Pastaraisiais dešimtmečiais pabrėžiama būtinybė tyrinėti psichoterapijos pokyčius bei veiksnius pasitelkiant kokybinius tyrimo metodus, pažvelgti į psichoterapijos procesą per kliento prizmę. Šiame darbe siekiama atskleisti subjektyviai išgyvenamus psichoterapinius pokyčius, su jais siejamus terapinius veiksnius ir pykčio kaitą psichoterapiniame procese. Tyrime dalyvavo septynios moterys, per pastarųjų 1-3 metų laikotarpį baigusios ilgalaikę psichoterapiją. Tyrime buvo pritaikyta nauja interviu struktūruojanti forma – psichoterapinės istorijos pasakojimas. Tiriamųjų buvo prašoma papasakoti savo psichoterapijos istoriją įvardijant tai, kas joms buvo svarbiausia terapijoje. Tyrimo rezultatai buvo analizuojami remiantis teminės analizės metodu (Braun, Clarke, 2006). Psichoterapinių istorijų analizė atskleidė dinamišką ir daugialypį terapinių pokyčių vaizdą, apimantį tiek tiriamųjų tiesioginę terapinę patirtį, tiek jos priešistorę bei po terapijos vykstančius procesus. Subjektyviai išgyvenami terapiniai pokyčiai apima emocinius išgyvenimus, tarpasmeninių santykių kaitą, motyvacinės poreikių srities įsisąmoninimą. Pykčio raiškos kaita subjektyviai patiriama kaip svarbus terapinis pokytis. Kalbėdamos apie terapinius veiksnius, tiriamosios akcentuoja savo aktyvaus indėlio į terapiją svarbą, kalba apie terapinių santykių kokybę, vidinių procesų dinamiką. / Lately scientists highlight the necessity of better understanding the subjective side of psychotherapeutic process. The aim of this research was to reveal subjectively important psychotherapeutic changes, significant therapeutic factors, and the transformation of anger expression in psychotherapy. Seven female clients, who had accomplished their long-term therapy course and finished it in 1 – 3-year period, participated in the study. Data were collected using the method of psychotherapeutic story. Participants were asked to tell their psychotherapy story, mentioning what was most important in the process of their psychotherapy. The processing of data was based on the principles of thematic analysis (Braun, Clarke, 2006). The analysis of psychotherapeutic stories revealed a dynamic and miscellaneous picture of the respondents’ therapeutic change, encompassing their direct therapeutic experience, its prehistory, and after-therapy processes. Emotional experiences, the development of interpersonal relationship, awareness of the motivational sphere of needs are mentioned as subjectively important therapeutic changes. Psychotherapeutic stories revealed the importance of change of anger expression in subjective psychotherapeutic experience. Respondents relate psychotherapeutic changes to their own active involvement, the quality of therapeutic relationship, and the dynamics of inner processes.

Previous research has reported positive associations between anger, perceived stress and blood pressure. These associations have largely been based on cross-sectional data and a small number of longitudinal works. Using a prospective longitudinal cohort design, this study more directly tested the relationships between anger, perceived stress and blood pressure by using a psychological therapeutic intervention (mindfulness-based stress reduction) to manipulate anger and perceived stress. Anger and perceived stress were in turn evaluated for association with blood pressure. Despite improvements in psychosocial functioning and reductions in blood pressure, findings from this study failed to demonstrate an association between change in anger or perceived stress with change in daytime or 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure. A model where these variables interact indirectly via stress coping mechanisms or health behaviours may be the linking mechanism in this study. Results from this thesis have contributed evidence to a divided field dominated by cross-sectional research.

Previous research has reported positive associations between anger, perceived stress and blood pressure. These associations have largely been based on cross-sectional data and a small number of longitudinal works. Using a prospective longitudinal cohort design, this study more directly tested the relationships between anger, perceived stress and blood pressure by using a psychological therapeutic intervention (mindfulness-based stress reduction) to manipulate anger and perceived stress. Anger and perceived stress were in turn evaluated for association with blood pressure. Despite improvements in psychosocial functioning and reductions in blood pressure, findings from this study failed to demonstrate an association between change in anger or perceived stress with change in daytime or 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure. A model where these variables interact indirectly via stress coping mechanisms or health behaviours may be the linking mechanism in this study. Results from this thesis have contributed evidence to a divided field dominated by cross-sectional research.

In spite of evidence for increased maintenance and/or improvement of emotional experience in older adulthood, past work suggests that young adults are better able than older adults to identify emotions in others. Typical emotion recognition tasks employ a single-closed-response methodology. Because older adults are more complex in their emotional experience than young adults, they may approach such response-limited emotion recognition tasks in a qualitatively different manner than young adults. The first study of the present research investigated whether older adults were more likely than young adults to interpret emotional expressions (facial task) and emotional situations (lexical task) as representing a mix of different discrete emotions. In the lexical task, older adults benefited more than young adults from the opportunity to provide more than one response. In the facial task, however, there was a cross-over interaction such that older adults benefited more than young adults for anger recognition, whereas young adults benefited more than older adults for disgust recognition. A second study investigated whether older adults benefit more than young adults from contextual cues. The addition of contextual information improved the performance of older adults more than that of young adults. Age differences in anger recognition, however, persisted across all conditions. Overall, these findings are consistent with an age-related increase in the perception of mixed emotions in lexical information. Moreover, they suggest that contextual information can help disambiguate emotional information.

Research has suggested that affective states have critical effects on various cognitive processes and performance. Evidence from driving studies has also emphasized the importance of driver situation awareness (Endsley, 1995b) for driving performance and safety. However, to date, no research has investigated the relationship between affective effects and driver situation awareness. Two studies examined the relationship between a driver's affective states and situation awareness. In Experiment 1, 30 undergraduates drove in a simulator after either anger or neutral affect induction. Results suggested that an induced angry state can degrade driver situation awareness and driving performance more than the neutral state. Interestingly, the angry state did not influence participants' perceived workload. Experiment 2 explored the possibilities of using an "attention deployment" emotion regulation strategy as an intervention for mitigating angry effects on driving, via an adaptive speech-based system. 60 undergraduates drove the same scenario as in Experiment 1 after affect induction with different intervention conditions: anger with no sound; anger with the ER system: directive/ command style emotion regulation messages; anger with the SA system: suggestive/ notification style situation awareness prompts; or neutral with no sound. Results showed that both speech-based systems can not only enhance driver situation awareness and driving performance, but also reduce the anger level and perceived workload. Participants rated the ER system as more effective, but they rated the SA system as less annoying and less authoritative than the ER system. Based on the results of Experiment 2, regression models were constructed between a driver's affective states and driving performance, being mediated by situation awareness (full mediation for speeding and partial mediation for collision). These results allow researchers to construct a more detailed driver behavior model by showing how an affective state can influence driver situation awareness and performance. The practical implications of this research include the use of situation awareness prompts as a possible strategy for mitigating affective effects, for the design of an affect detection and mitigation system for drivers.

In Primary Aldosteronism (PAL) excessive amounts of aldosterone cause sodium and water retention and, in many individuals, this leads to moderate to severely high blood pressure. Although the chemistry and physiology are increasingly well understood, including the outcomes of treatment on physical health, there has been no systematic study of the psychological dimension of PAL. Anecdotally, patients exhibit symptoms such as angry outbursts, irritability, anxiety and defensiveness, and partners of these patients sometimes mention poor anger control and brittle or unpredictable moods. This thesis reports a systematic study of anger and anxiety among patients undergoing treatment for PAL. Eighty-three patients were recruited over an 11-month period to a prospective, pre-post design study to determine if treatment was associated with change in psychological state. Participants completed the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI-2), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale (PAIS) questionnaires. Adrenal Vein Sampling confirmed overproduction of aldosterone in one or both adrenal glands. Patients with Aldosterone Producing Adenoma (APA) were offered adrenalectomy. As per usual treatment protocols, patients with Bilateral Adrenal Hyperplasia (BAH) were prescribed spironolactone or amiloride depending predominantly on severity of blood pressure and potassium levels. Post-test questionnaires were completed after 6-8 months. Analysis was by mixed design (between-within subjects) ANOVA. Participant numbers in the adrenalectomy group fell far short of expectations. Fourteen past patients who had undergone unilateral adrenalectomy completed a retrospective semi-structured questionnaire. This qualitative data was analysed to identify themes similar to quantitative data. At baseline, 'non-completers' (ie those who did not complete the post-test; n=19), were significantly more angry than 'completers' (n=50) in State Anger (p< .01), Trait Anger (p< .05) and Anger Expression Index (p< .001). Trait Anxiety was also higher (p< .05), as was Psychological Distress (p< .05). Among those who participated at both interviews, there was small but statistically significant adverse treatment effect with higher scores for State Anger (p< .05), and Feeling Angry (p< .05). However for Trait Anger (p< .01), and 2 of its 3 sub-scales Angry Temperament (p< .05) and Angry Reaction (p< .01) there was a slight to moderate decrease in negative affect with treatment. Psychological Distress scores also improved (p< .05). Across all ANOVAs, there were no significant interaction effects, suggesting that any treatment effect was equivalent for the two drugs. Qualitatively collected data elucidated participants' changes in approach to life and relationships since adrenalectomy. Themes that emerged in the data included improved ability to cope with external stress, better control of emotions, more relaxed relationships and attitude to work, and a greater vitality and quality of life. Generally the comments were consistent with the drug treatments; there was noticeable benefit, including perceived better anger control and less anxiety. Positive psychological effects of treatment observed in the two drug groups were triangulated with data from a qualitative study. The combined evidence suggests that when excess circulating aldosterone is reduced (adrenalectomy), or blocked (spironolactone), or aldosterone's salt and water retaining effects are minimised (amiloride), then nervous irritability and its subsequent psycho-behavioural manifestations are reduced. The effect however is slight and the conclusions are weakened by an apparent attrition bias, and the absence of a control group. Implications for further research are discussed.

The way in which we perceive and interpret the causes of situations is likely to have a profound influence on our subsequent behaviour. It has been well established that the experience of anger is likely to systematically influence the cognitive processing style and cognitive skills that the individual will use in understanding, and responding to, interpersonal situations. One important process that may be affected by the regular experience of intense anger (trait anger), is the dispositional propensity to attempt to understand the thoughts, feelings, and point of view of another person in an interpersonal interaction (i.e., perspective taking). A study was conducted to test this theoretical hypothesis. In addition, the study attempted to examine the influence of perspective taking on anger experience, control, and expression.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2007. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (M.A.)--Lancaster Bible College, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-68).

Mass., Brandeis Univ., Diss.--Waltham, 2003.