Search

The article discusses the dimension of values, and compares compassion and compulsion, which, according to author William Eckhardt, are the central concern of philosophies and religions of the world. It states that compassion is guided by the principal of coherence and includes standards for judging the authenticity. Some of the standards are said to be universality, eternity, unity, honesty and freedom. It also talks about the conceptual analysis of compassion and compulsion, and operational definitions of conceptual components.

The article presents a study which is aimed to describe and compare the prevalence patterns of completed suicide and so-called 'attempted suicide' or parasuicide in Edinburgh, Scotland during 1970. All suspicious deaths including accidents were investigated to detect cases of completed suicide. Results indicated that hospitalized parasuicides in Edinburgh were representative of all parasuicides detected, parasuicide and suicide are distinct and have different causes, suicide and parasuicide rates varied with area of residence, and that the two are related.

The article describes the contract therapy in couple with obsessive-compulsive neurosis and with marital discord. The treatment consisted of asking each spouse to list the behavior in the other; each then agreed to carry out a previously specific activity which the other desired. The authors stress that the treatment departed from the traditional conjoint therapy approach and resembled the contact therapy. The technique described in behavioral terms are presented, while stressing that it could also be conceptualized in other ways.

The article presents a comparative review of patients with obsessional neurosis and with depression treated by psychosurgery. It aimed to assess the value of this method of treatment and also to attempt to identify factors which might have prognostic significance. Results showed that obsessionals who did poorly tended to have illness of an earlier onset compared to those who did well, and their illnesses tended to have begun suddenly. In case of the depressed group, the age onset showed no relationship to outcome, and there was a tendency for illness of gradual onset to have a better prognosis. Other significant results of the study are provided.

The article offers a critical look on the explanations of obsessional neurosis. According to the authors, most explanations of the obsessional symptom are based on the assumption that what requires to be explained is its anxiety-reducing function. She stresses that this assumption is closely linked with the widely held view that the defining characteristic of an obsession is a feeling of compulsion accompanied by internal resistance. The new definition stated that it is an activity performed in accordance with rules designed to give rise or prevent some state of affairs by any rational justification. The implication of this definition for explanations of the obsessional ritual are examined.

The article informs that maladjustment has been explained as "repetition compulsion" or as the imposition of past perceptions upon present experience. Repetition of the past involves not only inaccurate perceptual content, but more especially a structure-bound manner of experiencing. There is experiencing of structures and patterns instead of the richly detailed immediacy of present events. It follows that immediacy of experiencing is a mark of adjustment. Increased immediacy of experiencing has also been viewed as inherent in the process of therapy.

The article presents a study, which aims to determine whether factor analysis would yield interpretable factors, and more specifically, whether the expected factor structure similar to the five impulse areas that form the premise for item adoption would emerge. The Self-Report Test of Impulse Control (STIC), designed to measure the five impulse areas of Impulse Toward Happiness, Impulse Toward Liberty, Social impulse, Sex impulse and Cognitive impulse, was developed to provide a more useful measure of human impulse life than is presently available.

The article focuses on a psychological state of confusion between subject and the object where the subject or ego, is solely concerned with artificial attempts to keep itself intact. This confusion between subject and object belongs to a very primitive level of psychological development where there is not much awareness of what is inside and what is outside. This condition leaves the subject in one-person situation where invasions compulsive efforts to drive out, or separate from the invaders unceasingly recur.

The article presents information on morbid impulses. The study of morbid impulses is very important because of the graves consequences to which they may lead from social and medico-legal standpoints. The most important characteristic features in neuropathic individuals are found in their psychical sphere. The development of their intellectual faculties is irregular and there is a want of equilibrium in these faculties. Such individuals are only partial, incomplete beings. They may have a remarkable memory but cannot fix their attention. They may be eccentric, dreamers, with romantic tendencies. They are emotional, timid, extremely sensitive, impressionable, suspicious, egotistic, haughty and may be affected with moral perversity of the gravest nature. Above all, the best illustration of the loss of psychical equilibrium is found in obsessions and morbid impulses. The latter is the consequence of the first. A neuropath who becomes fatigued, whose nervous system becomes exhausted, may develop obsessions and morbid impulses. In determining the nature of and the motives for morbid impulses only a prolonged and thorough examination will help the medico-legal expert to form an impartial opinion.

Behaviour therapy provides important psychotherapeutic possibilities for the treatment of dermatological disorders. Compulsive scratching and trichotillomania can be treated by aversive conditioning, or by the token economy technique. The treatment of blushing is described; assertive training is useful for patients with symptomatic erythema and erythrophobia. Hyperhidrosis can be treated by assertive training and systematic desensitization. A new and important addition to the therapeutic possibilities available to the psychotherapist treating dermatological patients is the recently developed technique of behaviour therapy. Behaviour, or conditioning, therapy uses experimentally established principles of learning for the purpose of changing unadaptive behaviour. This unadaptive or neurotic behaviour is seen as a consequence of a faulty learning process and the aim of treatment is to weaken or eliminate them and to initiate and strengthen adaptive habits (Wolpe, 1969). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe 8 cases of trichotillomania in women in which the scalp exhibits a cropped appearance over the crown, extending to the frontal margin in some cases, but sparing the nape of the neck and lateral margins. The condition has persisted with no improvement for periods up to 17 years in one case. The hair on the affected area is mostly less than 3 cm. long and of normal texture. Many of the short hairs have a tapered hypopigmented tip and when groups of hairs are plucked only anagen roots are found. There is no microscopical abnormality of the hair shaft and no exclamation mark hairs have been extracted. The only explanation for the persistence of newly growing short anagen hairs is the continual plucking of all those exceeding 3 cm. length. All the patients but one repeatedly denied interfering with their hairs even after the significance of the changes in hair growth had been explained to them. In all the cases except one, psychiatric assessment showed a provocative social situation and personality traits likely to result in a disorder such as trichotillomania. The disorder has many features in common with idiopathic trichoclasia as described by Sabouraud and other French writers. It could be mistaken for a congenital hair dystrophy and we believe other cases have been shown as "diffuse alopecia areata". The tonsural pattern may be determined by a higher threshold for pain in the centre of the scalp than at the margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the findings of three cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder in pre-Communist China with a view to raising some theoretical issues of general interest. These cases were studied by means of psychoanalytic methods but from a social-psychiatric point of view. According to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, obsessive symptoms are essentially substitutive infantile sexual activities to which the individual has regressed because of his inability to meet the demands of normal genital functioning after puberty or because of his failure to satisfy his libidinal desires in a normal way later in life. Applying this point of view to the study of Chinese character structure, one author observed, and correctly, that Chinese parents, as a rule, do nor impose strict toilet training early on the child. The facts, however, do not support such an optimistic view, for while the Chinese might not be compulsive about time or what the Westerners consider as truth, in the days before the Republic, they were notorious for the minister's fanatic loyalty to his emperor, the son's obsessive filial piety to his parents and the wife's superhuman chastity or loyalty to her husband, dead or alive.

The article deals with the growing concern for emphasizing human relations and community leadership in the professional education of school administrators. The choosing and training of standard ideal school administrators who are interchangeable in many typical school situations is unrealistic. The stress now is on the unique personality of each who is chosen or who chooses to devote his life to school administration and the stress should include the unique personalities of the human beings with whom he deals. It is an emphasis on dealing with people as people rather than as things or statistics. It recognizes that feelings are facts and must be added to the sheer logic of intelligence if one is to understand motivation and the pattern of human behavior. The editors point out carefully that there is a difference in working relations when we view the internal direction of human behavior in terms of attitudes and perceptions as contrasted to the external compulsion of human behavior based on a rigid application of the S-R bond psychology.

This article focuses on re-education as a social therapy to treat social disorder among compulsive drinkers. Most of them do not like the idea of re-education as an expression of what they are supposed to need. It implies that they are mis-educated or uneducated and that some academic authority now proposes to enlighten them about the disadvantages of their drinking behavior. This they resent. With few exceptions, alcoholics are perfectly aware of the unhappiness and pain which drinking brings to them and their families. Their dilemma consists precisely in the fact that no amount of such knowledge seems to help. Somehow the craving always wins out. Knowledge of consequences does not stop the craving. Nevertheless, re-education in the broadest sense must take place if the addict is to lose his compulsion. Of course, it is always necessary to deal with the physical complications brought about by the excessive intake of alcohol, but this is not enough. Getting the drinker dried out, restoring his intake of food and vitamins and the like are only first steps.

This article presents the main assumptions and processes of a model for the analysis and prediction of behaviour, mainly on the molar level. Analysis of findings concerning the orienting reflex shows that a cognitive determination of the input's denotative meaning (‘meaning action’) is an indispensable antecedent for the elicitation of the orienting reflex, adaptive and defensive reactions, and CRs. If these responses fail to cope with the stimulus situation, meaning is further elaborated (‘meaning generation’). Interaction between the input's connotative meaning and the cognitive orientation components (beliefs about self, norms, goals and environment) produces a ‘cognitive orientation cluster’, manifested in a ‘behavioural intent’, which turns into behavioural output through the mobilization and adaptation of innate and learned ‘plans’. Supportive empirical findings and general theoretical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the personality dimensions, which are linked to creative potential. For the study, subjects were 311 adolescents who attended the Governor's school of North Carolina during 1963 and 1964. Subjects were classified on the basis of their revised art (RA) score and sex. RA scale is composed of 60 items, 30 of which are scored in the "Don't Like" direction and 30 in the "Like" direction. A fixed-model multivariate analysis of variance was performed on the group means of the adjective check list (ACL) personality scales. Forty-five subjects, all of who scored 40 or better on the RA scale, were classified on the basis of specialty and sex. A fixed-model multivariate analysis of variance was performed on the group means of the 24 ACL scales. The "High Creative" adolescent is characterized as an independent (nonconforming individual who is spontaneous, energetic, and enjoys expressing his will. The "Low Creative" adolescent, particularly the male, emerged as a somewhat compulsive individual with a strong desire to achieve.

The article talks about the inherent characteristics of and ways to resolve family conflicts. The article cites the sources of family conflict, which include compulsion, intimacy, smallness and change. It is stated that different preventive mechanisms are found in various societies, depending partly on the points at which their family system is especially vulnerable to conflict. Marriage education and premarital counseling are cited as the new preventive mechanisms in society. Among the instrumental mechanisms for resolving family conflicts include increased facilities for family living, priority systems for the use of limited facilities, enlargement of areas of autonomy and safety valves for reducing tension between family members. The processes of resolving family conflict is discussed.

The article discusses the research that examines the association of the localization of symptoms to the chest with depression. Information on previous and family histories, together with personality development and certain reactive factors, was collected from two groups of 33 patients with depression. Three psychological questionnaires were completed by each patient in examining the link between hypochondriasis and the obsessional personality. It was found that organic respiratory disease, health conscious obsessional personality, and lower respiratory tract disease were factors in the presence of localized symptoms to the chest in depression.

The article presents a study on the application of antiandrogen therapy or cyproterone acetate in deviant hypersexuality. The study has noted that the cyproterone acetate has been used mainly in Germany for a number of psychiatric syndromes, such as psychotic as well as non-psychotic in which uncontrollable and socially unacceptable sexual behavior are prominent. It has noted that a psychopathic male with uncontrollable and deviant sexual behavior was treated with the antiandrogen using cyproterone acetate 100 mg per day, for three weeks.

The article presents a study which discusses the division of childhood psychoses. They can be grouped into: (1) children with early onset and a slow chronic course; (2) children age three to five years with an acute course followed by regression; and (3) children aged over 5 years with a late onset and a fluctuating subacute course. Details of the researchers' ascertainment criteria in the study, the infantile psychosis and late onset psychoses are also discussed. Meanwhile, the study reported in the paper evaluates the value of distinction by age onset and creates the frequency of occurrence of the different signs in the different clinical groups.

The article discusses the concept of compulsive gambling and presents a case where 14 compulsive gamblers were treated using electrical aversion. The researchers gathered psychiatric history of the patients and gave emphasis on the onset of gambling, including the contributing factors that led to the gambling problem. A clinical assessment of the patients were also taken and at the time of the interview the patients were already heavily in debt because of excessive gambling. Results of the study concluded that only 5 out of the 14 patients were found to be free of gambling during a follow-up period of at least 12 months. Moreover, researchers concluded that the study yielded unsatisfactory results relative to the fluctuating behavior of a compulsive gambler.

The article presents a study on the varieties of pathological gambling. Pathological gambling is defined to be an excessive gambling that results to social, economic or psychological problems for the gambler or his family. The five varieties of pathological gambling are subcultural variety, neurotic variety, impulsive variety, psychopathic variety, and symptomatic variety. The most common cause of being engaged in pathological gambling is depression, in which gambling provides the gambler some relief from the symptoms of tension and depression.

The article reports on a study which investigates the success of repertory grid technique in measuring a known stable aspect of personality functioning. According to the researchers, the experimental evidence is consistent in showing high reliability in normal subjects as measured by Hysteroid/Obsessoid Questionnaire (HOQ). They reveal that in paralleling the HOQ, the repertory grid containing hysteroid/obsessoid traits is devised. The study reveals that the repertory grid did not perform satisfactorily as a questionnaire in the case. The study points out that using repertory grid in measuring the personality trait is unnecessarily tortuous.

The article presents a study on the behavior of the patients suffering from obsessional personality disorder using non-verbal material. It uses Vigotsky test of concept formation which consists of 22 blocks in five different colors, 6 different surface shapes, two heights and two sizes of horizontal surface. The trial was participated by 10 patients with obsessional personality disorder, 10 matched psychiatric control patients and 10 match normal controls. The results provide further evidence that anankasts tend to over-structure the material when classification is required. This simple sorting task suceeded in high-lighting differences between the groups in quantifiable and in general behavioral terms.

The article presents a study which categorizes a sample of 38 alcoholics according to their pattern of drinking. Of the 38 alcoholics, 16 were classified as compulsive or loss-of-control addicts, while the remaining were categorized as inability-to-abstain or delta alcoholics. Six of the 38 patients were misclassified by their discriminant function scores on personality tests and ward behavior ratings. Differences between the compulsive addicts and the inability-to-abstain or delta alcoholics were also emphasized.

The article presents a case of a compulsive horse race gambler treated by aversion therapy in Great Britain. A 37-year old man was referred as a result of his wife's complaints of debts incurred by reckless gambling. He has a 13-year history of compulsive gambling restricted to horse racing. Behavior analysts have interpreted compulsive gambling as an outlet for repressed ano-sadistic impulses and a form of masochism. Compulsive gambling could be considered a maladaptive behavior response required by learning.

The article presents a study concerning the psychological complications and therapeutic importance of separation of female twins admitted at the Academic Hospital of Psychiatry in Middlesex, England. Their family backgrounds, school history as well as the role of their twinship in the aetiology of their condition are discussed. Twin A confided that she felt unloved and sometimes misled people about her thoughts, however, improvement of her situation was achieved after several weeks of separation from her sister. Twin B showed behavior disturbance upon knowing the improvement of twin A fearing that she would be discharged from the hospital first.

The article reports a five to fifteen year follow-up study of 63 children with infantile psychosis and 63 control children attending the same clinic, and closely matched for age, sex and intelligence quotient in Maudsley Hospital in England. Both groups were examined by the authors and given individual psychiatric, neurological, social and psychological assessments. The social outcome at follow-up of the psychotic children was significantly worse than that of the control children. The developmental course of autism, speech, ritualistic and compulsive behavior, aggression and self-injury, hyperkinesis and other behavioral characteristics of the psychotic children are described.

The article presents a study which compares the perservation of chronic schizophrenia and organic dementia. It distinguishes the three kinds of perservation which include compulsive repetition, impairment of switching, and ideational perservation. Patients suffering from cerebral degeneration were given 16 tests devised to provide optimum circumstances for perservation to be manifested. Results of the study indicate that compulsive repetition is more prevalent in the schizophrenic group rather than in demented group. Meanwhile, extensive impairment of switching is more frequent in the demented.

The article presents a study which determines the comparison of pseudohallucinations, imagery, and true hallucinations. The study has utilized 72 patients who had experienced hallucinatory phenomena and statistical data were gathered using chi square method. Several factors were considered in determining various types of hallucinations which include mood change, premorbid personality, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Results of the study indicate that true hallucinations in clear consciousness tend to be associated with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Meanwhile, pseudohallucinations are associated with imagery in terms of obsessional and attention-seeking features.

The article discusses the study that determines the outcome of obsessional disorder in England. It provides information about patients suffering from obsessional disorder who had attended the University Department of Psychiatry of the Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1945 and 1959. It involves the progress report of patients in 100 cases, which represents 93.5 percent of the total material. They receive follow up over a period of six months to 14 years, and it is found that 64 percent were improved as far as symptoms were concerned with full social adaptation. Moreover, 40 percent reaches the point of recovery or very considerable improvement, while 77 percent of the whole receive full social adaptation.

The article presents psychiatric insights in marriage counseling. Factual information and common sense are not full equipment for marriage counseling. Compulsive disturbances, resting upon unconscious guilt, may be highly resistive to the common sense approach. Compulsive behavior may be defined as irrational conduct dictated by deeply rooted and forgotten childhood experiences that set up patterns of strong, chronic fear and defensiveness. In general, the emotional disturbance is in the nature of being fearful and under-responsive toward sex and the normal aggressive drives, while appearing easily hurt and depressed when confronted with irritations and responsibilities. When signs of major personality disorder are recognized in marriage candidates, it is not always wise to explain their full significance and implications. Young people about to enter marriage are full of hope and illusions. They are hard to turn from their course and often are defensive and resentful about having their attention bluntly focused upon personality defects. Tact and the creation of a warm personal relationship must be the primary concern of a counselor if he is to remain in a helpful position. He must be very cautious about creating hostility and panic. Often he is forced, by the defensiveness he encounters, to sidestep important signs of personality disorder until troubles are precipitated after the marriage has taken place. This potential ability of a marriage counselor to pick up serious marriage problems early and to suggest psychiatric help at once is one of the most valuable aspects of modern marriage counseling.

The article presents a study which aims to reproduce experimentally the inability of alcoholics to stop the ingestion of alcohol and to distinguish between intermittent and inveterate alcoholism. Among the subjects of the study, seven had a clinical form of intermittent alcoholism and six were classified as inveterate alcoholics. The patients were provided with the opportunity of ingesting ethanol, in which they can drink freely in the manner and quantity they desired. Statistical differences showed that patients with an intermittent clinical type consumed greater amount of ethanol than inveterate alcoholics. It also showed that the patients acquired new awareness of their illness and they became more susceptible to psychotherapy.

The article presents the study that aims to differentiate the rating scales for syndromes as given by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, with those derived from a standardized psychiatric history (CAPRICE System). This study involved 70 patients who completed the MMPI and who had a standardized psychiatric interview. Significant or highly significant associations were found between the MMPI scales for depression, manifest anxiety, as well as schizophrenia, and the scales obtained from the codified psychiatric interview. The MMPI scale for phobia, obsessions, and compulsions appeared to have no significant associations with the clinical scale of obsessional-compulsive disorder in any of the groups.

The article offers a critical look to the increased number of cases of anorexia nervosa presenting at University Student Health Centre of Manchester University in England between 1966 and 1972. Result of the investigation showed that the increase was somewhat associated to the food intake of these students, being born in the years 1949 to 1953, after the severe rationing of the World War. The author disputes that if there has been a true increase in cases of anorexia nervosa in this age group, it is suggested that one factor might be the increased nutrition received by them in early childhood.

The article discusses the relapse rate in addiction programs. The article adds that the resumption of smoking or the relapse rate over time for a group of people who had successfully completed a treatment program and given up smoking conforms to a negatively accelerated, typical "extinction" curve such as those presented in the article. The lack of uniformity in reported follow-up data, plus the common sources of contamination in the different techniques themselves suggest that the field is not ready as yet for sophisticated evaluative methods.

This article discusses a recommendation for the inclusion of irresistible impulse as a defense in Great Britain. The British Royal Commission on Capital Punishment in a report has recommended that the McNaghten Rule be amplified if not completely abrogated by adding irresistible impulse as a defense. It will be good to keep in mind that the impulsive character of an action does not make it unpunishable under our present law, nor is the unpunishable impulsive action always abnormal. The problem is how to differentiate clinically, the irresistible impulse from the non-resisted impulse in a verifiable and demonstrable way. The same problem is present in the evaluation of conscientious objectors and the practice here is not to accept the exception to military service unless there are established facts antedating the induction that would prove the presence of conscientious objection.

The article features the secondary school students' tendency toward ease. All kinds of theories have been propounded by professionalists and laymen alike for getting more speedy and more useful results from the system of education. The public is surprised to read that too rigid discipline and compulsion to study is responsible for the student's antagonism toward the curriculum and the consequent results.