The Suicide of Seymour Glass

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the suicide of Seymour Glass, a major character in J. D. Salinger's fiction and utilizes the “psychological autopsy” technique as a framework for investigating the psychodynamics of Seymour's death. Based upon materials provided throughout Salinger's stories, the suicide is analyzed in terms of five major elements related to Seymour's emotional state and manifest behaviors: (1) details of the death; (2) personal history; (3) level of perturbation; (4) personality and life-style; and (5) intention and lethality of the act. Additionally, this essay posits various interpretations of the suicide and allows for insights into the psychodynamic functioning of a major literary character.     

Event memory and suggestibility in abused and neglected children: trauma-related psychopathology and cognitive functioning

This study examined event memory and suggestibility in 3- to 16-year-olds involved in forensic investigations of child maltreatment. A total of 322 children were interviewed about a play activity with an unfamiliar adult. Comprehensive measures of individual differences in trauma-related psychopathology and cognitive functioning were administered. Sexually and/or physically abused children obtained higher dissociation scores than neglected children, and sexually abused children were more likely to obtain a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder than physically abused children, neglected children, and children with no substantiated abuse histories. Overall, older children and children with better cognitive functioning produced more correct information and fewer memory errors. Abuse status per se did not significantly predict children’s memory or suggestibility whether considered alone or in interaction with age. However, among highly dissociative children, more trauma symptoms were associated with greater inaccuracy, whereas trauma symptoms were not associated with increased error for children who were lower in dissociative tendencies. Implications of the findings for understanding eyewitness memory in maltreated children are discussed.     

Wives' higher neuroticism scores: Some more relevant factors

Findings from two studies suggest two factors that may contribute to statictics showing wives as having higher levels of neuroticism than husbands: firstly, brides have higher scores than grooms at the point of marriage and thereafter their scores appear to fall in these cross-sectional samples; the problem of wives' higher scores may therefore be partly determined by a factor opearting prior to marriage. The second factor appears to be marital divergence on E, which is positively correlated with N scores in wives but not in husbands. Additionally, marital divergence is associated with poor communication, and divergence appears to be better predictor of wives' neuroticism than whether or not wives are employed outside the home.     

Nicotine and familial vulnerability to schizophrenia: a discordant twin study

Tobacco use is significantly associated with schizophrenia. However, it is not clear if smoking is associated with the illness itself, treatment, or underlying vulnerability to the disease. Smoking was studied in a sample of schizophrenic probands (n = 24), their unaffected co-twins (n = 24), and controls (n = 3,347). Unaffected co-twins had higher rates of daily smoking than controls. Probands and co-twins were more frequently unsuccessful in attempts to quit than controls. Probands reported shaky hands and depression following smoking cessation more often than controls, whereas unaffected co-twins reported difficulty concentrating, drowsiness, nervousness, and headache following smoking cessation more often than controls. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that nicotine use is influenced by familial vulnerability to schizophrenia, not just clinical schizophrenia per se.     

A twin study of the association between pathological gambling and antisocial personality disorder

Many individuals with a history of pathological gambling (PG) also have a history of engaging in antisocial behaviors, and this has often been interpreted as a result of the former causing the latter. In a sample of 7,869 men in 4,497 twin pairs from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry, the authors examined (a) the association between PG and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), (b) the extent to which PG might be differentially associated with childhood conduct disorder (CD) and adult antisocial behavior (AAB), and (c) the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to the association of PG with ASPD, CD, and AAB. PG was significantly associated with all 3 antisocial behavior disorders, and the association of PG with ASPD, CD, and AAB was predominantly explained by genetic factors. The results of this study suggest that the greater-than-chance co-occurrence of PG and antisocial behavior disorders is partially due to their sharing a common genetic vulnerability. The antisocial behavior observed among many individuals with PG probably cannot be interpreted as being simply a consequence of the PG.