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As the liberalizing tendencies of modern reforms change the orientation of mental hospitals from "custodialism" to "humanitarianism," administrators become involved in new kinds of interdependent relationships with the treatment staff. This paper examines an episode of administrative disturbance which was deliberately tolerated within a hospital because of the treatment potential it engendered. Administrative collaboration is seen as not merely necessary in providing a favorable setting for treatment but as an integral part of the treatment itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on profile generalizability in the use of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) with psychiatric inpatients. At the Hastings State Hospital in Minnesota, data were available for patients recurrently hospitalized and repeatedly tested with the MMPI. For each of 55 patients four profiles were found that reflected early and late periods in each of two successive stays. For any subsample of 10 subjects, four matrices could be constructed with call elements made up of, alternatively, the first, second, third, or fourth occurring profile.

This article studies the efficacy of the Archimedes Spiral After Effect Test to differentiate chronic schizophrenics from chronic organics. A standard methodology was provided by following the manual instructions and using the only apparatus commercially distributed, that of the Psychological Research and Development Corporation, Tampa, Florida. In the psychiatric hospital setting, there is a need for a short-valid screening test to differentiate chronic schizophrenics from chronic organics. Although both groups can be distinguished easily from normals, precise differential diagnosis has been difficult.

This article investigates the relationship between the altitude quotient (AQ) and adjustment potential. Researcher J. Jastak's AQ, which is computed from the highest subtest scores of an intelligence record, represents an individual's level of maximum personality integration. According to Jastak the higher the AQ and the more closely the remaining subtest scores approximate it, the more wholesome is the personality. In this study, fifteen male process schizophrenics from Allentown State Hospital, Allentown, Pennsylvania, were identified by the Phillip's Premorbid Adjustment Scale.

This article develops an instrument capable of measuring the amount of social support present in the ex-mental patient's environment. The article also provides information on the specific environmental support variables at work in producing improved post hospital behavior. In particular, factors related to the immediate day-to-day life of the ex-patient are examined in this study, rather than hospital related activities such as out-patient therapy. The Inpatient Unit at a community mental health center that serves a catchment area of 75,000 was the institutional base of the research.

The article attempts to ascertain whether there are measurable differences in the symmetrical accuracy of Human figure drawings (HFD) of schizophrenics and nonpatients. The schizophrenic patients used in the present article were all recent admissions to a psychiatric hospital, while the nonpatients had no known psychiatric hospitalization. The HFD of the two groups were compared, and all five of the symmetry variables along with the total width of the drawing were related to the level of adjustment of the drawer.

The article presents a study which investigated a group therapy for hospitalized mental patients and the growing therapeutic interaction through a feedback-escape technique. It states that the Hill Interaction Matrix was used to measure the length of time spent by the patients in a leaderless group until reaching 45 minutes of work. It notes that feedback-escape contingency effectively increased therapeutic interaction and decreased the time spent in group sessions.

The article discusses the study on the effects of labeling and theoretical explanations of deviancy on juror attitudes. The study was drawn from two criminal court cases having a short description of an incident leading a crime, a summary testimony of character witnesses and a psychiatric testimony for the defendant's behavior. The study was conducted on 184 past criminal court jurors in Nashville, Tennessee. The factors such as the labels, models and cases were gathered through questionnaire. The study indicated that labeling a mentally illed person does not affect the juror attitude.

The article discusses the study on the effect of long-term experience on the attitudes of psychiatric aides in the U.S. The study was conducted to investigate the attitude change in the hospital community by examining the attitudes toward mental illness of psychiatric aides. The opinions of the psychiatric aides were obtained through the Mental Illness Questionnaire (OMI) to determine the relationship between attitudes toward mental illness and duration of experience as an aide. The study showed that the unfavorable attitudes such as authoritarianism and social restriction seemed to increase across groups over a range of experience from 0 to 19 years. The strength of positive attitudes related to the modern mental health movement was found to decrease across groups.

The article discusses the study on the appraisal of the therapeutic value of the mental hospital environment in Cleveland, Ohio. The study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the aspects of the mental hospital milieu and a number of treatment effectiveness, and to delineate the relationship between selected patient characteristics and treatment effectiveness. The study was conducted in a state supported hospital in the city. Replication procedures and multiple regression were employed to identify reliable predictors of treatment effectiveness in a short-term psychiatric hospital setting. It was found that the milieu characteristics are not associated with the effectivity of the treatment.

The article discusses a study which assesses discrepancies in patient and family reasons for readmission of chronic mental patients in the U.S. The existence of such differences were examined by comparing the reasons given for the return to the hospital by patients and by their community informants. There were 80 consecutive admissions with informants supported by a Hospital Improvement Project grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. Informants include spouses, parents, siblings and children. Results revealed that informant agreement was low in specifying causes of return and the most disturbing behavior admission.

This paper presents a constrained value-weighted Markovian approach to evaluating public-policy alternatives. It incorporates value judgments and constraints into a Markov chain so that relative comparisons of value-cost time profiles associated with alternative programs can be made. Although the model was developed to analyze programs for the mentally retarded, other applications appear promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theoretical approach to deviance which came to be known as the "labelling theory," the "societal reaction perspective," or simply the new perspective, has become one of the more popular and influential directions in recent years in the study and analysis of deviant conduct. In spite of critical evaluations of the labelling approach calling for clarification of kind and degree of reaction needed for type of act and/or actor,4 social labelling and reactions have been taken as the mayor independent variables to explain how deviance is produced and maintained. In this article, the generality of the labelling paradigm will be examined by dealing with the question: what makes the label stick from the actor's perspective? The underlying implication of labelling analysis is that by the magic process of negative labelling a person is transformed irreversibly into the deviant entity which the label connotes. The use of the reified medical metaphor to refer to mental disorder results in social rejection of persons labelled mentally ill.

Social factors unrelated to psychopathological processes are hypothesized to influence the clinical assessment of "dangerousness" in prospective mental patients. Data support the hypothesis in that age, sex, marital status, history of treatment, and status of caller requesting professional intervention are all related to the attribution of "dangerousness." However, the association holds only when the prospective patient has demonstrated "disruptive and disorderly behavior" and, it is assumed, the possibility of dangerousness is being seriously considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, video-taped psychiatric interviews of a mental patient and a student were diagnosed by samples of psychiatrists (N=36) and students in an abnormal psychology class (N =77). Each sample was experimentally assigned to two groups. In one group it was suggested that both subjects were mental patients. In the other it was suggested that both were paid participants. It was hypothesized that the suggestion of illness and the increased clinical experience of psychiatrists would lead to an increase in diagnostic scores. The results partially support this hypothesis, in that suggestion and clinical experience led to significantly higher scores in all but one case. Also discussed are the effects of the appearances of the subjects in the tapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the influence of labeling on people's reactions to the mentally ill. Although the labeling theory of mental illness has received considerable attention, and public attitudes toward the mentally ill have been extensively studied, there is little evidence that labeling the mentally ill makes a significant difference in how people react to them. This study, a survey experiment, resented case vignettes with systematically varied labels, labelers, and behavior to 864 community college students. Subjects' reactions to the vignettes were measured with a social rejection index. A three-way analysis of variance found that labels and labelers did not produce significant effects. Only the behavior of the mentally ill influenced social rejection. This suggests that a key component of labeling theory may need to be abandoned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpersonal attraction patterns of psychiatric patients were determined through the analysis of observational and sociometric test data and explained in terms of the interrelation of the factors of similarity, social desirability, and reciprocity of liking. Major conclusions were: (1) liking does not beget liking, but rather interaction; (2) the tendencies to be attracted for reasons of similarity and social desirability of the alter operate simultaneously, reinforcing one another in the case of individuals with socially desirable characteristics and conflicting in the case of individuals with socially undesirable characteristics; (3) the relative importance of similarity and social desirability varies with the particular social characteristic and with the particular measure of attraction under consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of times individuals diagnosed as schizophrenic are hospitalized varies greatly. Four theoretical models are proposed to account for the variation. The positive reinforcement model proposes that individuals are positively reinforced at each episode, and is consonant with theories of institutionalization. The negative reinforcement model proposes that individuals are negatively reinforced at each episode, and is in aggreement with the idea of therapeutic efficacy. The heterogeneity model proposes that individual differences account for the variation. The pure random model proposes that the differences are explained by a random process. A negative binomial distribution, consonant with both the positive reinforcement and the heterogeneity model, is fit to the distribution of numbers of hospital episodes of schizophrenia for a cohort from the Maryland Psychiatric Case Register. Correlations between occurrence of episodes in early years with occurrence of episodes in later years also suggests that the pure random and the negative reinforcement models are not operative. Further analysis suggests that the heterogeneity model is the correct one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hypothesis that the public denies contact with the mentally ill is not supported by the findings of this survey of a blue collar population in Baltimore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A picture-preference test designed to measure ten traits believed to characterize alcoholics was administered to 106 alcoholics, 15 neurotics, and 80 normals. As predicted, alcoholics had higher scorn on this test than normals or neurotics. The mean score of the neurotics was virtually the same as the mean of the normals. Whatever is measured by this test reliably distinguishes alcoholics from both neurotics and normals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information regarding trichlorethylene (Tri.) addiction and its effects. The first medical information relating to Trichioroethylene, which was used as a narcotic by addicts, was published nearly 50 years ago. The relationships with siblings did not appear unusual except in two male cases, in which incestuous homosexual activities with brothers were reported. Those two patients were later diagnosed as schizophrenics. The drinking habits of those four resulted in dependence on alcohol within 4 to 7 years and one after another they dropped out of employment. Financial troubles compelled them to seek a cheaper way of achieving a state of drunkeness. One of them learned to "sniff" and to drink Tri. while employed in a metallurgical factory, where Tri. was used to degrease parts of machinery, two others both homosexuals-were told by friends.

Presents a case of somatic expression of children in family and environmental aspects through developing diagnoses in isolation of patients who are engaged in an interaction that would define the intrapsychic and interactional behavior. Categories of diagnoses; Expansion of therapeutic techniques to include consideration of interventions with aspects of patient's environment; Highlights of the fact on the consideration of the social consequences of early diagnostic labels; Understanding of feedback processes which affects the members of the family.

The article describes the structural characteristics of psychiatric patient community. Research for the present study was conducted on an open-door ward located in a general hospital sewing a city with a population of approximately 150,000. The ward holds a maximum of 32 patients who are treated on a short-term basis, the length of stay averaging from 50 to 70 days. The methods of treatment, according to a constitution written by the patients, are "Group Therapy, the Use of Medications, and Community Living." The purpose of treatment given is to enable the patient to return to his premorbid environment with the patient and/or his environment modified to the extent that future out-patient treatment can be tolerated. The ward is a therapeutic community in which the patient is constantly involved in either discussing his problems with others, or being confronted with other patients' problems. A patient is supposed to advance through the system by becoming more responsible for a great deal of the operation of the ward, including the planning of activities, helping new patients adjust to the ward, making decisions about patient privileges, and running previously planned activities.

Immigrant mental patients attending the psychiatric clinic of Väster&arirg;s Central Hospital in Central Sweden were compared with Swedish patients at the samt clinic as regards to diagnosis, expressed problems, amount of care, and social characteristics. Propensity to seek public psychiatric treatment was tower than among Swedes. It was the higher the greater the geographical and cultural distance between Sweden and their country of origin is: immigrants from Northern and Western Europe attended the clinic to a lesser degree than those from Southern and Eastern Europe. Compared with native Swedes immigrant patients were more often diagnosed as paranoid, hysterical, hypochondriacal or neurastenic. Depression was less common than in the native population. Immigrants had fewer problems at work and in human relations, but more somatic symptoms (East- and South-Europeans) or problems with alcohol (Finns). Patients who had migrated at a young age had the most severe problems. Immigrant mental patients were better integrated to the society through work and family than indigeneous patients. Migration status seems so stressinducing that even otherwise socially integrated persons fall mentally ill. With the help of a factor analysis four types of immigrant mental patients could be distinguished according to their main problem area: patients suffering from (1) adjustment problems, (2) human relations and psychotic problems vs. somatic symptoms, (3) political and work problems, and (4) alcohol and housing problems. The frequency of these problems was analyzed according to sex, ethnicity and duration of stay in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study that gives an account on the patterns of admission among male schizophrenic patients admitted to Leverndale Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland in 1967-1970. The first admissions and readmissions of the schizophrenics to the hospital are identified from a Kalamazoo card index system. It is stated that 83% of the male patients admitted to the hospital are readmitted and thus suffering from relapsing or continuous illnesses. Moreover, follow-up of the first admissions show an approximately equal numbers concerning the three grades of clinical state living outside while smaller number are long term in-patients.

The author examines the geographical differences in the prevalence of mental retardation. As part of his research, he discusses various epidemiological studies that was carried out in Sweden. He denotes that mental deficiency may develop through one of the four mechanisms including polygenic inheritance, simple inheritance, chromosomal anomalies and external factors. In addition, he claims that the four processes that can distort the balance in the gene pool include genetic selection, mutation, genetic drift and migration. He believes that the prevalence of mental deficiency is due to a form of selective migration.

The article presents an analysis of Lionel Penrose's contributions to research on the role of genetics in mental deficiency. His research of the subject started with his 1931 Colchester survey where he presented a detailed clinical and genetic study of 1,2820 patients in the Royal Eastern Counties Institution. One finding of the survey indicates that there is no sharp dividing line between mental deficiency and the normal state. Moreover, both genetic and environmental aspects contribute to the occurrence of mental illness. His research developed when he became Galton professor at University College where he promoted the research on human genetics.

The article presents a study on the independent measures of psychiatric illness on flat dwellers and house dwellers. The study has noted that a low level of psychiatric illness in women aged 30-39 has been assumed because they were not confined to their flats by their children, who were of school age. In this study, neither age nor having children affected mental illness, contradicting the commonly held view that the supervision of children is a contributory factor. It has indicated that flat dwelling did not cause an increase in psychiatric illness, nor did familiarity cause an improvement or increased exposure a deterioration.

The article presents a study on the response of depressed patients who were treated with methylamphetamine. The study has noted that there was a strong tendency for patients to feel better irrespective of diagnosis and no significant difference was found between the responses of patients with endogenous and neurotic depression to methylamphetamine. The patients response to intravenous methylamphetamine would appear to have no diagnostic or prognostic significance in patients with depressive illness.

The article presents a study on use of bilateral electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) for relief of depressive illness on psychiatric patients. This study has indicated that learning ability has improved during the first hours after ECT on psychiatric patients. It has noted that the ability of the patients to retain newly learned material was initially impaired and then improved during the hours after each ECT treatment, and the ability to retain material for a 30-minute interval was impaired to about the same extent and improved at about the same rate after each of the first four ECT treatment.