decreased the behavior to near-zero levels for all participants. These procedures included remote prompting, remote contingencies involving differential reinforcement plus response cost, and differential reinforcement of nail growth. Limitations of habit reversal for individuals with mental retardation along with directions for future research involving therapist-mediated treatment procedures, particularly those involving remote prompting and remote contingencies, are discussed.     

Dinergy: The Primordial Meta-Pattern in Nature

In Answer to Job, Jung quotes Tertullian from his De Testimonio Animae: “What you allow to the mistress you will assign to the disciples.” Nature is the mistress and we are all potential disciples.

If we look carefully and sympathetically at nature, we see that she is a process with one main overlying meta-pattern. All stable patterns in nature contain a balance of forces, a kind of reconciliation of opposites. This is true from the formation of hydrogen soon after the Big Bang, through the process of star formation and in the biological functions of living systems. One of the more beautiful ways to understand this concept of dinergy is to look at the pattern formations on the surface of seashells. Just as the telescope has enabled us to understand the process and pattern of planetary motions, so has the computer enabled a better understanding of weather patterns and the patterning on seashells.

Although the neo-Darwinists would have us believe that such intricate and beautiful designs must have some survival benefit, I think that the deeper insight into nature comes from Thomas Mann (1947/1999 Mann, T. (1999). Doctor Faustus. New York: Vintage. (Original work published 1947) [Google Scholar]) in his novel Doctor Faustus, in which he wrote that “meaning and design always run alongside one another” (p. v). These patterns are a manifestation of process and emergence. But most importantly, these patterns represent an essential feature in all dynamic systems: that is, a positive feedback that self-enhances the initial deviation from the mean. However, sooner or later, self-enhancing processes evoke antagonistic (opposing) reactions. Of course, Jung understood this long before systems theory, as enantiodromia.     

Americans Value Happiness, But Block Required Policies

In his book “The Politics of Happiness” Derek Bok argues that happiness should be a goal in public policy. He presents an inventory of social problems in the US with negative effects on happiness, like inadequate education, chronic pain, sleep disorders, depressions, divorce, single-parent families, and financial hardship. He presents interesting options to deal with these problems. He also pays attention to some more general happiness-issues for US-policymakers, like the question of economic growth without happiness and the reputation of the US-government. Bok’s findings are consistent with available data about the high levels of negative feelings in the US: stress, depressions, sadness, anger and worry. His message is quite clear: policy-makers can use the findings of happiness-research to improve their decisions.