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The present study examined the role of life events and social resources in the development of combat-related delayed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after homecoming. For this purpose, life events after homecoming and social resources (social integration, loneliness, satisfaction with social network, and family environment) were assessed 2 years after the 1982 Lebanon War (August. 1984) in three groups of male Israeli frontline soldiers who participated in that war and who were matched for military and socio-demographic background: (1) delayed PTSD group, (2) immediate PTSD group, and (3) control group. Findings indicated that both control and delayed PTSD casualties reported similar and fewer life events at homecoming than did immediate PTSD casualties. However, delayed PTSD casualties evinced less social resources than did controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a pilot study in which we explore the possibility that the match between analyst and analysand is a factor of central importance in the analytic situation. It is an attempt to look at the issue of match across a large number of patients. The data we used were not collected for studying this topic; thus, the study has serious limitations. Nevertheless, certain patterns emerged which support our thesis that patient–analyst match plays a significant role in the outcome of psychoanalysis. We present this work as a first step in developing concepts and methods which will be pursued in a more systematic and rigorous fashion in a later study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As part of a prospective, longitudinal study of psychoanalytic outcome, 22 patients were evaluated for changes in their level of reality testing. These patients had been accepted for supervised psychoanalysis with candidates in training by senior analysts who had diagnosed them as neurotic. Psychological tests given prior to the beginning of analysis indicated, however, that more than one third of our sample demonstrated serious distortions in their perceptions of reality. When psychological tests administered one year after the completion of analysis were compared with these pretreatment tests, no significant improvement was found in the level of reality testing for the group as a whole. However, when excluding two patients who had suffered major traumas in the year following psychoanalysis, significant improvement in reality testing was found for the remaining 20 patients. Post-treatment interviews with the treating analysts revealed that in the course of analysis itself, approximately one third of these patients showed some disturbance in reality testing; only three of these patients showed significant improvement in the level of their reality testing during treatment. These findings suggest that while patients may not present clinically with evidence of impaired reality testing, such evidence may be available in psychological testing, and may become apparent in the course of the treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As part of a prospective, longitudinal study of suitability for and outcome of psychoanalysis, 22 patients were evaluated for changes in the level and quality of their object relations. These patients had been accepted for supervised analysis with candidates in training by senior analysis who had diagnosed them as neurotic. The majority of these patients reported difficulties in relationships as at least one of their reasons for originally seeking psychoanalytic treatment. Prior to beginning analysis, each patient was given a battery of psychological tests. One year after the termination of analysis, the test battery was readministered and a followup interview was conducted separately with each patient and analyst. Ratings of change based on patient and analyst interviews and comparisons of psychological tests before and after treatment all showed statistically significant improvement in the level and quality of object relations for this patient group. The results of this study support what is often observed in clinical practice, that psychoanalysis has a positive effect on the level and quality of a patient's object relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Evaluation of 22 patients in supervised psychoanalysis showed that affect availability and tolerance changed in a positive direction during the course of psychoanalysis. In this study, we have defined criteria of change that can be clinically observed. The changes observed were present one year following the completion of psychoanalysis. Ratings of analysts' and patients' interviews, and ratings of psychological tests all revealed that patients had derived “therapeutic benefit” in relation to affect experience and management. Discriminations were made among changes in affect modulation, which reflected both loosening and tightening of controls, changes in affect availability, changes in experience of painful affects, and changes in experience of affect complexity. Analysts' interviews and psychological test data reflected notable changes in affect modulation in the direction of increased control, while patients' interviews more often reflected changes in the direction of increased expressiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a discussion of personal and situational determinants of interpersonal trust, adapted from a doctoral dissertation completed in 1957 at New York University.

The article examines the characteristics of untestable chronic schizophrenics. The study attempts to investigate the entire population of two wards of chronic schizophrenic patients with an individually administered Rorschach and an abbreviated WAIS. Patients were classified into three groups according to their willingness to accept testing and ability to perform. The study affirms the necessity for widening research efforts to include a more articulate description of the silent sample untestable schizophrenics.

This study explored the relative prognostic significance of seven premorbid factors derived from case history ratings and a set of demographic variables for a sample of schizophrenic patients ( N = 259). The prognostic significance of a number of indicators varied as a function of the social class of the patient. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the case history factors were more powerful in predicting a patient's outcome than were the demographic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a questionnaire survey of New England college students, a large number of undergraduate men and women reported problems related to their personal, social, or academic adjustment. Given a list of 22 items described as "common concerns or feelings experienced by college students," respondents were asked to rate the extent to which each item had been a problem for them in the past year. Most students (86%) reported having very much or somewhat of a problem with one or more items on the list. Pressure to do well in school, problems with weight control, anxiety, poor concentration and depression were among the most commonly reported concerns. The prevalence of these self-reported concerns and problems was found to be significantly associated with the respondents' sex, their perceptions of their health status, and academic standing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the need of research in the field of economic development and social change. Any formulation of a social process is bound to be entangled with value assumptions interred in the concepts used and the specific problem selected. And what complicates the analysis further is that sufficient detachment to examine these value issues can come from critics standing in another vantage point. In areas of the world, which display a sense of urgency in economic development, may come some action-oriented vantage points. But whether the desideratum for these critics is a bureaucratically managed economy, or an economy with great room for individual innovation and achievement, and the consequent valued forms of the inter-relations of the individual to the development of the culture, some style of leadership at some social level needs to be nurtured. It might be noted that the field of personality and culture, or national character, grew from and was strengthened by the compost heap of political decay.