The impact of positive and negative feedback on reaction time in brain-damaged patients.

Little is known about the impact of feedback on the reaction times (RTs) of brain-damaged (BD) patients. The authors therefore investigated the effect of positive and negative feedback on these patients, using a 4-choice RT task. Participants were 107 BD patients with different etiologies and 50 orthopedic (OG) control patients. Patients were assigned to 3 groups in which performance-independent negative, positive, and no feedback were given. Statistical analysis showed that negative feedback led to significantly shorter RTs in BD patients. Even BD patients with high depression scores were affected by negative feedback. In contrast, negative feedback had no impact on the RTs of the OG controls, and positive feedback had no influence on the RTs of any group. These results raise some interesting questions about motivational processes in BD patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The negative compatibility effect: Unconscious inhibition influences reaction time and response selection.

In the negative compatibility effect (NCE) a masked prime arrow, pointing left or right, is followed by an unmasked (visible) target arrow. The task is to press the left or right switch corresponding to the visible arrow. Surprisingly, reaction time is longer (slowed) when the prime and target indicate the same, rather than different, responses. By contrast, the effect of an unmasked prime is positive- opposite to the NCE. This indicates that the NCE is not attributable to incomplete masking; to the extent that the prime is visible, the NCE would be reduced by this positive influence. Thus, the NCE appears to result from unconscious processing of the prime and, in that sense, may be a form of subliminal perception. Additional findings show that the NCE is due to inhibition of a response code, that it is automatic in that it occurs even if the information in the prime and target could be ignored, and that it also influences response selection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multidimensional reaction to therapeutic touch in a hospital setting.

Studied the effects of interpersonal touch over a relatively long time frame, for a broad range of response dimensions, and in a nonreactive setting characterized by dependency. On an applied level, the research studied the value of touch as a concomitant of nurse–patient interactions; Ss were 48 patients who had entered the hospital for elective surgery. Specifically, a 2 (touch vs no touch) by 2 (male vs female) between-Ss design assessed the effects of nurses touching Ss during preoperative teaching on Ss' affective, evaluative, behavioral, and physiological responses. Female Ss in the touch condition experienced more favorable affective, behavioral, and physiological reactions than a no-touch control group. In contrast, males in the touch condition reacted more negatively than control Ss on these dimensions. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of shame, guilt, and the negative reaction in brief dynamic psychotherapy.

Developed the Therapy Shame and Guilt Scale (TSGS) to test the hypothesis that patients' degree of shame and guilt would be significant predictors of therapy outcome. 35 patients (aged 20–80 yrs) with neurotic and/or character disorders received 16 weekly sessions of psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy. Two judges' ratings of Sessions 1, 5, 8, and 14 on the TSGS demonstrated that patient levels of shame and (especially) guilt were associated with therapeutic outcome. The TSGS was a better predictor of outcome than the Vanderbilt Negative Indicators Scale (VNIS), whose major point of overlap with the TSGS was the VNIS item of self-rejection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The therapeutic personality in the therapeutic community.

Identified personality characteristics associated with the rated ability of various types of mental hospital support personnel to interact in a therapeutically beneficial manner with patients. The Gordon Personal Profile, the Gordon Personal Inventory, the Work Environment Preference Schedule, and an experimental mental health aptitude test were administered to the female support personnel in 6 state hospitals (N = 257). Ss judged by peers to be the more effective were inclined to take their responsibilities seriously, to be emotionally stable, to be cautious, to have trust and confidence in other people, to be nonbureaucratic in their work orientation, and to be aware of the therapeutically preferred procedures for handling patients. Few significant relationships were found with the supervisory ratings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stimulating therapeutic change with interpretations: A comparison of positive and negative connotation.

Based on impression management theory, it was hypothesized that clients would change whether counselors interpreted their symptoms as connoting negative and undesirable personal characteristics or positive and desirable personal characteristics. An alternative hypothesis, from communications theory, was that negative connotative interpretations would stimulate the maintenance of symptoms, whereas positive connotative interpretations would stimulate symptom remission. The hypotheses were tested in a short-term counseling experiment with 30 18–21 yr old depressed (determined by the Beck Depression Inventory) undergraduates. Ss received 6 interpretations over 2 interviews that either negatively or positively connoted their depressive symptoms. Results support both hypotheses: Although Ss in both treatment conditions decreased their depression significantly during treatment, Ss receiving negative connotative interpretations experienced symptom relapse following treatment, whereas Ss receiving positive connotative interpretations continued in symptom remission. An attributional explanation of the results is explored. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The residential therapeutic caring community.

The residential therapeutic caring community (RTCC) for adolescents combines psychotherapeutic principles of the professional model and self-help concept of the therapeutic community by using the collective resources of members to mobilize peer pressure. The RTCC is a safe, structured, supportive treatment environment that employs a confrontation, teaching, interpretative, and reasoning approach and uses the psychotherapeutic principles of reality therapy and existential thought. In the RTCC, the staff serve as mentors and role models, and they demonstrate their concern by maintaining high expectations for immediate improved behavior. The personal qualities necessary for a psychotherapist working in an RTCC are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The jurisprudence of therapeutic jurisprudence.

In less than a decade, therapeutic jurisprudence, which began as a scholarly approach to mental health law, has emerged as a mental health approach to law generally. In this essay, one of the founders of this new field offers a further elaboration of the theory of therapeutic jurisprudence and a response to the key issues raised by commentators and critics. This essay discusses the relationship between therapeutic jurisprudence and other schools of jurisprudence and analyzes the approach's normative focus and its limits. It also addresses how "therapeutic" should be defined, whether the approach is paternalistic, whether the limits of social science methodology doom the enterprise, how therapeutic and other potentially conflicting values can be reconciled, and how the law should respond when such conflicts persist. Finally, the essay charts the path of therapeutic jurisprudence and analyzes new developments in the field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Programmed therapeutic messages as a smoking treatment adjunct: Reducing the impact of negative affect.

Maintaining treatment gains remains a challenge to smoking cessation programs. Smokers prone to negative affect are most likely to relapse. In an effort to improve maintenance, a standard cognitive behavioral treatment was supplemented with the provision of computer-controlled audiotape players containing personalized therapeutic messages. Either the standard treatment alone or the standard treatment plus 2 months use of the tape player were provided to 41 smokers. No outcome difference was found between the 2 conditions during the 1-year follow-up. (The combined 1-year abstinence rate was 61%, with 34% continuously abstinent.) The frequency with which participants used the device predicted both posttreatment coping skill use and smoking rate. Most notable was an interaction between treatment condition and negative affect. Provision of the devices negated or reversed the usual association between negative affect and poorer outcome. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rigidity, negative reaction tendencies, and cosatiation effects in normal and feebleminded children.

"Feebleminded and normal children played three pre-experimental games under two conditions of reinforcement, followed by a two-part experimental task given under a support condition." Ss were allowed to play to satiation under the 2 conditions. Hypotheses were generated based upon the supposition that "cosatiation score is a measure of motivational determinants rather than… of the inherent rigidity of individuals. The results in general supported this." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4JI20S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social norms of alcohol-related negative consequences.

Social norms for alcohol use are important influences on individual college student drinking. The present study extends social norms research by examining alcohol-related consequences and, in particular, whether similar misperceptions exist regarding the frequency and evaluation of these consequences over time. College student drinkers (N = 624) participating in a longitudinal study completed Web-based surveys assessing alcohol use and related consequences, as well as their beliefs about frequency and evaluation of consequences for the typical college student. Findings suggest that students overestimated how often typical college students experience negative consequences and underestimated how negatively other students evaluated those consequences. Finally, results support a bidirectional model for alcohol-related consequences, possibly indicating a reciprocal, mutually influential feed-forward loop of norms and consequences that promotes maintenance of college student drinking and consequences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The independence of positive and negative affect.

Five studies, with 776 undergraduates and 34 33–85 yr old community residents, investigated the relation beween positive and negative affect. Instruments included the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Eysenck Personality Inventory, and 16PF. In Studies 1 and 2, positive feelings were remembered as being nearly independent of negative feelings in the past year, but the 2 types of affect were moderately negatively correlated for the past month. In Studies 3 and 5, Ss completed daily mood reports for 70 and 30 days, respectively. In Study 4, Ss completed 3-wk, daily, and moment mood reports and also filled out reports when they experienced strong emotions. The principal finding was that the relation between positive and negative affect differed greatly depending on the time frame. The strongest negative correlation between the 2 affects occurred during emotional times. The correlation decreased in a linear fashion as the time span covered increased logarithmically. It appears that positive and negative affect are independent in terms of how much people feel in their lives over longer time periods. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The nature of negative thoughts in depression.

Investigated the nature and content of the negative thoughts that accompany depression by examining thoughts about oneself and others during 3 cognitive tasks: imaging, recall, and inference. 45 female undergraduates were classified as mildly depressed or nondepressed on the basis of scores on the Beck Depression Inventory. Ss then were asked to image, recall, and make inferences about a variety of events while thinking about themselves or another person. The events were sad or happy and either social or nonsocial in nature. Results suggest that the negativity in thought that accompanies depression was restricted to thoughts about the self and did not extend to thoughts about others. The relation between negative thoughts and the depressive's view of self is discussed. It is proposed that depressives have a negative self-schema that makes the affective nature of their behavior particularly salient. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The therapeutic experience of psychoanalytic inquiry.

Even from so brief an outline, as background for this review, it is possible to see why the continued effort to defend Freud's metapsychology and extend it into the present, has fallen on hard times. The first, Ferenczi's Diary, is, in my opinion, of critical historical importance; the second, Edelson's Theory in Crisis, is clearly rooted in that history, continuing Freud's heavy emphasis on sex into contemporary psychoanalysis; the third, Goldberg's Fresh Look, represents an effort to do psychoanalytic therapy with a group of patients that is explicitly excluded from it by classical diagnostic metapsychology; and the fourth, R. Marshall and S. Marshall's Transference-Countertransference Matrix, presents an original contemporary paradigm for joining together the study of transference, first noticed by Freud after his 1900 work with Dora, with the study of countertransference, first directly explored by Ferenczi in 1931-1932 with R. N. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The therapeutic alliance in behavior therapy.

It may be argued that behavior therapy has proceeded with minimal regard for the therapeutic alliance (TA) as a key mechanism of change. However, ignoring the role of TA in behavior therapy may not only be problematic on a practical level, but also may be inconsistent with basic principles that underlie behavior therapy. In beginning to address these issues, the authors consider the role of TA in behavior therapy with a focus on relevant basic principles. Keeping a focus on these basic principles, the authors then outline three contemporary behavior therapies that already incorporate a focus on the therapeutic relationship and conclude with a clinical case illustration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The therapeutic alliance--a proteus in disguise.

The therapeutic alliance is a vital component of not only the psychoanalytic relation but of all therapeutic encounters between psychotherapist and patient. Despite the universal application and realization of the alliance concept in therapeutic endeavors, it is often ignored as an operative concept in the therapeutic theoretical armamentarium or is formulated in alternative terms. It also comes into play implicitly, even when the concept is formally dismissed as irrelevant. This discussion addresses the meaning and variations of expression of the alliance in the clinical setting and focuses particularly on ways in which the alliance is actually formulated in alternate terms that usually address some partial aspect of the alliance without acknowledging its relevance or importance in the therapeutic relationship and interaction between therapist and patient. I conclude that even when its role in therapy is ignored, minimized, or denied, the alliance continues to play a vital role that requires therapeutic attention and processing in its own right. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The positive therapeutic relationship as accreditation.

In formal accreditation ceremonies, one person acts by virtue of his or her position to confirm another person in a new position in a community. The new position, or "status," is such that the confirmed individual now enjoys expanded eligibilities for participation in that community. This article explores the power inherent in viewing the positive therapeutic relationship as an ongoing, informal rite of accreditation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The therapeutic dialogue in narco-analytic treatments.

Gives an impressionistic review of 40 narco-analytic treatments of soldiers who suffered a subacute combat reaction in the 1973 Israel War. The criteria for the application of this treatment are discussed. Narcotherapy is characterized by the intensity of the emotions expressed, leading to problems of transference and countertransference that must be dealt with. Emphasis is placed on the existential aspects encountered in the reliving of traumatic battle experiences. While helping the patient to return to the traumatic past, the therapist simultaneously gives him support derived from the immediate context of the therapeutic dialog. The conclusions drawn from this material can be used as directives for therapists who use narcoanalysis as a form of short-focal psychotherapy. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of cigarette smoking on negative priming.

Nicotine administration has been found to enhance performance on tasks of selective attention. It has been proposed that efficient attentional filtering depends on the successful inhibition of distracting information. In the work reported here, a negative priming paradigm was adopted to test whether smoking enhanced the inhibition of irrelevant information. Thirty-six minimally deprived smokers, half of whom smoked and half of whom sham smoked, completed the negative priming task. A significantly larger negative priming effect was found in participants who had smoked in comparison with those who sham smoked. These results support the hypothesis that nicotine enhances the inhibition of distracting information and thus suggest a possible mechanism by which smoking may enhance selective attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)