摘要:

This is a report on relationships between life crises and psychiatric impairment in a community sample of 938 adults in New Haven, Connecticut.It is part of a longitudinal study of the population of a community mental health center catchment area. The theoretical framework for the paper finds its roots in two bodies of socio-medical literature, namely, stress research and epidemiological field studies of mental illness. The specific research question is to determine whether or not there is a relationship between the occurrence of life events, the patterning of such events and the degree of psychological impairment.As in other field studies, we discovered a significant amount of psychiatric impairment in the community. Eighteen per cent of the adults interviewed were classified as having a high symptom level (very impaired), 47 per cent as a medium symptom level (moderately impaired), and 35 per cent as a low symptom level (unimpaired). More important, we found significant relationships between these scores and the occurrence of life events in the year previous to our interview. First, the greater the degree of impairment the more likely is the individual to have experienced at least one of 62 life events for which we gathered information. Equally important, there is a very strong association between the number of events experienced and the individual's mental status: the greater the number of events reported by respondents, the greater the proportional difference between the percentage of unimpaired and the percentage of very impaired who experienced that number of events. When events are categorized according to type of social activity, changes in the respondent's social field and degree of desirability impairment are strongly and positively related to the experiencing of life crises. Finally, similar patterns are found for each of the individual life events with the exception of several biopsychosocial situations associated with the family developmental cycle.Certain cultural and social factors, particularly role expectations and values, are discussed as possible factors helping to account for the relationshipsfound above between life crises and psychiatric impairment.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1971

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

There have been relatively few empirical investigations of the dimensions underlying rating of social and interpersonal functioning. Most social adjustment scales have evaluated functioning in terms of role areas such as work adjustment, marital adjustment, social and leisure adjustment. These ignore the possibility of consistent patterns of abnormality across roles.In this investigation a semistructural interview scale measuring social adjustment was administered to 40 female depressed patients and 40 normal women from the general population. Ratings were made on 48 items covering detailed aspects of social functioning. Internal consistencies of two alternative theoretical systems of grouping items were first explored by examining correlations of items with total scores for the group of items. The first system grouped items into six role areas of work, social and leisure, extended family, marital as spouse, parental,and family unit. The second system grouped items, irrespective of role,into five qualitative categories: satisfactions and feelings, global judgments,and ratings of actual behavior, further divided into performance,interpersonal relations, and friction. Both theoretical systems, and particularly that by role area, were found to include items that were heterogeneous in terms of shared variance.A factor analysis with varimax rotation was then performed. The social functioning of these subjects was adequately described by six orthogonal factors. These were easily interpretable and corresponded to work performance, interpersonal friction, inhibited communication,submissive dependency, family attachment and anxious rumination. Patients were significantly distinguished from normal controls by scores on all six factors, which appeared to summarize a diverse range of social maladjustments of depressed patients.These factors cut across role areas such as marital, or work, indicating important systematic elements which may be ignored if social functioning is evaluated solely in terms of such areas. The factor dimensions provide an alternative conceptual framework for describing the social maladjustment of depressed patients which may be more suitable for observing patterns of change and measuring the effects of psychotherapyor other treatments.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1971

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

This study compares two methods of eliciting family interaction—verbal discussion (discussion tasks) and note passing in a Commmunication network (communication network tasks). It asks whether role structure obtained by the communication network technique can be used as a substitute representation for family role structure obtained in verbal discussion tasks.A small sample of white, middle-class families consisting of other,father and adolescent child performed eight tasks in which they had to reach a single final decision on family relevant problems; four discussion tasks and four similar communication network tasks were used. Interaction of family members was scored for instrumental acts and volume of communication using a scheme modified from Bales IPA(1). Analysis of data showed that the communication network medium yielded 1) a significantly more equal influence and equal communication family role structure, 2) an influence structure which was more unusual or less expected than the role structure on discussion tasks, and 3) an influence structure which correlated significantly less well with the competence structure perceived by all family members.These results support the contention that the communication network cannot be substituted for the representation of role structure obtained from verbal discussion tasks. However, the purposes of family experiments are re-examined, and suggestions are made for alternative uses of the communication technique in the study of role structure, for example, as a way to manipulate the conditions under which a given role structure will maintain itself.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1971

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

It has been suggested that psychotherapy makes some persons better and some worse, and that this might explain why investigators have failed to demonstrate overall improvement by comparison with a control group.Other studies have inferred that this variance in psychotherapy outcome is related to therapist levels of empathy, warmth and genuineness.In a critical survey of the evidence, the experimental studies cited in support are reviewed separately.The review indicates that, with the exception of one study of which the findings were equivocal, the conclusion that psychotherapy may induce a mixture of improvement and deterioration rests upon a flimsy and poorly controlled or weakly documented base. Although it is important to realize that psychotherapy, like any other treatment, may have adverse effects, there is no convincing evidence that, in situations where psychotherapy is on the average ineffective, there is greater outcomevariation than in a control group.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1971

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

The role played in psychiatry by the psychiatrist's personal values is often disputed. Some have claimed that the personal values of qualified psychiatrists do not influence their professional judgment. Others have maintained that, while personal values do exercise an influence, this represents an unwarranted and to be avoided intrusion of the psychiatrist's personal life into his work. Part I of the present study gives an example ofthe factof personal values influencing the psychiatrist's professional judgment. A relationship was shown in the military situation between the medical judgment, “fit for duty,” and the personal values of a group of psychiatrists as determined by their personal response to a rating scale of relevant value judgments. Part II demonstrates by closer analysis of an individual case that the psychiatrist must at timesinevitablyintroduce his personal values in forming his professional judgment.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1971

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

The purpose of this study was to implement a token economy program in a correctional hospital. Forty-one low functioning male patients were studied regardless of diagnostic record or criminal offense. Patients selected were indifferent, apathetic, dependent, and institutionalized. The results indicate that behaviorally inactive patients engaged in reinforced activities in order to gain access to a variety of reinforcers. Token economy programs can be an effective treatment method in a maximum security correctional hospital.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1971

数据来源: OVID

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1971

数据来源: OVID

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1971

数据来源: OVID

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1971

数据来源: OVID

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1971

数据来源: OVID