Interpersonal complementarity: Integrating interpersonal measurement with interpersonal models.

Research on interpersonal complementarity has been beset by various methodological problems, including the lack of a consistent and theoretically coherent measurement approach for quantifying and statistically evaluating effects. The purpose of this article is to propose and demonstrate such a method, one that is integrative with interpersonal circumplex models of behavior and that also provides a means for establishing statistical significance levels in relation to an appropriate base-rate model. Two demonstrations of the method are reported. The first study involves an analysis of mother-self relationship data and is based on L. S. Benjamin's (1994) Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASB) system; the second study, which is based on the Interpersonal Circle Model (IPC), is a reanalysis of peer interaction data originally presented by S. R. Strong et al. (1988). The results were supportive of theoretical predictions for both the SASB and IPC models. The present method has advantages for testing and refining theory and, with its tie to the circumplex model, makes salient several problematic issues for complementarity research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transference: Psychic reality and material reality.

This article explores the impact of material reality in the form of the analyst's unrecognized and enacted countertransference on a patient's psychic reality (PR) as it presents in the transference. PR refers to a patient's experience in the transference and to an organization of unconscious fantasies, encoded as compromise formations, that actively structures the present and can be inferred from the data of psychoanalysis. Clinical material is presented in support of the author's belief that PR plays the central role in the construction of the transference and that material reality can influence both the nature and form of the transference through the activation or inhibition of different sets of fantasies in the analyst and the patient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive and existential therapies: Toward an integration.

Cognitive and existential therapies are typically viewed as so diverse in their assumptions as to be largely incompatible, representing opposite ends of the psychotherapeutic spectrum. The purpose of this article is to show how a merging of these therapies may contribute to a greater range of options for therapists. The authors attempt to show the surprisingly wide number of connections between these two schools. Comparisons and suggestions are made in the areas of the therapeutic relationship, interpersonal and environmental factors, sociotropy and autonomy, and meaning-making. Existential therapy is especially helpful in understanding the formation and identification of ontological core schemas, and an extensive list of these is provided. A case example involving a 32-yr-old female client with depression is provided that illustrates the integration of these two approaches. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The worship of food: An existential perspective.

Suggests that a religious-existential (RE) understanding of compulsive eating serves as a useful adjunct to traditional forms of treatment for this disorder. The RE approach is suggested for patients who use compulsive eating as a maladaptive form of worship. This approach combines standard cognitive-behavioral (CB) techniques with introspective-exploratory (IE) interventions. Successful dieters derive initial benefit from CB interventions and follow-up benefit from IE interventions. Patients begin by identifying and altering dysfunctional habits and follow up by identifying and transforming the values underlying those habits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of the existential perspective on morality.

Comments on B. Vandenburg's (see record 1992-12211-001) article on epistemology and an existentialist consideration of development, taking exception to his assertion that existential consideration, described as crucial to moral development, is absent in Piaget (1965) and Kohlberg's (A. Colby and L. Kohlberg, 1984) cognitive model. It is argued that no such term as moral development exists in existentialism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal problems and the psychotherapy context: The construct validity of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems.

This research investigated the construct validity of the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP; L. M. Horowitz, S. E. Rosenberg, B. A. Baer, G. Ure?o, & V. S. Villase?or, 1988) in the context of psychodynamic psychotherapy. The interpersonal circumplex was used to categorize patients reporting interpersonal distress into 1 of 4 problem quadrants: Friendly Dominant, Hostile Dominant, Hostile Submissive, and Friendly Submissive. At several points in treatment, therapists assessed their patients' personality disturbances, global functioning, and assets and liabilities for therapy. Patients described their in-session experiences using the Therapy Session Report (D. E. Orlinsky & K. I. Howard, 1975). The 4 problem types each had a coherent and distinctive set of correlates. Patients' interpersonal problems were articulated in therapists' perceptions and evaluations, and in the kinds of interpersonal and intrapsychic themes (wants, hopes, feelings, behaviors, etc.) that characterized patients' retrospective accounts of the therapy sessions. The results add to knowledge about the IIP, interpersonal problems, and the psychotherapy context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The existential psychotherapy of phobias.

Describes the existential psychotherapy of phobic patients. The failure of much contemporary psychotherapy is based in an insufficient psychology of the phobic process. The phobic mechanism is intentional and derives from the focused awareness patients have of their own vulnerability in a certain situation and an attempt to preempt the situation by the creation of a mythology that permits a degree of control and a concomitant loss of awareness of the experience to be avoided. The psychotherapy of phobic patients is comprised of 5 stages. Patients must be assured as to the correctness, integrity, and limited effect of their anxiety. They then come to see the intentionality and integrity in their phobic structures and subsequently recognize their power over the process should they be willing to restructure their way of being in the world. The 4th step occurs with the reclamation of the specific knowledge and feelings that patients have attempted to render unconscious. The final stage is the constant attentiveness to the interpersonal process and the suffering and survival of the primary difficulty. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing Interpersonal Perceptions Using the Interpersonal Grid.

Three studies were conducted using the interpersonal grid, a method for assessing perceptions of agentic and communal behavior based on the interpersonal circumplex. The 1st examined consistency across perceivers and convergence between perceiver and the perceived person. The 2nd examined whether responses to the interpersonal grid were sensitive to an experimental manipulation of portrayed agency and communion. The 3rd used the interpersonal grid in an event-contingent recording study. The reliability and validity of the measure were supported by findings demonstrating generalizability across perceivers, generalizability across perceptions of events involving the same person, convergence between perceiver and perceived person, and sensitivity to changes in levels of agency and communion. Applications of the interpersonal grid to clinical practice and research are described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The existential concept of death.

Comments on B. Vandenburg's (see record 1992-12211-001) article on epistemology and an existentialist consideration of development. If the existentialist prospects of death are to be included in a beyond-epistemic consideration of developmental issues, it is necessary to examine the status of the concept of death as an existential given, not subject to developmental changes over the life span. (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).     

Prenatal diagnosis of congenital cardiomyopathies. Current reality in the south of the country

In order to make an actual perspective about prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease in the area of influence of our department, a prospective study including 948 fetus and 185 newborn was done, 348 fetus and 20 newborn evaluated during 1993 (group I) and the remaining during 1994 (group II). In both groups indications for fetal echocardiography were mainly maternal (18%) and familiar (14%) factors, but occurrence of CHD were respectively 2% and 0% for them. Fetal factors for echocardiography account for 7%, namely arrhythmias (7%) and obstetric suspicion of CHD (6%), but occurrence of CHD was respectively 13% and 32% for group I and 36% and 48% for group II. In the newborn with serious CHD, risk factors could be identified in 30% in group I and 36% in group II, being respectively 15% and 7% referred for fetal echocardiography. It is concluded that although a rise in the number of fetus evaluated and a better obstetric accuracy have occurred, the rate of prenatal diagnosis of CHD is still very low, pointing to necessity of continuing our actual policy of teaching and spreading this area, specially in the primary health care units.     

Differential diagnosis of decreased vision: a case study

Three patients who suffered transitory (from 18 to 49 days) cranial dyskinesias during the course of tubercular meningitis are described. The diagnosis was confirmed by the presence of acid-alcohol resistant bacilli in spinal fluid. Cranial tomography or magnetic resonance images failed to demonstrate anatomical lesions. The blink reflex and brain stem auditory evoked potentials were abnormal, indicating dysfunction of motor nuclei of the cranial nerves, possibly secondary to changes in their regulation by basal ganglia. No recurrences have been observed during follow-up (from 3 to 7 years).     

Interpersonal compatibility and managerial work effectiveness: A test of the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation theory.

Examined whether W. Schutz's Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation compatibility theory, based on interpersonal need satisfaction, would hold in a context which emphasized rational, nonpersonal processes. Ss were 360 male industrial supervisors. 2 types of interpersonal compatibility were compared to 2 measures of interpersonal work effectiveness and to a measure of sociometric choice. Only 2 of 20 operational hypotheses testing the theoretical postulate of compatibility were supported by the data. It is concluded that the theory did not hold in the context studied. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aumakua: Behavioral direction visions in Hawaiians.

Presents case histories of 3 17–20 yr old Hawaiian school dropouts (2 males and 1 female) who had persistent hallucinations while residing in a Job Corps training center. Desensitization techniques failed to alleviate the hallucinations. Clients were told to face the visions, which were of departed relatives, and listen for messages. The youths were advised to alter their behavior to match cultural and social norms. Though the trainees had no remorse for their past acts, they altered their behavior in accordance with the advice, and the hallucinations stopped. A comment is made regarding clients from different cultures. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of existential shame in the healing endeavor.

A clinical case of a 35-yr-old male patient illustrates that the presence of therapeutic shame provides the sine qua non for a meaningful examination of the existential dilemmas of human existence by the therapeutic participants. It is argued that there is a crucial interrelationship between how the analyst uses shame and the patient's willingness to express and to work through despair. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The past makes the present meaningful: Nostalgia as an existential resource.

The present research tested the proposition that nostalgia serves an existential function by bolstering a sense of meaning in life. Study 1 found that nostalgia was positively associated with a sense of meaning in life. Study 2 experimentally demonstrated that nostalgia increases a sense of meaning in life. In both studies, the link between nostalgia and increased meaning in life was mediated by feelings of social connectedness. Study 3 evidenced that threatened meaning increases nostalgia. Study 4 illustrated that nostalgia, in turn, reduces defensiveness following a meaning threat. Finally, Studies 5 and 6 showed that nostalgia disrupts the link between meaning deficits and compromised psychological well-being. Collectively, these findings indicate that the provision of existential meaning is a pivotal function of nostalgia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality diagnosis with the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP): Integrating clinical and statistical measurement and prediction.

This article describes the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure (SWAP), a personality assessment instrument intended for use by clinically experienced interviewers, designed to maximize both psychometric precision and clinical relevance. The article focuses on the latest edition of the instrument, the SWAP-II; its use in 2 recently completed large-sample projects; and the ways in which data from these projects are being used to revise and refine concepts of personality pathology and taxonomy. The article first details the development of the SWAP and its psychometric rationale. It then examines the use of SWAP data for purposes of (a) improving diagnostic criteria within the framework of the existing Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders taxonomy, (b) developing a new classification of personality pathology based on empirically identified diagnostic groupings, and (c) identifying trait dimensions relevant to understanding personality syndromes and disorders. Finally, the article discusses future research directions and challenges. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal view of depression: Review and integration.

Reviews the interpersonal models of depression of J. C. Coyne (see PA, Vols 61:1146 and 71:15607), G. L. Klerman et al (1984), and L. B. Feldman (see record 1979-13538-001). A reciprocal model of depression is presented that is based on systems theory, A. Bandura's (see record 1979-08427-001) concept of reciprocal determinism, and a cognitive approach to depression described by A. T. Beck et al (1979). According to the model, depression is reinforced by the reciprocity of cognitions, emotions, and behaviors on the intra- and interpersonal levels. Long-term results of treatment may be expected only when change occurs in depressed persons and their significant others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Existing: An introduction to existential thought.

Reviews the book, Existing: An introduction to existential thought by Steven Luper (2000). This book is an anthology of existentialism. It presents work from Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre, as well as generous selections many other important 19th and 20th century existentialist authors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)