Psychological adjustment to survival from Hodgkin's disease.

Compared the psychological adjustment of 60 male Hodgkin's disease survivors, aged 20–47 yrs, with an age-matched sample of 20 physically healthy men. Assessment included objective self-report, projective testing, observer rating, and interview. Measures included the Global Assessment Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). All Ss had received no treatment and had shown no evidence of disease for the previous 6–240 mo (median 2 yrs). On most measures, no differences were found between cancer survivors and healthy controls. However, the hypothesis of greater psychosocial dysfunction in the cancer sample overall was partially confirmed by significantly lowered intimacy motivation, increased avoidant thinking about illness, prolonged difficulty in returning to premorbid work status, and illness-related concerns. Conversely, patients were significantly more appreciative of life than nonpatients. Within the patient group, late stage (aggressively treated) Ss were at highest risk for psychological distress and psychosocial disruption during the 1st 2 yrs off treatment. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Memory and abuse: Remembering and healing the effects of trauma.

Reviews the book, Memory and abuse: Remembering and healing the effects of trauma by Charles L. Whitfield (see record 1995-98063-000). This book is a most informative, well-written, and thoughtful examination of the relationship between memory and abuse. Dr. Whitfield focuses on the clinical psychology of memory and trauma, and in doing so, deals successfully with the politics of the controversy surrounding delayed or "recovered" memories. In addition, he provides clinical information regarding the treatment of adult survivors of abuse. His book's intended readership includes both helping professionals and survivors. While many technical terms are used, the author's down-to-earth, personal style and use of anecdotes and case illustrations, as well as figures and tables, help to make this book both readable and enjoyable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of maternal social skills in multiproblem families: Effects on the mother-child relationship.

Tested a two-step infant preventive intervention model: Step 1 was for the mother to improve her interpersonal competence with other adults; Step 2 was for her to learn more optimal parenting behavior. Ss were 147 multiproblem mothers and their infants. Assessed the mothers' adult social skills pre- and posttreatment. Measured the percentage of treatment goals attained during treatment, and mother–child interactive quality posttreatment. Data partially supported the model: For women who began the program with low social skills, the attainment of treatment goals was positively related to posttreatment social skills (Step 1), which, in turn, were positively related to the quality of mother–child interaction (Step 2). For those women who began with high social skills, the treatment was unrelated to posttreatment social skills or to mother–child interaction. Additional analyses explored the factors associated with individual differences in delivery of services and response to treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Experiential therapy: A symphony of selves.

Reviews the book, Experiential therapy: A symphony of selves by Richard E. Felder and Avrum Geurin Weiss (1991). This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking small volume that illustrates well the contributions, and the limitations of, experiential therapy. Defining psychopathology as a restricted capacity for experience, Felder and Weiss regard the basic objective of experiential therapy as increasing patients' capacity to experience and therefore to grow. This book embodies both the considerable virtues and the significant limitations of the experiential therapy movement. It reads in some ways as a historical document, clarifying the significant contributions made by a therapeutic orientation which established fundamentals, but remaining oblivious to the technical and systems-oriented innovations of the past decade. Today's therapist needs Gestalt techniques, Eriksonian interventions, awareness of family system factors, visualization strategies, facility in intrapsychic, couple and family conflict resolution—intervention techniques that make treatment more systematic and efficient. Still, the core ideas presented in Experiential Psychotherapy merit remembering. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of the Color-Your-Life technique with pediatric cancer patients and their siblings.

Examined the use of the Color-Your-Life (CYL) technique with 18 pediatric cancer patients (CPS), 20 siblings of pediatric patients (SIBS) and 40 controls, all aged 7–13 yrs. Findings show no differences were found between the groups for the percentages of colors. However, there were differences with respect to the way these groups represented negative emotions. SIBS tended to use the color/affect pair red/mad to indicate feelings of depression, while CPS used the absence of color, leaving white space on the paper. The Children's Depression Inventory (A. E. Kazdin, 1990) significantly correlates with the amount of blue (sad) that the Ss drew. However, this was not true for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (C. D. Speilberger et al, 1973) and the amount of black (scared/nervous). CPS and SIBS who completed the CYL technique prior to completing the inventories had higher scores on these instruments than the children who completed the written instruments 1st. This finding was the opposite for controls, suggesting that these groups of Ss have different reactions to completing the CYL activity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuroticism and the pain-mood relation in rheumatoid arthritis: Insights from a prospective daily study.

For 75 consecutive days, 54 Ss with rheumatoid arthritis supplied daily reports of their mood and joint pain. After aggregating daily reports, the relation between chronic mood and chronic pain remained statistically significant when controlling for neuroticism, depression, disease activity, disability, and characteristic responses to increasing pain. Findings of a path analysis suggest that (1) individuals higher in neuroticism experience more chronic distress regardless of their responses to pain, their pain intensity, and depressive symptomatology, and (2) the relation between neuroticism and chronic pain is mediated by the propensity of high-neuroticism individuals to catastrophize their pain. Within-S analyses that controlled for autocorrelation and linear trends in the time series revealed that 40% of the Ss experienced significantly worse moods on more painful days. Although individuals higher in neuroticism reported more intense pain and more negative mood, their daily mood was less strongly linked to their daily pain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceiving implied harmony: The influence of melodic and harmonic context.

Two experiments investigated the influence of melodic and harmonic context on the obviousness of pitch changes in 3 Western tonal melodies. In Experiment 1, listeners with different levels of musical skill heard standard melodies followed by comparison melodies in which single pitch changes could occur. In-key pitch changes that were not implied by the local harmony were judged more obvious than in-key pitch changes that were so implied. This effect was influenced by the surrounding context of melodic line and chords and was absent when the context contained chords that were not consistent with the harmony implied by the melodic line. In Experiment 2, with similar listeners, implied harmony effects were eliminated by removing parts of the melodic line, indicating the relative importance of melodic context as a determinant of implied harmony. Questionnaire data suggested that knowledge of tonal relationships was tacit, even in many trained listeners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral observation scales for measuring children's distress: The effects of increased methodological rigor.

In Exp I, the Observation Scale of Behavioral Distress (OSBD), a revision of the Procedure Behavioral Rating Scale, was used to evaluate 42 pediatric cancer patients undergoing bone marrow aspiration procedures. In Exp II, 31 pediatric cancer patients were evaluated using the same procedures as in Exp I. In both experiments, parents rated their child's anxiety. Results show that Ss habituated but that the OSBD had little effect on validity or habituation data. The failure to find significant differences in validity measures with an increase in sophistication of the measurement techniques may be related to the nature of the situation and to types of behaviors recorded. In acute and intense situations, gross behavioral recordings of the presence or absence of behaviors may be sufficient. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Homework: A natural means of home-school collaboration.

Discusses the value of homework in terms of the emerging interest in the development of effective home–school partnerships. Specifically, a review of the homework literature is provided with attention to parent-, teacher-, and child-mediated programs. Several homework programs that have received empirical support are described. It is concluded that the school psychologist can adopt various roles in developing, supporting, and monitoring homework programs. Specifically, the school psychologist can assess homework difficulties, train teachers and parents, and serve as a liaison between home and school. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)