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This paper reports the results of a case study on hysterical deafness. The subject was a 19-year-old girl with complete hysterical deafness. The main points of interest in this study were (1) the patient's electromyographic reaction to novel and intense auditory stimulation, (2) auditory conditioning, and (3) "conditioned responses (CR) therapy" The first auditory stimulation produced a startle reaction followed by marked emotional disturbance. Repetition of the same stimulus one minute later produced no reaction and no change in the patient's EMG record. Auditory conditioning was obtained in the deaf state and the procedure appeared useful therapeutically, since the patient recovered her hearing on the day following the CR session. In the deaf state CR's were mainly confined to muscle potentials. In the hearing state the large muscle potential components were significantly less frequent in the CR's which were mainly responses of finger movement.

Although many studies have been done in the framework of Rogerian theory, few have included the constructs of openness to experience and organismic valuing. Yet these occupy a central place in the structure of researcher C.R. Rogers theories of therapy, personality, and psychological adjustment, and as such deserve extensive study. The purpose of the present study was to test the Rogerian proposition that openness to experience and organismic valuing are positively related in a normal population. Because of the breadth of the definitions of these constructs, a strategy of conceptual-operational coordination advocated by researcher D.W. Fiske was followed. Each of the two large constructs was analyzed into several constituent, but smaller, subconstructs, which would presumably be more congruent with measurement operations. Openness to experience, according to Rogers refers to the complete availability of all stimulation to awareness, and to a perceptual-symbolic process whose function is to keep experience and symbolization congruent.

The article focuses on operant motor behavior (OMB) in acute schizophrenics. OMB seems best classified as a peripheral variable in terms of psychopathology. It is peripheral in the sense that functional psychopathology is generally viewed as fundamentally representing disturbances in interpersonal relationships. According to this frame of reference, a central variable in psychopathology would have to refer in some way to interpersonal processes. The following exploratory hypotheses were formulated for the investigation of operant motor behavior in 30 acute schizophrenics undergoing insulin coma therapy (a) severity of neuropsychiatric illness will be inversely related to rate of operant response, and (b) clinical improvement will be positively related to an increased operant rate. A personality organization-disorganization rating scale was constructed to measure severity of illness. The operant motor task involved pulling a plunger for rewards of candy and cigarettes. Further analysis of the data revealed a curvilinear relationship between severity of illness and operant rate. This relationship showed some promise in terms of offering a framework for predicting changes in operant rate when there was clinical improvement.

This article will begin with a few general comments on theory. Then some of the main points in the commentary will be illustrated by an example of the development and testing of a theory of approach avoidance conflict behavior. Finally, the discussion will include a brief resume of recent extensions of the theory to displacement, psychotherapy, and psychological effects of certain drugs. References will also be made to new experimental evidence relevant to these extensions. A theoretical model can be created as an intellectual game without any reference to specific phenomena in the real world. In order for a theory to be useful, the scientist must have some relatively unambiguous way of relating the terms in the theory to the phenomena that interest him. Some of the greatest difficulties of applying theory to phenomena of practical importance arise at the point of linking the antecedent conditions in the practical situation with those specified in the theoretical model. It may be difficult to measure the conditions in the practical situation, they may vary in unknown ways or be too complex for the theory to handle.

Group psychotherapy is a term with many different meanings. It is used in referring to a lecture by a therapist to a group of patients, it may mean a group of patients discussing their difficulties under the guidance of a therapist and finally, it may refer to the use of expanding interpersonal relationships within an integrated group as a medium of therapy. It is group psychotherapy only when the patients' participation in a group is the primary medium of therapy. The basic orientation was to translate the need for therapy into the need to develop a minimally comfortable community life. The patients were charged with the responsibility of treating themselves. The therapy staff was available but served only as interpreters, and then only when such help was requested. The patients were faced with the necessity of administering their community life, and handling all of the problems of living together as a group twenty-four hours a day. Apart from adhering to a few military rules and a skeleton schedule, the patients were free to meet this responsibility in any way they saw fit. Social controls, leadership, therapy activity, and social organization were to come from within the group. Provision was made for any materials the patients requested.