摘要:

Three theories about the cognitive processes underlying symptoms of formal thought disorder in psychiatric inpatients were tested. Chapman and Chapman's “excessive yielding to normal bias‘’ theory and a response competition theory were tested by using two ambiguity tasks. Chapman and Chapman's bias theory predicts a smaller ambiguity effect for thought-disordered patients; a response competition hypothesis predicts a larger ambiguity effect. Results showed no difference between thought-disordered and non-thought-disordered patients. To test a distractibility theory of thought disorder, subjects performed a Stroop-type task in which they counted the number of digits (e.g., 3333) or symbols (####) in a set. Thought-disordered patients did show an increased effect of the presence of the digits, and this finding was replicated in a second inpatient sample. Thus, results were consistent with the distractibility theory and with a reformulation of the bias theory, in which the bias shown by thought-disordered patients is not a tendency toward a particular response, but rather toward a particular rule, or set, for responding.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1985

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Female schizophrenics have been reported to have a better prognosis than male schizophrenics. However, earlier reports rarely used either operational criteria for schizophrenia or appropriate comparison groups. Using data collected as part of a long-term follow-up and family study, the authors examined outcome by sex of 186 schizophrenics, 212 depressives, 86 manics, and 145 surgical controls. When the authors controlled for differences in the age and sex distributions of the diagnostic groups, sex did not make a significant contribution to the explanation of outcome differences between diagnoses or within diagnoses. Examination of outcomes within diagnoses revealed only a nonsignificant trend for female manics to have a better long-term outcome than male manics.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1985

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Previous research on the visual span of apprehension procedure has interpreted the performance deficits commonly demonstrated by schizophrenic subjects as indicative of a core central processing deficit. Little research has directly investigated the existence of similar information-processing deficits in an auditory modality in these patients. In the present study, groups of schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic patients and a comparison group of normal subjects reported the occurrence of a target syllable in the presence of background speech. Schizophrenic subjects performed as well as subjects from both comparison groups in the simpler background conditions, but were significantly less able to identify the target in the presence of auditory distracters when greater amounts of information were available to be processed. These data support the nonmodality specific nature of the deficit.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1985

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

This investigation further examined the effects of activating unconscious symbiotic fantasies in schizophrenics. One hundred twenty-eight hospitalized schizophrenic men who qualified as “relatively differentiated” on the Adjective Rating Scale were randomly assigned to four groups. Each group was assessed for pathological thinking, pathological nonverbal behavior, and self-esteem before and after the subliminal exposure of an experimental and control stimulus. The control stimulus for all groups was the message PEOPLE ARE WALKING and the experimental stimuli were the messages MOMMY AND I ARE ONE, MOMMY IS ALWAYS WITH ME, MOMMY FEEDS ME WELL, and I CANNOT HURT MOMMY (one for each group). One half of each group was subliminally exposed to verbal messages only and one half to verbal messages accompanied by congruent pictures.The first stimulus (MOMMY AND I ARE ONE) was intended to activate unconscious symbiotic fantasies that in a number of prior studies reduced pathology in groups of relatively differentiated schizophrenics. The other stimuli were intended to activate reassuring unconscious fantasies about “mommy” that were not specifically symbiosis-related. Only the MOMMY AND I ARE ONE stimulus led to more adaptive behavior and did so on all three dependent variables. This supported the supposition, also borne out in two other studies, that it is specifically symbiosis-related gratifications that are ameliorative for schizophrenics.The above results were considerably stronger for the subgroup that was exposed to a picture accompanying the MOMMY AND I ARE ONE message. This was viewed as probably the result of the pictorial representation serving as a concretization of the more abstract verbal message and as such being more relevant to the relatively primitive mode of thinking in schizophrenia.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1985

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Age at first hospitalization, premorbid social competence, and developmental categorizations of symptomatology were examined in 228 male and 220 female patients in three diagnostic categories: major affective disorder, neuroses, and personality disorder. High social competence patients were older at first hospitalization than low competence individuals. Younger first admission patients showed more symptoms in the action category and in the role orientation of turning against others. Older patients more frequently displayed symptoms of the thought variety and of turning against the self. Gender differences in age at first hospitalization were not found. With respect to all developmental variables examined, the results suggest that a broader view of prognosis proposed in research with schizophrenic patients is applicable to nonschizophrenic groups.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1985

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Low levels of neuroticism have variably been associated with a better outcome of depressive disorders but the interpretation of this phenomenon is clouded by the knowledge that severity of depression may itself confound ratings of neuroticism. To clarify any relationship between neuroticism and outcome, the authors assessed the predictability of neuroticism (as assessed by questionnaire, psychiatrist rating, and subject self-report) in separate groups of psychiatric patients and symptomatic volunteers with nonmelancholic depression. Depressives' judgments of their own neuroticism correlated with neuroticism scores on the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI), but neither of these measures predicted improvement at 6 nor 20 weeks. Judgments of neuroticism made by psychiatrists, which did not correlate with EPI neuroticism scores, did predict improvement. The study suggests that differences in defining neuroticism contribute to its variable association with outcome and further suggests the relevance of clinically assessing neuroticism as a personality variable.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1985

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Thirty-one adult alcoholic men who suffered physical abuse during childhood (defined as repetitive, physically injurious punishment) were compared with a control group of alcoholic men without histories of child abuse. A similar comparison was made for an age-matched subgroup of 21 men. As adults, the abused alcoholic men demonstrated significantly more legal difficulties, domestic violence, and violence against authority figures than the controls. They also had a higher incidence of serious suicide attempts, suicidal drinking, and increased level of pervasive and situational anxiety. The behavioral consequences in adult alcoholic men abused as children were consistent with those seen in follow-up studies of abused children. Recognition of a history of child abuse was often important in the treatment of the aggressive alcoholic patient.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1985

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

Although investigators have attempted to define the paralinguistic characteristics of spontaneous speech, there have been no systematic attempts to study its verbal reflections. An experiment comparing extemporaneous and impromptu speech samples of 10 freshman medical students showed that, of 10 verbal categories, only qualifying phrases significantly differentiated the two levels of spontaneity. A second study compared post-World War II presidential communications of different degrees of spontaneity. Speech samples were taken from inaugural addresses of seven presidents, and from both introductory remarks and responses to questions at their press conferences. The proportion of qualifying phrases significantly decreased as the amount of preparation increased, confirming the results of the student experiment. The use of qualifying phrases appears to represent, in part, an attempt by the speaker to avoid silence while retrieving and encoding memories from long-term storage.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1985

数据来源: OVID

摘要:

A hospitalized 22-year-old woman had suffered from Wilson's disease for the past 11 years. The diagnosis was confirmed by hepatic nonspecific changes, high copper urine excretion, and low to zero serum ceruloplasmin, but psychiatric symptomatology was the main manifestation of the disease.The history of treatment modalities and a controlled trial with penicillamine revealed a clear priority of this drug over phenothiazines in abolishing the psychotic features of the disease. The effective dose in this case was found to be over 1650 mg/day.The mental state, as measured by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, was clearly correlated to the dose of penicillamine. In addition, there was a tendency to increased copper excretion with penicillamine treatment. This case suggests a connection between copper brain poisoning and the related acute psychotic features, which responded well to penicillamine treatment.

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1985

数据来源: OVID

ISSN:0022-3018    

出版商:OVID    

年代:1985

数据来源: OVID