<p> Lost roles are an important part of the equation for any healthy individual. Often drama therapists focus on role expansion as well as flexibility and spontaneity within the role repertoire. However investigating lost roles and the implications of lost roles paves the way for therapeutic progress and discovery. In this manner cycles of loss and gain work in tandem to produce wholeness. In seeking such wholeness as a drama therapist my quest led me back into one of the traumatic losses of my youth: losing the supporting lead of Captain Hook in my first-grade school play. Exploring how and why I was denied this part in the school play led me further into facets of my personality that predominated as a youngster, as well as the suppressed characteristics that resulted from Hook being taken away. Engaging the arts-based methodology of self-revelatory performance I experience this loss from the inside - inside the roles, characters, and interactions of my youth through adulthood. Along the way I discover that in fact I am in search of the role I was most ashamed to lose: the Actor. Reclaiming and coming to terms with the Actor proves a crucial step on my journey to becoming a drama therapist. Working in the field of drama therapy - where performance may be used either for ego confirmation or self-discovery - we learn the responsibility of the drama therapist to clarify his intentions when engaging his inner Actor.</p>

This study investigated trait and state aspects of the reduction of the P300 event-related potential component in schizophrenia in a prospective longitudinal design. Twelve patients and 12 healthy subjects underwent auditory and visual P300 tests on consecutive sessions at two month intervals. Patients had also PANSS symptom quantifications. The comparison between patients and healthy subjects revealed that the P300 reduction in patients is stable across sessions in the auditory modality thus representing a trait marker. The analysis of the relationships between symptoms and P300 showed that the frontal auditory P300 is negatively related to negative symptoms, whereas the posterior visual P300 positively correlates with positive symptoms. Consistent with clinical and pathophysiological models of schizophrenia, our study suggests that P300 assessment taking into account its frontal/posterior topography and visual/auditory modality could provide a simple tool to understand and follow changes in the brain activity involved in both trait and state expressions of schizophrenia.

In these studies, we first compared the neuroendocrine responses between early (EL, PPD3-5), late (LL, PPD 15) lactating and virgin (V) females to a male intruder in the home cage. We next investigated whether the presence of the pups at the time of exposure to stress could modify the magnitude of the hormonal response to a male intruder in the home cage or to a predator odor (fox urine) in a novel environment. In the male intruder paradigm, levels of CRF mRNA expression in the PVN and CeA were lower in LL compared to EL or V females and plasma ACTH and B secretion was also reduced in LL compared to EL females. In EL females, the presence of the pups with their mothers at the time of stress significantly increased plasma ACTH and B responses to either male intruder or predator odor compared to EL females without their pups for 2.5hrs or 48 hrs. These studies point out to the critical role of the pups in modulating the maternal response to stressors that represent a threat for the litter.

The aim of this study was to improve medical understanding of patients' illness experience and everyday thinking about physical distress, by focusing on patients' and physicians' narratives of medically unexplained symptoms. Semi-structured interviews were held with 16 Canadian and immigrant patients from two primary care clinics in Montreal, and separately with their physician. Detailed content analysis reveals that, despite the absence of diagnosis, both patient and physicians hold complex and dynamic models of illness. Physicians' explanations rely almost exclusively on biomedical constructs, whereas patients' models of illness draw from a much wider range of sources of experience and authority. Despite regular follow-up, physicians have very limited access to the intricate networks of meaning revealed in their patients' interviews. In fact, although there is some common ground of understanding, patients and physicians show low congruence of their models, and much discrepancy in the expected outcome and management. Eliciting patients' illness narratives rather than focusing on narrow biomedical issues offers promising possibilities for physicians to negotiate meaning with their patients. The richness of patients' models provides potential avenues leading out of the clinical impasse of medically unexplained symptoms.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1993. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-06, Section: B, page: 3349.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1996. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-08, Section: B, page: 5349.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1996. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-08, Section: B, page: 5317. Adviser: Teressa Elliott.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1997. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 58-08, Section: B, page: 4440. Adviser: Bruce Bongar.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1997. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 58-08, Section: B, page: 4133.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1999. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 60-05, Section: B, page: 2346. Chair: William Froming.