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Eleven latency-age (6 1/2 to 12 1/2) boys and girls who attempted or threatened suicide were investigated by means of the following information: intensive interviews, therapeutic meetings, direct observation in school, meetings with teachers, and survey of school records. The families of the children were also interviewed. In spite of the many differences between the children's personalities and backgrounds, some common dynamic features seemed to emerge: (a) There was a suicidal parent in the family, in most cases the mother; (b) Most of the families of these children were engaged in a major crisis, not necessarily centered around the suicidal child; (c) The children experienced demands by the parents to assume responsibilities which the children perceived as being beyond their capability; (d) There was a lack of satisfying relationships with adults; (e) Most children perceived death in a paradoxical way, believing that death was a need satisfying state yet fearing death; (f) The children showed strong positive strivings to say alive and were able to experience joy and happiness in spite of feelings of desperation and depression. A model based on the above multifaceted forces is presented. These forces consist of attractiveness of life, repulsiveness of life, attractiveness of death, and repulsiveness of death. Some of diagnostic and predictive uses of this model are elaborated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the impact of age, cognitive level and anxiety level on children's conception of death in humans and animals. Children from three age groups (6-7; 8-9; 10-11) were divided into high and low anxiety levels and high and low cognitive abilities. Then, the children were administered two questionnaires on human and animal death. The findings show that there was a main effect of age, anxiety and cognition on the conception of both animal and human death. Human death scores were higher than animal death scores. The interactions indicate that anxiety has a stronger impact on cognitively high subjects than on cognitively low subjects and that cognition affects the animal death concept more than the human death concept.

4 subjects were awakened after long REM periods and 12 other subjects after short REM and after NREMs. The mean numbers of words, dream episodes, and spontaneous remarks about being interrupted in the middle of a dream were significantly different in the reports of the three groups. It is suggested that the present view of the relationship between REM and dreaming is not conclusive.

Tested the assumption that young children's suicidal behavior is connected to their concept of death. An additional objective was to explore whether distortions in the concept of death stem from limitations in cognitive functioning or from a defensive process. The sample consisted of 21 Ss in three equal groups of suicidal, aggressive, and normal children, ages 10-12. The variables of socioeconomic status, cultural background, and intelligence were controlled. The children were asked to respond to questions about impersonal death (the death of others) and personal death (one's own death). The results indicated that the three groups differed mainly in regard to the personal death concept. Suicidal children attributed the cause of death to suicide and referred to life after death and to resurrection more often than the other groups. Both normal and aggressive children emphasized the finality and irreversibility of death. However, normal children attributed the cause of death to natural processes, while aggressive children referred to brutality as a main cause of death. It is concluded that the suicidal children's view of death could facilitate suicidal behavior and that it should be a subject for concern in the treatment of such children.

This study assessed possible long-lasting effects of mild, indirect prenatal stress upon offspring. Dams were restrained for 30 minutes either once or four times during the third trimester of gestation. Their male offspring were challenged in adulthood with a series of appetitive operant learning tasks. Both acute and repeated prenatal maternal restraint retarded the performance of the offspring in a selective manner: deficits appeared during the reversal stage of an operant discrimination task, with no effect on acquisition, discrimination or extinction. Repeated, but not acute, maternal stress was also associated with offspring hyperactivity. This highlights the differential impact of varying the stress schedule. Furthermore, use of multiple measures of learning uncovered a long-lasting, selective effect of relatively mild, indirect prenatal manipulation.

The nocturnal sleep of 9 subjects was recorded under two conditions following a "normal" weekend and following a weekend in which the subjects participated in a psychodynamic marathon group activity. Differences between the two experimental conditions were found for sleep latency and on one measurement of D-latency. Both latencies were reduced after the marathon group. No differences were found on the remaining 12 measurements. These findings tend to reaffirm the stability of sleep patterns under various pre-sleep conditions.

To examine correlations among chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), control-related beliefs, and sleep difficulties 7 PTSD casualities and 7 non-PTSD matched subjects were compared in their laboratory sleep patterns as well as in their beliefs about personal control over external and internal events in general and over sleep-related events in particular. Analyses indicated that PTSD casualties had poorer sleep and reported more doubts regarding their ability to control external and internal events than control subjects. Further, we found a significant association between perceived control and sleep difficulties. Results were discussed in terms of Horowitz's conception of intrapsychic processes related to PTSD.

The hypothesis that adolescents have an exceptionally strong need for REM sleep was tested by measuring their resistance to REM deprivation. Ten adolescents (aged 16 to 17 yr.) were compared with 12 young adults (aged 25 to 27 yr.) in a standard REM deprivation procedure. The adolescents had to be awakened significantly more times than the young adults; this is consistent with the hypothesis that adolescents have a greater need for REM sleep.