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The relationship between the nervous stability of parents and subsequent nervous stability in children is of considerable interest scientists of human behavior. The writings psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, and other professionally interested persons testify major interesting this problem. A brief summary of the literature with respect to this problem suggests agreement on the following central ideas. The emotionally disturbed parent tends to be self-centered, egocentric, hostile, and aggressive. Such a parent is often preoccupied with the satisfaction of his or her personal needs and neglects the real needs of the child. The present study is one part of a larger report dealing with social factors in mental disorders. The sample consists of life histories of one thousand military personnel referred to a mental hygiene clinic for emotional difficulties. Said persons were psychiatrically screened and classified in accordance with U. S. Army medical rules and regulations. Statistical analysis of the data reported in this analysis consisted of comparing a diagnosed group in a particular category of nervous stability with the remaining sample in that category, in order to determine the significance of the difference.

This article analyzes the problem areas in marriage education in the U.S. in 1953. One crucial difficulty stems from the all inclusive area which marriage education attempts to cover. An examination of the majority of current textbooks in the field reveals several subject matters to be dealt with in courses in marriage education, which include sociology, social psychology, anatomy, and psychiatry. Another crucial problem comes from trying to cover areas of experience that are too close to common sense understandings, consist of materials with which the student is already familiar, or present materials of a type that can be easily acquired through readings outside a university class. Another difficulty is that of the middle class bias. This problem is one with which many may be familiar and little time will be spent in discussing it. These problems were representative for university students twenty years ago. Since the depression and particularly since World War II, large sections of sections of the college population have come from the lower middle, and lower class. Moreover, these problems are understandable in view of the history of marriage education. The difficulties that are being experienced would appear to be manifestations of differences among teachers.

This article presents information on the various obstacles faced by counselors in the marriage counseling. In this study the author has been impressed with certain attitudes of hopelessness regarding the possibility that people may change through counseling. Instances of such counselors are interesting to the author not only because such antagonistic attitudes toward counseling are expressed, but also because it raises the possibility that many other would-be counselors are equally hopeless with respect to change, although they may be unaware of their negative attitudes. It is the author's impression that probably many trainees become counselors without having fully resolved the issue of their own faith in the possibility of change through counseling and that at best many have ambivalence with respect to this question. Attitudes of hopelessness regarding change have important implications for the entire counseling process. To the extent the counselor is hopeless about the possibility of change, he operates primarily at the intellectual level. Such behavior is not to be mistaken for objectivity, certainly a prerequisite for any good counseling relationship.

The article presents a study of the life histories of a psychiatrically diagnosed group of 1000 U.S. Air Force personals. The purpose of the study was to test one facet of the of the social isolation hypothesis and to find out if social isolation is significantly related to the development of schizophrenia, which has been stated as the mental disorder that is the result of any form of isolation that cuts a person off from intimate social relations for an extended period of time. It was designed to compare a "No Mental Disease" category with the remaining categories for differences in number of reported childhood friends. The survey for the study was done through interaction with people from a non-hospitalized population representing different cultural regions and socioeconomic statuses in the United States. Various hypotheses had been laid down for the study and were later analyzed upon. The analysis of the study revealed that social isolation as measured by the number of childhood friends may be a common denominator to other mental disorders and is hence not exclusively associated with schizophrenia.

This article replies to a comment of Professor Earl Lomon Koos of University of Rochester in New York City on Professor Harman R. Lantz's analysis of problem areas in marriage education in the U.S. in 1953. Lantz was grateful to Koos for his comments. Still, Lantz believed that persons trained primarily in the science of human behavior fail in their total effectiveness when they become bogged down with household arts, life insurance programs and the technical details of sexual anatomy and physiology. The human behavior scientist can deal with the above areas on the level of value, role and attitudinal conflict. Further, the heretical hypothesis that an intellectual knowledge of sexual anatomy and physiology has very little to do with sexual adjustment or compatibility, the latter basically are social psychological phenomena. Finally, Lantz was sure that one can infer aspiration to middle class patterns from college attendance. Many of lower class students have emotional vested interests in earlier class patterns that are integral parts of their personalities. One must take increasing cognizance of the frame of reference from which students view family life. Differences between students and teachers in this regard are frequently in evidence.