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There has been great interest in determining if mindfulness can be cultivated and if this cultivation leads to well-being. The current study offers preliminary evidence that at least one aspect of mindfulness, measured by the Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS; K. W. Brown & R. M. Ryan, 2003), can be cultivated and does mediate positive outcomes. Further, adherence to the practices taught during the meditation-based interventions predicted positive outcomes. College undergraduates were randomly allocated between training in two distinct meditation-based interventions, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR; J. Kabat-Zinn, 1990; n=15) and E. Easwaran's (1978/1991) Eight Point Program (EPP; n=14), or a waitlist control (n=15). Pretest, posttest, and 8-week follow-up data were gathered on self-report outcome measures. Compared to controls, participants in both treatment groups (n=29) demonstrated increases in mindfulness at 8-week follow-up. Further, increases in mindfulness mediated reductions in perceived stress and rumination. These results suggest that distinct meditation-based practices can increase mindfulness as measured by the MAAS, which may partly mediate benefits. Implications and future directions are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 64: 1–23, 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the authors both developed and validated a self-report mindfulness measure, the Toronto Mindfulness Scale (TMS). In Study 1, participants were individuals with and without meditation experience. Results showed good internal consistency and two factors, Curiosity and Decentering. Most of the expected relationships with other constructs were as expected. The TMS scores increased with increasing mindfulness meditation experience. In Study 2, criterion and incremental validity of the TMS were investigated on a group of individuals participating in 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction programs. Results showed that TMS scores increased following treatment, and Decentering scores predicted improvements in clinical outcome. Thus, the TMS is a promising measure of the mindfulness state with good psychometric properties and predictive of treatment outcome. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 62: 1445–1467, 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article informs that subtest scatter on Wechsler's scales has long been of interest to clinical practitioners and researchers, but it was only 10 years ago that normative data first became available for two objective indices of scatter: The scaled-score range and the number of subtest scores that deviate "significantly" from the subject's own mean. scales. The procedures employed are completely generalizable to any scale with subtests that have normally distributed scores with a common standard deviation and require only that the value of that standard deviation, and the value of the average intercorrelation among the subtests, be known.

This article presents a study to determine the digit repetition performance of brain-damaged patients. Digit repetition, now usually considered a measure of attention and immediate auditory-verbal recall, has been included in standard intelligence tests and most neuro- psychological assessments. More recent investigations of this task have emphasized theoretical brain-behavior relationships, with attempts to quantify differences in forward and backward digit repetition in patients with lateralized lesions and to relate differential performance on the two subtests to verbal and nonverbal measures presumed to be subsumed by the two hemispheres. Studies of the discrepancy between forward and backward digit repetition performance also have been conducted with children in an effort to address further the hypothesized underlying hemispheric nature of forward and backward digit repetition.

The article provides information on a study that develops and refines aspects of the construct of self-control according to a four-quadrant model: assertive-positive, assertive-negative, yielding-positive, and yielding-negative. Recently, the concept of behavioral medicine has achieved prominence, and the applications of self-control procedures to medical settings have received increased attention. Recent studies have been unable to differentiate between the clinical effectiveness of various self-control strategies for a particular clinical problem. In this study, 26 men and 78 women evaluated areas of their life in terms of the perceived degree to which they utilized these various dimensions of control. The results of this study indicates that, depending on the specific area of clinical concern, there are significant differences in the kinds of self-control strategies that subjects tended to employ. It has been noted that while subjects in this sample exercised a high degree of assertive-positive control in their professional lives, in the interpersonal and affective spheres they perceived themselves to be more out of control and exercising more negative-assertive control.

This article focuses on the study of intelligence test. In recent years there has been heightened interest in studying the effects of various factors that produce variation in human intelligence. Studies in this field have attempted a thorough examination of various environmental, personality, and ethno-cultural characteristics of Ss that might act as possible correlates of test performance. In recent years researchers who favor the use of automated test administration procedures have indicated that mechanical testing methods can provide valid and reliable data because of the standardized presentation of test items and the accuracy in recording and scoring that such methods permit

This article focuses on the Kinetic Family Drawing (KFD). It is a procedure for exploring the family perceptions of disturbed children. The Family Drawing Depression Scale (FDDS) is comprised of 15 subscales. Five of these scales are based on objective measurements. These include the number of colors used, size of self (measured by a transparent metric ruler), isolation-objective (measured distance between self and others), and empty space. Ten FDDS subscales are rated subjectively. These include organization, isolation of self-subjective, isolation of family, detail, sexual differentiation, energy of self, energy of family, interest of self, interest of family, and hopelessness.

This article focuses on transcendental meditation. Increasing attention is being focused on relaxation techniques and their adequacy in meeting the demands of clinicians and the public alike. Transcendental Meditation (TM) and Progressive Relaxation (PR) were chosen for this study for several reasons. Many studies on the psychological effects of TM either have not used controls or have used inadequate control groups. Ss who used PR demonstrated some significant changes even though they declined in their use of their technique.

This article focuses on the influence of stress. During the past 10 to 15 years, considerable effort of symptom dimensions across diverse groups of inpatients and outpatients. The Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL), in its various transformations, has received the most attention to factors. Research with the HSCL has provided evidence for factor invariance, especially in the areas of somatic and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The possible role of stressors in the patterning of symptoms is suggested by the fact that different clinical populations present distinctive stress profiles.

The article focuses on the methods of suicide and implications for suicide prevention. Although the methods used to commit suicide vary substantially by country, time period, and demo graph characteristics, relatively little attention has been given to the implications that choices of suicide methods may have for suicide prevention. The choices of suicide methods seem to be affected both by the physical availability and the socio-cultural acceptability of the various potential methods available. Thus it would be expected that variations in suicide rates would be affected by variations in the physical availability of preferred, socio-culturally acceptable methods of suicide.

This article investigates the construct validity of the Social Interest Index (SlI) on a sample of hospitalized male alcoholics. Social interest is not merely "socializing," but rather includes the broad contributions to mankind of the artist and genius, whose styles of life may involve periods of relative seclusion. The present study is an attempt to extend understanding of the SIl and the extent to which it may be considered a measure of psychologist Alfred Adler's concept of social interest. Alder noted that the individual with a feeling of social interest and wants to be the master of his fate with an effective regard for the welfare of others.

The article reports on unpleasant and pleasant events, and mood. It investigates the relationships between the daily occurrence of aversive events, depressed mood, and the enjoyment of pleasant events in a sample of 21 depressed patients. Significant associations were found between depressed mood and unpleasant events, and between unpleasant events and the pleasantness of pleasant events. There was also a significant decrease in experienced evasiveness concomitant with clinical improvement. The relationship between the occurrence of aversive life events and depression has been of longstanding interest.

The article presents normative data collected on an unselected sample of 9-year old children, for the Missouri Children's Behavior Checklist (MCBC). The checklist can be used in rather large-scale research and evaluation programs because its cost of administration is quite minimal. The norms and validity data presented in this paper can serve as a preliminary guide in the use of the MCBC to identify children who are likely to be in need of professional attention, although they suffer some inadequacies. The first and most serious problem is the disproportionate number of children from professional families in the normative sample.

The article reports on the levels of adjustment, depression and attitudes toward death among good and poor sleepers. The present study is an attempt to extend the general methodology into the areas of depressive affect and attitudes toward death, both of which long have been viewed as bearing a special relationship to quality of sleep. An additional interest was the exploration of possible sex differences. This study offered striking confirmation of the personality differences between good and poor sleepers. Poor sleepers consistently respond in the direction of greater psychopathology.

This article details a study evaluating the Trail Making Test (TMT) and Bender Background Interference Procedure (BIP) as psychological screening devices. There are two aspects of a psychological screening device that deserve attention. The first is the one traditionally addressed and entails evaluation of the measure against some external criterion, usually discharge diagnosis. A second issue, however, is the performance of the device against other psychological criteria. From a pool of over 700 patients, 598 were selected who had taken the TMT as part of a more extensive neuropsychological assessment. Of the 598 patients with TMT scores, 354 also had BIP scores. The obtained data supported neither TMT nor BIP nor the two together as screening devices.

This article presents information on the rapid smoking procedure in cigarette smokers. The use of control conditions with which to compare experimental treatment effects positive S expectations and other nonspecific treatment variables has produced at best discrepent results when one examines strategies employed by different researchers as minimal-treatment conditions. Scientists investigated the effectiveness of warm, smoky air, rapid smoking, and an attention placebo control condition. Although there was a considerably greater posttreatment relapse rate to baseline among the attention- placebo control Ss, all were abstinent at treatment end in this minimal treatment condition.

This article presents a study related to the development of a state measure of obsessive compulsive behavior. While there is considerable interest in the modification of obsessive-compulsive behavior, there are few methods to measure such behavior. Hence, in order to evaluate the potential merits of such treatment techniques as systematic de-sensitization, covert sensitization, and so forth, it is important to develop a method to index this behavior. Researchers administered their 40-item questionnaire to 100 neurotic outpatients and factor-analyzed the resulting data. Two orthogonal factors were extracted that represented the obsessional or anal-reactive character and the obsessional personality.

This article focuses on Systematic desensitization (SD). Systematic desensitization (SD), is an effective method to treat many types of fear responses and is a widely used form of therapy. Recently, the social and cognitive factors that may influence the success of SD have received increased attention. However, only nonsignificant differences in anxiety reduction were found between their expectancy groups on objective observer, physiological, and other self-report measures. Ss in their high-expectancy set condition were informed that they could expect an especially high reduction in their speech anxiety.

The article focuses on the impact of psychotherapist interventions on early sessions of group therapy. The study was conducted to determine the impact of various types of therapist interventions on the process of group therapy. Early sessions were chosen as the focus because the character of a group is probably most susceptible to influence during its inception. In the first few meetings norms are established and cohesiveness is developed, both of which are essential to the genesis of a mature therapeutic group. The influence of therapist techniques on subsequent patient behavior is of particular interest, because therapist activities are more amenable to change than other variables in the patient-therapist-treatment interaction.

The article evaluates the initial impact of the therapeutic encounter on beginning psychotherapists. This problem seems largely to have escaped critical attention in the clinical research literature. The present investigation attempts to remedy this situation by measuring exactly what impact the patient's feelings have on the beginning therapist. Specifically, its goal was to explore the hypothesis that the patient's feelings do influence the student therapist's own affects. It was shown that the experience of serving as a psychotherapist facilitates convergence between actual and ideal self-concepts.

The article reports on the cross-validation of self-report measures of depression among normal populations of Japanese, Chinese and Caucasian ancestry. The purpose of the present investigation was to cross-validate different self-report measures of depression on normal populations from different ethnic and cultural traditions in order to examine these questions more closely. It was found that in recent years there has been a proliferation of interest in self-report measures of depression; however, there have been relatively few cross-validation studies among the different measures. In addition, there has been no study that compared different measures on normal population or across different ethnic samples.

The article cites a study which examines pupillary response and sexual interest. The article presents an experiment that was designed to test whether 10 male and 10 female undergraduate students in psychology at the University of South Carolina would respond differentially to pictures of semi-nude males and Imitates. The students were not informed of the purpose of the experiment. The results indicate a tendency for the male students to dilate more to the semi-nude female pictures and for females to display the opposite pattern. However, for the clothed pictures, the males dilated more to male pictures.

The article cites a study which reports how clinical probability judgment may be used to validate diagnostic signs. It is reported that the mixed group validation technique involves the determination of sign validity by comparing sign rates with base rates in mixed groups. Here, it is proposed that mixed groups may be formed on the basis of clinical psychologists' probability judgments. If these judgments reflect actual frequencies, the base rates in the resulting groups can be accurately assessed, and the mixed group validation technique employed for determining the validity of any sign of interest.

The article informs that this it is known that responses to the MMPI may be manipulated to a certain extent to give the impression of a greater or lesser severity of illness. For the most part, however, studies have been confined to a global instruction to "fake good" or "fake bad" with less attention given to what happens to other scores when subjects are requested to alter a particular area of response. Scores on this scale appear to have some behavioral meaning, and at the same time, seem to be less subject to conscious dissimulation than many of the other clinical scales. This study investigated the degree to which the PD scale could be deliberately manipulated independently of other MMPI dimensions.

The article analyses the efficiency of the Kahn Test of Symbol Arrangement (KTSA). KTSA is of particular interest since it is constructed so that various levels of symbolization are reflected in the subject's performance. The role of symbolization in cognitive processes is important because various disorders such as cortical impairment and psychoses render the individual "concrete" or "primitive" to the extent that his symbolic functioning is disturbed. Since the KTSA provides a means of closely examining the patient's symbolic processes in quantifiable form, it is of considerable value as a differentiating instrument.

This article discusses pre-enlistment variables related to the performance and adjustment of navy recruits. The brief psychiatric assessment of enlisted personnel immediately upon their arrival at the Naval training station has been an integral part of the Navy neuropsychiatric screening program since 1940. The limited time available for this initial assessment requires that the clinician's attention be directed toward an evaluation of only that information which possesses demonstrable validity for the prediction of successful service performance. This report summarizes the findings of a study directed toward the delineation of the parameters of one type of information, namely, pre-enlistment adjustment and performance as revealed by a self-report technique.

The article focuses on a pilot study that was conducted at New York State Psychiatric Institute to test the feasibility of sample survey methods for the evaluation of a mental hospital program. It involved an analysis of the hospital experience of patients as well as an examination of the disposition of hospital resources and personnel directed toward the recovery of patients. The focus of interest has been the individual patient how his time is spent in various activities, how many and what kinds of treatments he receives, how much time he spends in the hospital, what privileges he has, how severe his illness is as reflected in his behavior on the ward, etc.

The article discusses on the projective effects of fear and sexual arousal on the rating of pictures. While the concept of projection is very widely used in psychology and related disciplines, it has been variously defined. Of particular interest to this study is the distinction between similar and complementary projection. In similar projection a person attributes his characteristics to others while in complementary projection a person attributes to others such traits as would justify or necessitate his typical reaction to them. The fear arousal group rated the pictures as dangerous, frightening, and threatening more frequently than the sexual arousal and control groups substantiates findings and constitutes additional evidence for the complementary projection of fear.

The article discusses the pictorial representations of situations involving threat. In a previous study G.J. Wischner obtained information about stutterers reactions to speaking by asking them to "draw whatever you think most adequately represents your behavior immediately before, during, and after a moment of stuttering." Analysis of the cycle of behavioral events depicted in the drawings, which were often elaborated by accompanying spontaneous verbalizations, indicated that anxiety was a central component in these events. Of primary interest, was the question of whether sequences of reactions observed in stutterers' drawings of their behavior before, during, and after a moment of stuttering would also occur in normal speakers' drawings of their reactions before, during, and after threatening situations and activities.

The article discusses measures of over-controlled and under-controlled behavior. Two of the most frequently used objective measures of behavior in recent years have been the MMPI and the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TAS). A major problem that confronted experimenters who used these instruments was the frequent finding that they were useful where interest lay only in establishing differences between various groups of subjects but were not adequate for predicting the behavior of individuals. One behavior scientist has been doing work pertinent to this problem. He constructed scales designed to measure conceptually independent dimensions of behavior categorized as "neurotic over-control" (NOC) and "neurotic under-control" (NUC). An especially promising property of these scales was the nonsignificant correlation between the scores on them. Apparently, they measured different types of ineffective behaviors.

The article discusses the problem of psychosomatic specificity in chronic urticaria. The article presents a case report of a chronic urticaria patient as illustration of the findings of an intensive team study of 35 cases and has outlined an experiment planned to check systematically some of the significant causal factors. The 35 chronic urticaria cases were referred because emotional problems were evident, no physical causation could be found, or because of our group's known interest in the problem.

The article discusses the clinical application of sequential analysis. It sates that sequential analysis is a relatively recent statistical development and appears of particular interest in the clinical setting. When sequential analysis is used in testing percentage it deals directly with the classification of individual cases. This is of particular importance in the clinical situation where the percentage of mistakes in the disposition of individuals is of prime concern. A sequential channel once computed may be used for any number of problems inquiring decisions within the same statistical limits.

The article focuses on vocational tests of aptitude and interest, developed or adapted for use with a predominantly chronic group of schizophrenic patients in terms of their ability to differentiate patients rated high in performance in two rehabilitation activities from patients rated low and also in terms of their ability to predict the outcome of rehabilitation treatment. An attempt was also made to evaluate the relative importance of aptitude and interest for success in these activities. Patient performance on the aptitude tests and in the more advanced rehabilitation activities seems to be, within certain limits, a reasonably reliable indicator of future adjustment in more responsible positions either in the hospital setting or in the community outside.

The purpose of this paper is to focus attention on the problems of report writing and to attempt to increase interest in the experimental study of clinical reports. With these objectives, the approaches to the improvement of clinical writing which have already been used will be reviewed. In the conduct of his diagnostic duties the clinical psychologist invests a substantial portion of his time in the preparation of psychological reports. Whether such investment of time, and indeed whether the time spent in diagnostic testing is justified, depends upon the effectiveness with which the psychologist is able to communicate his findings.

The article aims to investigate the alleged "depressant" effects of alcohol upon Rorschach performance. Our expectations were based on Rorschach theory and on results obtained with the effects of alcohol on handwriting, that after alcohol is ingested in sizable amounts some specific changes would take place. It was hypothesized that R, Dd and F + percent will decrease and that T/1R, W and F and A percentages will increase. Greater constriction in the M:C balance was also expected. In general, it may be concluded that alcohol depresses productivity, reduces accuracy of perception, decreases attention to details and permits the individual a less critical and self-controlling attitude.

The article focuses on disorders of neuro-psyciatric patients in perceiving pictures. Disturbances of visual perception are commonly investigated in simplified, schematic situations or by impoverishment technics such as tachistoscopic exposure. Recent work in the theory of perception, however, suggests that such studies should be amplified by others, using more realistic situations seen in full scrutiny. The perception of pictures is of interest here both as a closer approximation to perception of the real environment and because of its intrinsic importance in civilized life.

The article reports that since the appearance of A.I. Rabin's article on a short form of the Weehsler-Bellevue Scale, a continued interest in this subject has been shown. The dispersion of obtained IQ's may be compared with the theoretical SD of 14.83 for the distribution of W-B IQ's. The SD's obtained on the populations with FS range from as low as 7.66, to as high as 20.66. The significance of this factor in relation to the size of the correlation coefficient does not appear to have been recognized adequately, or at least not given explicit recognition in the published reports.

The article reports that recognition of variation in motivation toward the test in different situations has led to the design of special keys such as the L and K scales on the MMPI, and the check scores on the Kuder interest schedules. The own work in the Air Force on the development of psychiatric selection tests for flying personnel has demonstrated clearly how vulnerable are tests like the Cornell Selectee Index and certain other questionnaire and multiple-choice association tests to the high motivation of would-be cadets to gain admission to the program.

The article reports that before dealing critically with the present status of research in this field we may consider briefly certain of the difficulties facing a research worker in this area. The most obvious source of difficulty is the presence of various systematic approaches to psychotherapy psychoanalytic, nondirective and so on. Each of these points of view may become proliferated by defections from the ranks. In addition, there are the minor unorthodoxies and individual idiosyncracies within the fold which still further complicate the issue. One cannot speak of the "effects of psychotherapy" in a bald unqualified fashion, but research must be framed in terms of a particular approach to psychotherapy with attention to the particular individual nuances given by the specific practioners concerned.

The article reports on Bender Gestalt test as a projective technique. Since its publication twelve years ago, the Bender Gestalt Test has received increasing attention as a projective medium. In 1938, Bender wrote "The final product is a visual motor pattern which reveals modifications in the original pattern by the integrating mechanism of the individual who has experienced it." In order to consider adequately the problems of scoring and validation it is necessary to refer to some of the theory underlying projective techniques and personality dynamics. According to the most generally accepted concept of personality a continuum is presumed to exist between the "most normal" and the "most abnormal."

This article focuses on the American psychology. During recent months there has been a good deal of thoughtful consideration given to the matter of the divisional organization of the American Psychological Association. It has been called to our attention from a number of sources of evidence that there is a large group of clinical and applied psychologists currently practicing in the United States and who are apparently unconnected with any of the recognized professional associations in the field. The impression is that there are more professionally unattached psychologists working in the fields of clinical and consulting than in any other area of specialization, perhaps because it has been easier to secure positions or to open private practice in these fields without having the active backing of the professional associations.

The article presents information on the attitudes of the psychopath. The purpose of the present investigation was to study the attitudes, feelings, likes and dislikes of individuals diagnosed as cases of psychopathic personality. This condition is relatively much more important in criminology and in penal institutions, and it has also attracted widespread attention in the military forces. The attitudes of the psychopath have been studied by a detailed procedure, and special attention has been paid to the use of control groups in securing valid results.

This article presents information on the relationship between social interest, locus of control, and self-esteem. In an attempt to bring the three variables together in one investigation, it was hypothesized that high social avoidance and distress would be associated with a perceived external locus of control and low self-esteem. Researchers have found positive correlations between high levels of social interest, high self-actualization scores and high internal control scores for women. Individuals who experience social anxiety, as opposed to those who are comfortable in social situations, are likely to feel that they have less control over the rewards in life and experience less positive self-regard.

The article investigates the effects of offering clients a choice of therapeutic style on show rate and reactions to the initial interview. Individuals who called for an appointment were assigned randomly to choice and attention-control conditions. Attention-Control clients were informed about the range of services available at the clinic and paired with a therapist regardless of style on the usual rotating basis. A significantly higher proportion of choice than attention-control subjects kept their scheduled appointments. However, no significant differences were found on client and therapist evaluations of the initial interview.

This article focuses on the validation of social interest scale. There is a hypothesis that people with strong social interest, and consequent liking for others, usually will be better liked than people with lower social interest. The study also sought validation of the Social Interest Scale (SIS) through peer ratings of social interest. A strong, positive relation already has been found between SIS scores and same-sex peer ratings. The study involved high school students who had known each other for extended periods of time.

The article discusses increased interest in the use of culture-fair assessment procedures to predict school success in culturally disadvantaged children. The recent revision of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) represents one attempt to attenuate some of the culture loading. One culture-fair instrument, the Raven Progressive Matrices Test, has been found to have sizeable correlations with individual IQ tests, including typical correlations in the range of .60 with the Stanford Binet and approximately .70 with the Wechsler.

This article focuses on relationship between sex drive and sexual frustration. The hypotheses of the present study, stated in the null no significant relationship between males' and females' scores on a sex drive and interest scale; there is no between males' and females' scores on the PIL and scores scale; and there is no significant difference between male PIL scores. The results of the present study indicate that there is no significant relationship between scores on the PIL and scores on the Sex Drive and Interest Scale.

The article highlights on a case study in the remediation of severe self-destructive behavior in a 6-year-old mentally retarded girl. A program based on the principle of an expanding hierarchy of positive interests, which involved association of a positive aspect of a child's life-space with a less positive one, was employed to increase a self-destructive child's reality contact. The author began by associating the child's identification of a certain attendant as positive with a game of kickball, and subsequently were able to expand immensely the young girl's life space.

The article discusses the effects of mode of administration on bender-gestalt test performance of familial retardates. There has been considerable interest in recent years in how mode of administration influences performance on the Bender-Gestalt Test. Hannah redrew the Bender-Gestalt model designs so that the long axes of the stimulus cards were parallel to the long axis of the reproduction field. This procedure eventuated in the production of fewer design rotations than did the standard mode of administration. Similar results were obtained by Griffith and Taylor, who altered the mode of administration by the simple expedient of placing the long axis of the reproduction field parallel to the long axes of the stimulus cards.

The article indicates that the Developmental Attention Test offers much promise as a developmental test of attentivity and as a diagnostic test of the process of attention. The present data, although of a preliminary nature, indicate that the ability to attend to a task increases with age. However, the grade to grade and year to year increase seems to be greater in the first half rather than the second half of elementary school. The relation of IQ to the ability to attend also seems to be of greater magnitude during the first half of this period.