This thesis finds that "the self" as a concept has been included in psychoanalytic theory but has not been emphasized. The ego is defined in this thesis as a psychoanalytic term. "The self" is defined as a philosophical concept that integrates the subject (an experiential, first person quality), and object (a sense of being an individual as a whole) in mental life. Theoretical writings on the ego are observed to separate the subject and object. In psychoanalysis, the debate on the status of the self in relationship to the ego is found to originate in the 1940s. Five areas of research indicate that while Freud did not stress "the self", he did not omit it. (1) The historical antecedents to psychoanalysis in German scientific materialism illustrate the pressure on psychoanalysis to be identified with scientific and not metaphysical thought. The mind-body relationship in German materialism formulates "the self" as a function of the body, not of the spirit. This is seen to be consistent with Freud's psychic structure in which the ego is a function of the psyche and the psyche a function of the body. (2) The pressure to affiliate with the scientific movement is also apparent in the terminological choices in early and recent English translations (cf. Jones, 1908; Strachey, 1966a). The absence of a personal reference in the translation of das Ich as "the ego" (instead of "the I") is found to detract from Freud's intention. However, when the English translation is reviewed in the context of its evolution, it was found that many decisions were the result of historical-political and cultural considerations. Latin and Greek terminology were required to ensure the survival of psychoanalytic thought. (3) A review of the conceptual development of the ego supports the assumption that Freud included a central aspect within the psyche. Physiological/structural and psychological descriptors are seen to be combined. The ambiguity in Freud's presentation of the ego is suggested to be the result of integrating these descriptors and due to Freud's focus on pathological, not normal, ego functioning. Freud's continued interest in splitting of the ego (not integration) is seen to be consistent with nineteenth century psychiatry. (4) It is also observed that the emphasis in Freudian theory is on the analysis of the psyche. Psychological synthesis was seen to follow automatically the removal of psychological obstacles. This underlying premise indicates that Freud did not ignore a central aspect within the psyche. (5) The foundation of "the self" in American psychoanalytic theory is traced to the reformulation of the ego. Modifications to the ego began with the introduction of "self-representations" (Hartmann, 1950) and led to the presentation of "the self" as a structure comparable to the id, ego and superego (Kohut, 1978; Kernberg, 1982). The basis of these changes originated in discussions of narcissism. Alterations in psychoanalytic theory are suggested to be an attempt to integrate the objective and subjective functions of "the self" within the ego. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The effect of an auditory subliminal message upon the performance of a writing task and upon the mood of the participants was investigated in this study. One hundred and twenty-eight subjects (randomly assigned to eight conditions, each one comprising 16 subjects) were asked to create a children's story. One condition was exposed to a happy subliminal message (the word happy repeated every five seconds, 14 dB below ambient noise), one condition to a sad subliminal message, and another condition to a subliminal white noise tape. These three conditions received the message while writing the story. Three additional conditions (incubation) were exposed to the same tapes for twenty minutes before writing the story. In addition, there were two contrast conditions in which subjects were requested to write a happy (sad) children's story without being exposed to a subliminal message. The main dependent measures were: self-ratings of the subjects' mood on the axis of pleasure; judges' ratings of the happiness/sadness of the stories; and happy, sad, happy-related, sad-related, and total word counts. With regards to the task, the results indicated no effects for the no incubation conditions; a significant difference between the happy and sad conditions among the incubation conditions; and a significant difference between the two upon request conditions. With regards to the mood of the participants, there was a decrease in pleasure for the sad no incubation condition and a similar decrease for the happy incubation condition. The main conclusions drawn from the present experiment are: mood and task are affected in an independent fashion by the subliminal messages; the affective tone of the stories did not in turn affect the mood of the subjects in the subliminal conditions; the request to write a happy or a sad story did not give rise to mood change as observed with other supraliminal mood-induction techniques; and it appears that subliminal effects are different from supraliminal effects.

No description available.

The present study was designed to assess the efficacy of anger management training with aggressive, adult male offenders. The research design included two active treatment conditions and two delayed treatment control conditions. Treatment consisted of cognitive (Anger Control Training) and behavioral components (Structured Learning Therapy). The order of these components was balanced so that the therapeutic effectiveness of each component could be determined, as well as the complete program. Treatment was provided in a traditional correctional centre and in a specialized treatment centre. The program was conducted over a five week period and consisted of a total of 23 therapy sessions, each of which were three hours in length. Thirty-seven adult, male offenders confined in a medium security prison volunteered to participate in the study. All participants were assessed prior to treatment, following the first component of the program, following the second component of the program, and two months following termination of the program. The results of this study demonstrated that anger control training and structured learning therapy are both effective treatment modalities for incarcerated adult male offenders with severe anger and aggressive behavioral problems. Subjects in all four active treatment conditions displayed the following changes. They self-reported less anger to a variety of provocations common to the prison setting. They self-reported decreases in the frequency, intensity, and duration of anger, more appropriate modalities of expression, and fewer consequences of anger reactions. Objective behavioral ratings of their verbal responses to laboratory role-played provocations indicated their responses were more appropriate, as were their self-reported reactions to these provocations. In addition, subjects demonstrated more prosocial attitudes following completion of the program. The overall findings from the followup measures provide strong support for the extended maintenance of treatment benefits. Subjects continued to demonstrate lower levels of anger arousal on cognitive indices of anger. There were no differences in treatment effectiveness between the two institutions on the majority of dependent measures. Overall, the order of presentation of the therapeutic components (Anger Control Training and Structured Learning Therapy) had no distinguishable effects. Thus, all treatment groups benefitted equally from the program. However, the results do indicate that the major therapeutic gains occurred during the first phase of treatment, regardless of the treatment component received. Comparisons conducted on the disciplinary offense yielded inconsistent findings. Although, no strong statement about treatment efficacy can be made from the misconduct data, exposure to the first phase of the program may have had practical value for some of the participants.

The present study delineated intimacy from other confounding concepts in the literature and investigated the differential effects of two types of marital interventions taken from Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) and Cognitive Marital Therapy (CMT), on levels of marital intimacy, dyadic trust and dyadic adjustment. It was hypothesized that both EFT and CMT would have a positive effect on levels of intimacy, trust and adjustment as compared to a wait-list control group, and that there would be a differential effect in favor of EFT as compared to CMT. Thirty-six couples free of distress and seeking to enhance their intimate relationship were randomly assigned to EFT, CMT or a wait-list control group. Therapists' interventions were monitored and found to be faithfully implemented. Groups were equivalent on demographic variables and quality of therapeutic alliance. Results indicated that both EFT and CMT group means were higher than controls on the self-report measures of intimacy. Observational measures of intimacy revealed differential effects in favor of EFT as compared to CMT at posttest. At a ten-week follow-up, EFT group means were higher than CMT on self-reported intimacy and adjustment.

No description available.

Coyne's (1976a) interpersonal theory outlines a negative cycle of interactions wherein rejection by relationship partners may exacerbate depressive symptoms. Reassurance-seeking and negative self-verification are two theoretically based moderators of the rejection-depression relationship. Sociotropy and autonomy are two personality styles believed to influence individuals' perceptions of social interactions and interpersonal functioning. In this thesis, I attempted to expand on interpersonal theory and to integrate personality styles with interpersonal variables related to depression. An online community sample of 135 married or cohabiting couples completed a series of measures that assessed depression, interpersonal behaviours, and personality styles. Depression was measured again 3 months later in 78 couples. For husbands, high levels of rejection were always associated with increased depression over time, except when husbands sought neither reassurance nor negative self-verification. This suggests that husbands are generally vulnerable to wives' rejection, except for those who limit communication. This finding was discussed in terms of the demand-withdraw cycle described in marital research. In addition, increased depression was associated with a combination of high levels of reassurance-seeking, negative self-verification, and rejection, consistent with previous research. However, unexpectedly, the highest increase in depression was associated with high levels of reassurance-seeking and rejection, but low negative self-verification. Sample differences in relationship duration may explain this finding. For wives, rejection was associated with increased depression only when they sought reassurance. Furthermore, wives who sought reassurance and were not rejected actually became less depressed. The positive role of support-seeking was discussed. Testing the integrated theory revealed that the association between sociotropy and depression, in both husbands and wives, was mediated by the combination of reassurance-seeking and rejection. This finding is consistent with Coyne's original interpersonal description of depression and accounts for past research showing an inconsistent relationship between sociotropy and depression. Furthermore, reassurance-seeking in the absence of rejection resulted in reduced change in depression. In contrast, autonomy was not related to interpersonal variables, in both husbands and wives. Exploratory analyses for husbands revealed that the relationship between autonomy and depression is complex. Finally, this thesis supports the use of internet studies for couples research. Evidence was provided to suggest that the Internet is a viable medium for conducting psychological research.

The goal of the current study was to test a model of the relationship between Social Role Valorization (SRV) theory, social network characteristics and transactions, subjective ratings of satisfaction with living situation, and overall life conditions of adults with psychiatric disabilities. In particular, the objectives were threefold: (a) to further empirical testing of SRV theory within the domain of mental health; (b) to further research on the social networks and transactions of individuals with psychiatric disabilities; and (c) to advance research on the contribution of environmental and transactional characteristics to the life satisfaction ratings of individuals with psychiatric disabilities. Although results of the path analysis did not demonstrate a mediational model between the environmental, transactional and psychological variables, findings did show that receiving more types of positive social support was related to higher levels of life satisfaction. Conversely, the amount of negative social interaction received was inversely related to both life satisfaction and satisfaction with support received from family members. From a clinical perspective, these findings underscore the importance of considering positive and negative support transactions in designing and implementing social support interventions. Exploratory and descriptive results using the SRV measure mirrored previous research which found that services tend to be more successful at integrating clients physically than socially into the community. In addition, the present findings suggest that overall service quality for clients of the Mental Health Community Support Service is modest at best. The present findings have also extended research on the social support networks and processes of individuals with severe and chronic mental illness who live in the community. In particular, estimates of the size of social networks are in keeping with past observations and demonstrate that networks for this population comprise a mix of people including family, friends, living companions and professionals. The observed correlations between overall network size and the various measures of satisfaction, and between the size of various network segments and satisfaction measures, underscore the importance that different individuals may have in providing support. The potential importance of network size to client outcomes was further highlighted by the post-hoc analyses, which showed a positive relationship between overall network size and satisfaction with support received from non-family members and between size of family network and satisfaction with support received from family members, even after the effects of client functioning and gender had been removed. Finally, the results also highlight the importance of gender differences in social support processes in that women in the sample had larger networks and reported receiving more positive social support. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The stressors facing people who must deal with a terminal diagnosis and palliative care are complex and varied. However, relatively little is known about the manner in which people cope with these stressors. Additionally, there has been little research into those characteristics that may predispose individuals to cope in particular ways. Therefore, this study investigates the process of coping with various end-of-life stressors, while also considering individual differences in how people prefer to cope. Fifty-two people who were receiving palliative care for advanced cancer underwent in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The interviews considered the tendency to monitor (focus on) or blunt (avoid) threat-relevant cues when dealing with stress, and whether this tendency was predictive of variations in actual coping behaviour, or variations in the experience of distress. Stress and coping were examined within three distinct conceptual dimensions comprising physical symptoms, social issues, and existential concerns. Specifically, participants were asked to identify their most significant problem in each dimension, and then to report how they coped with those problems. Their coping responses were then coded as reflecting either "problem-focused," "emotion-focused approach" or "emotion-focused avoidance". The results revealed that, unlike other health-related research, the tendency to "monitor" or "blunt" did not predict variations in the experience of psychological distress or variations in self-reported coping behaviour. Across the three dimensions of stress, physical symptoms received the highest severity ratings, but the dimensions were significantly intercorrelated with one another. A consistent individual difference was also noted in terms of the numbers of coping strategies participants generated to manage stressors. That is, participants who reported using a high number of coping strategies to manage a social stressor also reported using a high number of strategies in response to stressors in the other two dimensions. Participants generally used a combination of specific coping strategies to deal with their stressors. However, there were clear differences across dimensions of stress in the relative use of problem-focused versus emotion-focused strategies. Problem-focused coping was uncommon for existential issues while emotion-focused approach and emotion-focused avoidance strategies were used less frequently for physical stressors. Coping efforts were not related to psychological distress or to discrete anxiety and depressive disorders, which were diagnosed in 44.2% of the participants.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a preliminary examination of the findings of a long term, continuous, research project on psychotherapy. Data have been collected for approximately five years. The plan is for further data to be collected for another three to four years or more. Sufficient data have been collected to enable a substantial look at the findings so far. This is the purpose of this thesis. The research is directed toward answering four questions: (1) What were the categories or kinds of impressive in-session client changes judged to be found in the pool of 40 instances? The research found 8 categories of impressive in-session changes. (2) Were the categories of impressive in-session changes found to occur in an identifiable sequence or sequences? The research found that the impressive in-session client changes occurred in two somewhat overlapping but substantially different patterns or sequences within sessions. (3) For each of the 8 categories of impressive in-session changes, what did the therapist, or therapist and client, do that were judged as enabling the in-session impressive changes to occur? For each of the 8 categories of impressive in-session changes, the research was able to identify and to specify ways that the therapists, and therapists and clients, were judged as enabling the occurrence of the impressive in-session changes. (4) For each of the 8 categories of in-session changes, what did the therapists do following the occurrence of the impressive in-session client change? What the therapists did following the occurrence of the impressive in-session client change was incorporated into the judges' instructions as the identification and specification of ways the therapists used the occurrences. For each of the 8 categories of impressive in-session client changes, the research was able to identify and to specify ways the therapists used the occurrences of the impressive in-session client changes.