Identity and resurrective ideology in an age of trauma.

The author extends his conception of emotional trauma as a shattering of the tranquilizing “absolutisms of everyday life” that shield us from our finitude and our existential vulnerability, to a consideration of collective trauma. Using the collective trauma of 9/11 and its aftermath as his prime example, he illustrates how traumatized people fall prey to “resurrective ideologies” that promise to restore the sheltering illusions that have been lost. He suggests that an alternative to these grandiose illusions can be found in our “kinship-in-finitude.” (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal rate, content, and adjustment ratings in experimentally structured interviews.

"The major purpose of the present study was to explore the relationship between verbal rate and rate variability and two content categories, topics and a content-inferred measure of anxiety… . The results were related to a general hypothesis of the facilitating effect of anxiety on verbal rate, and the present findings were considered as suggestive of relationships between verbal rate, topics, and those aspects of S's emotional state (anxiety) which overlap with a clinical evaluation of his adjustment from his verbalization." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Trauma and human existence: Autobiographical, psychoanalytic, and philosophical reflections.

Reviews the book, Trauma and human existence: Autobiographical, psychoanalytic, and philosophical reflections by Robert Stolorow (see record 2007-07947-000). The author discribes his book as a “project (that) has occupied (him) now for more than 16 years” (p. 45) starting six months after the tragic death to metastatic cancer of his 34-year-old wife Daphne (“Dede”) Stolorow, on February 23, 1991. His book exemplifies a value, deeply shared by the author and his late wife, that of “staying rooted in one’s own genuine painful emotional experiences” (p. 46). The volume is very dense (50 pages of text, total), the product of 16 years of intense and sensitive reflection. It condenses in very short order the history of his intersubjective perspective on developmental trauma, (the outcome of invalidating malattunement in the “parent–child mutual regulation system” lending to unbearable affect states in search of a “relational home”), his theory of the phenomenology of trauma (the shattering of “absolutisms of everyday life”), trauma’s temporality (trauma freeze frames the past and the future into an eternal present), and, finally an analysis of the ontological or universally constitutive aspect of trauma in our lives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Case studies in the development of organizational hardiness: From theory to practice.

This article addresses the development of organizational hardiness through psychological consultation emphasizing the hardiness model. A review of the hardiness construct is presented. The article moves from existential theory, in which the hardiness model is rooted, to two case examples of psychological consulting. The article also briefly gives other case examples about building organizational hardiness as a part of other consulting interventions. The emphasis in consultation designed to develop organizational hardiness is on building commitment, healthy control, an orientation toward decision and action, an attitude of finding challenge and meaning in difficult situations, and authentic community. The author concludes that hardiness is valuable both individually and organizationally and that the power of existential theory deserves renewed attention in psychology, especially in the area of consulting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Therapy of psychic trauma resulting from attempted filicide.

Peter, a 5-yr-old "favorite child" survived an attack in which his mother slashed his throat with a razor. Peter's reactions to the trauma, his attempts at resolution of ambivalence toward his mother, and finally the emergence of transference and castration anxiety are discussed. Peter's reactions and attempts at conflict resolution are illustrated by excerpts from therapy sessions and discussed from the perspective of normal child development. Parental dynamics, court involvement, and the therapist's countertransference are presented, with suggestions as to how similar cases can be managed to avoid premature termination. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety as an existential phenomenon. An existential analytic approach to understanding and therapy of anxieties

From the existential analytical point of view, anxiety is considered to be a basic theme of existence. The experience of being threatened is most commonly related to the physical and material aspects of life. But on a deeper level anxiety deals with the search for foundational and supporting structures for existence. When one loses the sense of safety of being held and of having shelter in a world that does not offer ultimate securities, one is prone to anxiety. Anxiety can therefore be perceived as a subjective parameter of feeling threatened in the existential structures. This paper gives an outline of an existential analytical approach to the understanding of fear and anxiety, a basic classification of anxieties, and an overview of the following specific methods of an existential treatment search for foundational structures of existence, personal position-taking, dereflexion (Frankl) and paradoxical intention (Frankl).     

Anxiety disorder and Freud''s disease

OBJECTIVE: The author examined Freud's chest pains and arrhythmia beginning in late 1893 according to the new available data and modern psychiatry. METHOD: Published studies and recent findings were reviewed. The major works of Freud were also considered. Among the issues examined are clinical features, comorbidity, boundaries with others disorders. RESULTS: The findings of this review provided support for the dual diagnosis of panic disorder without agoraphobia and nicotine dependence. CONCLUSIONS: Freud's scientific learning was wide-ranging and his scientific ambition vast. During this period (1893-1897) Freud laid the foundations for the theory of anxiety. He referred to the conditions caused by the dammed-up libido as the actual neuroses. Although the work of Freud has the same aim as the modern DSM-IV, the classification of the Austrian author reflects a different tradition. A discrepancy exists between "anxiety neurosis" (Freud) and "anxiety disorder" (DSM-IV).     

Death Anxiety and the Emotion-Processing Mind.

Death anxiety, a critical influence on human life and its psychotherapies, has been relatively neglected by psychoanalytic writers. The author proposes several reasons for this oversight and introduces the communicative or strong adaptive approach to psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, which has recently begun to explore this issue. The features of the approach are described, with emphasis on a revised version of Freud's topographic model of the mind. Three forms of death anxiety are postulated: existential, predatory, and predator. The author explores the effects of each form on emotional adaptations and the psychotherapy experience, and their role in the evolution of the emotion-processing mind-the postulated mental module with which people adapt to emotionally charged events and their meanings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Combat and human existence: Toward an intersubjective approach to combat-related PTSD.

The author proposes a short-term, intersubjective model for treating combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Psychodynamic approaches to adult-onset PTSD lack the evidence and popularity of other approaches because adult-onset traumas are fundamentally distinct from the developmental, or childhood-based, traumas that psychoanalysis evolved to treat. An approach based in intersubjective systems theory can address this problem. The writings of Robert Stolorow (2007) in Trauma and Human Existence, which the author first read while deployed to Iraq as a psychiatrist, fundamentally changed his understanding of trauma and its treatment. The author gives an overview of Stolorow's ideas about trauma, and then describes his six-phase short-term intersubjective treatment approach. Extensive case material from a treatment that occurred in Iraq illustrates each of these phases. The author then compares his and Stolorow's views to those of other contemporary relational psychoanalytic writers. Future directions include the manualization and empirical testing of this approach in order to determine its replicability, its utility for therapists who lack extensive psychoanalytic training, and its generalizability to populations with adult-onset trauma outside the military. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Living stories, telling stories, changing stories: Experiential use of the relationship in narrative therapy.

In narrative therapy, the therapeutic relationship is seen as facilitative, although constructionist thinking emphasizes the relational nature of meaning, suggesting that the client-therapist relationship is central to developing the client's story. By contrast, humanistic/existential theories stress the mutative nature of the therapeutic relationship. This article integrates these perspectives by developing a rationale for using the story both as lived in relation to the therapist and as verbalized. The implications of this rationale for the therapist's use of his or her own experience in treatment, the active use of the relationship, and the use of reflexive procedures that draw upon the I (subject/author) versus me (object/protagonist) distinction in the client's narrative are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Counselor reactions to female clients: Type of problem, age of client, and sex of counselor.

88 male and female graduate students in counseling, staff of a university counseling center, and faculty in counseling and clinical psychology viewed videotaped vignettes of 2 35-yr-old women and 2 20-yr-old women who portrayed problems about feared rape, existential anxiety, choice of a college major in social work, or choice of a college major in engineering. Results indicate that the 2 personal-social problems were rated as more serious than the vocational problems on all dependent measures. Additionally, the feared-rape problem was considered the most serious and needing the most counseling sessions, whereas the women with existential anxiety received the most empathy and were perceived as being most able to profit from counseling. The 2 vocational problems did not differ on any of the dependent variables. Other results indicate effects for both client age and counselor sex depending on the particular problem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A return to the source: Rereading Freud in the midst of contemporary trauma theory.

In the current, often contentious, climate that surrounds childhood sexual trauma and its relation to adult forms of psychopathology, Freud's theorizing has received a great deal of attention. There has been much discussion and speculation about the role sexual trauma played in his thinking about psychopathology. While some theorists suggest that Freud overlooked and even suppressed his patients' reports of sexual trauma when he moved from his "seduction" theory to his "fantasy" theory, others suggest that his revision was an extension, rather than a reversal, of his early theorizing. This article will review in detail the development and revisions of Freud's thinking. It will also suggest areas of agreement between Freud's thinking and some contemporary trauma theory, as well as point to areas of divergence. The therapeutic implications of adopting some versions of contemporary trauma theory will also be developed. The aim is to stimulate further discussion about this issue in terms of its theoretical and therapeutic implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Freud, religion, and the presence of projective identification.

This article contends that Freud's discourses on religion--particularly toward the end of his life--have the earmarks of projective identification. Evidence for projective identification is gleaned from these works and from Freud's letters to friends and colleagues. The author argues that the sources of Freud's projective identification lay in 2 distinct childhood traumas: the relative absence of emotional consolation from his mother and the failure of his father to protect him. Old age and approaching death threatened to evoke feelings of helplessness and anxiety, which Freud handled, in part, by attacking the foundations of religious experience. This enabled Freud to acknowledge disappointment and hostility toward religious believers, while disclaiming the loss of and need for emotional consolation and protection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relevance of Freud's concept of danger-situation for an intersubjective-systems perspective.

In the course of shifting his conception of anxiety from anxiety as a product of impacted libido to anxiety as a signal of danger, Freud introduced the idea of danger-situation. Drawing on Heidegger's philosophy, the author argues that Freud's concept of danger-situation can be contextualized in a manner that renders it highly relevant for an intersubjective-systems perspective on the analysis of resistance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cicero and the state-trait theory of anxiety: Another case of delayed recognition.

L. T. Benjamin and R. Perloff (see record 1982-29251-001) quoted the work of F. W. Taylor as an anticipation of the Skinnerian principle of immediacy of reinforcement. The present author discusses the anticipation by Cicero, the Roman lawyer, orator, and political leader, almost 2,000 yrs ago, of the state-trait theory of anxiety proposed by R. B. Cattell and I. H. Scheier (1961). In his Tusculan Disputations, Cicero clearly distinguished between an anxious temperament (trait anxiety) and state anxiety. Cicero's anticipation of the modern reaction to psychiatry is also discussed. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Posttraumatic stress disorder, anger, and partner abuse among Vietnam combat veterans.

The authors examined interrelationships among posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology, anger, and partner abuse perpetration among a sample of 60 combat veterans. Compared with PTSD-negative participants, PTSD-positive participants reported higher state anger across time and neutral and trauma prime conditions and higher anger reactivity during the trauma prime condition. PTSD-positive participants also exhibited more anger reactivity during the trauma prime than during the neutral condition. The same pattern of results was not found for anxiety reactivity during trauma memory activation. PTSD symptoms were associated with physical assault and psychological aggression perpetration, and trait anger mediated these relationships. Findings indicate a heightened anger response among PTSD-positive veterans and suggest the salience of dispositional components of anger in abuse perpetration in this population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Norman S. Endler (1931-2003).

Remembers the life of Norman S. Endler, Distinguished Research Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Psychology at York University. Endler passed away as a result of a brain tumor in Toronto on May 7, 2003. The author recalls Endler's life and career, highlighting his contributions as a pioneer in espousing an interactional view of personality. Norm is best known for his interactional model of personality, especially as applied to anxiety, stress, and coping (e.g., Endler, "Interactionism: A Personality Model, But Not Yet A Theory" in M. M. Page (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation 1981: Personality-Current Theory and Research, 1983). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Beliefs, Attitudes and Values.

Reviews the book, Beliefs, Attitudes and Values by Milton Rokeach (1968). I believe that Rokeach does not believe that his beliefs about beliefs, attitudes, and values are beliefs. The author seems to believe that he presents in this collection of previously published papers something other than his beliefs. Yet, from his presentation it would appear that there exists nothing but beliefs. Much of the confusion which appears in this book is due to the various ways in which the word "belief" is used. The author states that "the task for psychology is . . . to learn enough about the structure of belief systems to know how to form them, and how to modify them so that they will best increase the happiness and freedom of the individual and his society." As a result of the task the author sees for psychology he has undertaken a number of experiments presented in the papers which make up this volume. A detailed discussion of those experiments seems useless in the light of the fact that they are all based on Rokeach's confusing use of the word 'belief in terms of which he also defines "attitudes" and "values." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Centering: reducing rape trauma syndrome anxiety during a gynecologic examination

1. Individuals often delay seeking routine gynecologic care or have difficulty completing gynecologic examinations due to the effects of trauma. 2. Advance practice nurses (APN) are challenged to participate with clients to reduce their anxiety, thereby decreasing the health risks associated with avoiding routine gynecologic care. 3. "Centering" is a holistic, noninvasive modality to reduce anxiety associated with rape trauma syndrome.