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TO THE EDITOR: The Research Committee of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP), a specialty think tank,has addressed psychiatry’s need for a unifying scientific foundation. Such a foundation would consider the disorders commonly treated by psychiatrists in terms of the physiolog

Medical students in a first-year behavioral science course were required to conduct a behavior change project in accordance with a model based upon behavioristic principles. Most students conducted projects designed to alter their own behaviors, such as studying, eating, sleeping, and exercising. Student feedback, as well as formal evaluation of the projects that were conducted, provided a basis for the view that such procedures can make a significant contribution to the teaching of behavioral change technology in the medical curriculum.

The adult development program is an intensive, short-term program for individuals who want to change their behavior. It is based on an educational model; participants, who are called students, set their own behavior-change goals, and a multidisciplinary staff teach them techniques for reaching those goals. The program curriculum consists of about 20 seminars and workshops, which give the students an opportunity to learn and to practice new behaviors. Students pay fees that vary from $40 to $500 per month depending on the number of classes they take. Approximately 1750 students have participated in the program since it began six years ago.

Summary Sensory attenuation, a modified form of sensory deprivation where sensory inputs are controlled, is described as a method useful for the study of drug responses. The above is a preliminary report about a comparative study, using this technic, of the following three psychotomimetic drugs: o 1. Sernyl 1—(1-phenylcyclohexyl) piperidine monohydrochloride (May and Baker CI395) 2. Psilocybin, a tryptamine derivative: isolated active principle of Psilocybe Mexicana Heim, a Mexican mushroom. (Sandoz) 3. LSD-25, D. lysergic acid diethylamide. (Sandoz)

Adequate coping skills are essential for the maintenance of a person’s emotional well-being. Well being is dependent on the balance and the quality of the prevaling feelings, emotions and moods experienced by the individual. Feelings and emotions, serve to facilitate effective interaction with the environment. The feelings engendered in the mother by the helpless cry of the baby impel her to feed the hungry child. Erotic sensations facilitate the association with members of the opposite sex and ultimately the continuity of the human race. Anger readies the individual to defend his rights, while fear induces him to flee and give up when the fight is likely to be lost.

The pursuit of happiness is an endeavor which has engaged the minds and energies of human beings probably for as long as people have existed. The happiness people seek is not so much an isolated emotion as it is an overall appraisal of life, a net positive summation of the train of everyday events and feelings that make up a person’s experiences. While happiness itself is difficult to study, the individual emotions and events which are its roots can much more easily be analyzed, understood and perhaps most importantly, managed. The cumulative work of many clinicians and researchers, particularly during the last two decades, has provided a foundation of information and hypotheses upon which a comprehensive program for the management of feelings and emotions can be built. This paper describes such a program, currently in operation at the University of Illinois.

The Bakker Assertiveness-Aggressiveness Inventory is a 36-item self-report inventory designed to measure two separate aspects of what has previously been subsumed under the rubric "assertiveness"; namely, (a) defensive, responsive behaviors which protect territory and privileges, and (b) initiating behaviors which augment the person's territory or status. Assertiveness scores increased significantly above aggressiveness scores in a class which focused on the defensive, responsive aspects of behavior. Aggressiveness was found to correlate with occupation level and amount of schooling sought, while assertiveness did not correlate with either of these. Normative, reliability and validity data are presented.

An important element of the Adult Development Program (1) is the training of social-skill behaviors. These behaviors, conceptualized in terms of human territorality (2), are aimed chiefly at either territorial acquisition or defense. According to the territorality model, individuals are alerted to undesired trespass by feelings of anger or irritation. If such feeling states are ignored and the individual fails to assert, i.e., to take effective defensive action, then several highly undesirable consequences will occur: Feelings of anger will continue, feelings of resentment and depression will emerge, and behavioral and emotional withdrawal from the trespassor will be likely. If this formulation is valid, then nonassertive persons not only lose territory but experience unpleasant affective states and place their relationships in jeopardy.

Living in harmony, at peace with oneself and one’s fellow creatures is a central theme in most treatises on human existence. From earliest times, integrity, courage and moral conduct have been the stuff of which myth, epic, religious belief, philosophy and psychology are made. No one, to my knowledge, has succeeded in building a large constituency of devotees by insisting that the goal of existence is unhappiness, to be attained by living at odds with the world, searching for alienation, hatred, grief and anxiety. Dissonance and dissipation have never been the hallmarks of a life well spent.

Some of the psychological factors that have a bearing on fertility control were explored. Specific focus was on the importance of the patients psychological makeup and the interaction between husband and wife. 72 women on oral contraceptives (OCs) and their husbands were studied. Most of the subjects were referred to the study by the obstetrics and gynecology clinic of the University Hospital (Seattle Washington). The remainder joined the study after learning about it from friends. The sample consisted primarily of women from the lower-middle and upper-middle class. Both husbands and wives were required to complete the following psychological instruments: the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule and the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire. Historical data including information concerning past experiences with contraceptives sexual interactions and present life stiuations were obtained during a followup period of up to 2 years with visits scheduled at 3-month intervals. The interview material from the 3 most recent visits was used to rate the women on the occurrence of pill forgetting and the presence and type of major somatic complaints. The complaints considered were breakthrough bleeding nausea headaches cramps and fluid retention. Women with a considerable degree of immaturity who avoid taking responsibility and who tended to be impulsive were more likely to forget pills than mature women. There were no significant differences between the women who complained of side effects and those who did not. In the group made up of women who complained of side effects husbands and the wives tended to have similar personality characteristics. This similarity was particularly striking on those scales which indicate the tendency to have somatic complaints and which reflect the general level of integrative functioning. In the pill-forgetting group husbands and wives had opposite personality characteristics. The noncomplaining and nonforgetting groups consisted of couples in which husband and wife were neither significantly similar nor opposite to each other.

In a study on 256 patients with arteriosclerotic heart disease, a comparison was made between the patients with angina pectoris and those without it. Patients of lower socioeconomic status and with a number of specific personality characteristics, such as compulsivity, tenseness, conflictuousness, a

Summary The effects of Sernyl on psychological functioning were studied qualitatively through clinical observation of seven subjects. In addition, quantitative observations were made on the effect that Sernyl in dosages of 5 and 10 mg. has in comparison with a placebo on the performance of 25 carefully selected prisoners on a battery of psychological tests. The main findings based on both groups observed are that Sernyl primarily interferes with the functions that integrate information from the body as well as the outside world into a “field” in which goal-directed action becomes possible. With increasing intoxication, thinking slows and fewer and fewer elements can be combined and integrated in this field resulting in changes in body image as well as in the perception of the outside world. The subjects become unable to direct their behavior actively and become “victims” of all inflowing stimuli. Behavior becomes stereotyped; concentration is impaired. In this condition the function of retaining and using new information is disturbed. With increasing intoxication the subjects lapse into a catatonic-like stupor. It is concluded that a direct comparison between model psychoses and spontaneous psychoses is not fruitful, whereas the use of drugs for the investigation of the function of the CNS with its behavioral correlates appears promising.

In order to determine whether personality type had an effect on the response to psychotropic drugs, 168 subjects, selected from 900 volunteers on the basis of their scores on the 16 PF and the TMAS, were tested under three different drug conditions (chlorpromazine, dextroamphetamine and placebo). The experiments were carried out in a double-blind fashion in a maximally controlled set-up. The responses were measured on the GSR, two different mathematical tests, the 8-Parallel Form Anxiety Battery and an inventory of subjective responses. The only findings of significance (P < 0.05) were that the interaction between assertiveness (scale E of the 16 PF) and anxiety (as measured with the TMAS) and the specific drug condition had a bearing on drug response as measured by the GSR. Further it was found that the high assertive, high anxious individuals responded to chlorpromazine with an increased level of anxiety. It was concluded that the present data do not support the notion that personality type influences drug response in an important way although it does not seem to have a bearing on the verbal response of individuals to various drugs.