M.A. (Counseling psychology) / The primary objective of this research was to combat and where possible obviate depression amongst young adult females by means of a psycho-educational program developed by the researcher. A secondary objective of the study was to develop a behaviour evaluation questionnaire intended to evaluate perceivable depressive behaviour. In this research a pretest-posttest research design was employed. The sample comprised 50 first year matriculated female students who entered for a youth worker course of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa for 1990. The 50 women were allocated to five groups of 10 each from which three experimental and two control groups were randomly selected. It was anticipated that the psycho-educational program would bring about a statistical significant improvement in the mood and self concept of the experimental group. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and "Ridgard-gedragsevalueringsvraelys" (RGV), the latter completed by a supervisor, were utilized to determine depression amongst the students. The "Adolessente Selfkonsepskaal" (ASKS) of Vrey was also used to evaluate self concept in the groups.

Depressive disorders are recognized as being of long standing clinical and theoretical concern. Early psychoanalytic conceptualizations of depression were later reformulated into theories emphasizing interpersonal manifestations of depression, notably passive-dependent oral trends (Chodoff, 1972). Recent research efforts (e.g. Youngren and Lewinsohn, 1980; Weissman and Paykel, 1974; Libet and Lewinsohn,. 1973) have explored specific interpersonal behaviors and their relationship to depression. Although some studies have been done utilizing self-report data of interpersonal behavior (e.g. Brown and Goodstein, 1962; Black, 1960), little has been done utilizing self-descriptions of interpersonal traits drawn from a sample of clinically depressed psychiatric outpatients.

The present study was a modified replication of Miller and Seligman’s (1973) study. Expectancy ratings under skill and chance tasks were examined in 51 college students in four groups: depressed high-external, depressed low-external, nondepressed high-external, and nondepressed low-extrenal. The major hypothesis predicted that there would be greater association (1) between both magnitude and direction of expectancy change and outcome of the previous trial (success/non-success) with nondepression than with depression, under the skill task, (2) between both magnitude and direction of expectancy change and outcome of the previous trial (success/non-success) with low-externality than with high-externality, under the skill task, and (3) between both magnitude and direction of expectancy change and outcome of the previous trial (success/non-success) for low-externality than for high-externality under the skill task and that this would be more evident with nondepression than with depression. None of these hypotheses was confirmed; no significant differences in expectancy ratings among the groups were found. Possible reasons for the failure of the present study to support Miller and Seligman’s findings regarding the influence of depression were discussed and suggestions for future research were made.

There is a need to find effective ways to treat depression, due to its high incidence and to the severity of its consequences. The first psychological treatment of depression came with the advent of psychoanalysis, but today the theories dealing with the etiology and treatment of depression range from genetic and biological approaches to an existential conceptualization. While briefly reviewing these various current approaches, the primary purpose of this paper is to present the behavioral/social learning approach to the understanding and treatment of depression. The specific theoretical formulations, methods of assessment and treatment approaches characteristic of the behavioral/social learning approach will be reviewed. Illustrative clinical and research studies concerning therapeutic outcomes are evaluated. The results indicate that while behavioral approaches appear to be effective in the treatment of depression, additional systematic research must be conducted before final judgments can be made as to whether behavioral treatment of depression will become the treatment of choice.

The symptomatology of depression includes affective and cognitive features. As such, depression has been associated both with maladaptive concern over emotional material, and also with general impairments in attentional control. In the current thesis, I investigated the potential influence of such depression-related dysfunctional emotional processing on a range of cognitive control abilities, using experimental paradigms containing either neutral or affective stimuli. In contrast to the hypothesis that depressive symptoms are associated with generally compromised cognitive control, depression-related impairments were not found on a range of ‘classic' measures of cognitive control, including error-processing (pre-error speeding, posterror slowing and error-related ERPs), overriding response conflict (colour-word Stroop interference, conflict adaptation) or more sustained control processes (cued-RT performance, preparatory ERPs, and maintaining long-term speed-accuracy tradeoffs). Interestingly, however, differences between groups with low and elevated levels of depressive symptoms emerged during the performance of emotionally valenced tasks. First, an elevated depressive symptom group showed a reduced ability to resolve emotional conflict arising between competing affective representations. When compared with spared performance on the classic Stroop task, this result suggests that depressive symptoms are associated with a specific impairment in the ability to regulate emotional distraction. Secondly, an ERP related to advanced preparation in cued-RT tasks (the CNV), but not those associated with early perceptual processing (P1, N170), was selectively modulated by negative, but not positive, task-irrelevant emotional distractors presented during the cue-target interval. This pattern of ERP results supports a late processing locus of affective attentional bias in depression. Together, the current results propose that control processes which facilitate the regulation of emotional material (i.e. over emotional sources of distraction) might be selectively affected by increased depressive symptoms, suggesting that future work should consider affective variables when investigating executive control processes in depression.

M.A. / Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) can be described as a bodily idiom - a nonverbal language which may have its roots in unspeakable dilemmas (Griffiths & Griffiths, 1994). The splitting of languages and silencing of the body may be the soil in which such symptoms grow. Unutterable conflicts lead to the symptoms being trapped within the body until the body itself begins to "speak" (Griffiths & Griffiths, 1994). In essence, this study seeks to evaluate the effects of attaching language, feelings and awareness to these symptoms and communicating this with other IBS subjects within the group context. Psychiatric illness is often found in IBS health care seekers (Drossman & Thompson, 1992). The specific aim of this study was to ascertain the effects of a holistic short-term group intervention in the treatment of IBS with comorbid depression and anxiety. The sample consisted of 24 South African women who had been positively diagnosed with severe IBS by either a gastroenterologist or a general practitioner. Furthermore, each subject had to have associated moderate to severe depression and anxiety. Four questionnaires were utilised, namely the Biographical Questionnaire, the Irritable Bowel Syndrome Client Questionnaire, the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and the Functional Bowel Disorder Severity Index (FBDSI). The Biographical Questionnaire mainly requested personal details and sought a family history of psychological disorders. The Irritable Bowel Syndrome Client Questionnaire, based on the standardised Rome Criteria (Drossman, 1994; Drossman, Zhiming, Toner, Creed, Thompson, Read et al., 1995; Talley, Phillips, Melton, Mulvihill, Wiltgen & Zinsmeister, 1989), verified a positive IBS diagnosis, while the Functional Bowel Disorder Severity Index rated the severity of the subject’s IBS. Lastly, the depression score was rated on the depression scale of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and the anxiety score was rated on the anxiety scale of the PAI. The subjects were divided into two groups of twelve members each - Group 1 was the experimental group and Group 2 was the control group. The group design was a pre-test, post-test control group design where subjects in Group 1 (the experimental group) received group intervention and subjects in Group 2 (the control group) were placed on a waiting list and received no intervention. The subjects in the control group were offered individual therapy once the post-tests were completed. All the subjects completed the IBS Severity Index Questionnaire and the Depression and Anxiety subscales of the Personality Assessment Inventory before commencement of group therapy for Group 1 and again one month after completion of this intervention. The effect of the intervention was determined utilising comparative statistics with reference to the pre-test versus post-test scores. The t-test for the equality of means for between group variance was utilised for two analyses. Firstly, it was used to determine the variance regarding the pre-test scores between Group 1 (the experimental group – who received intervention) versus Group 2 (the control group – who received no intervention) (Hypothesis 1). Secondly, it was utilised to determine the between group variance in terms of the post-test scores for Group 1 (the experimental group) versus Group 2 (the control group) (Hypothesis 2). The paired samples t-test was also used for two analyses. Firstly, it was used to determine the within group variance regarding the pre-intervention test scores versus the post-intervention test scores for Group 1 (the experimental group)(Hypothesis 3). Secondly, the paired samples t-test was also utilised to determine if there were statistically significant differences in terms of the pre-test scores versus the post-test scores of Group 2 (the control group) who did not receive the intervention (Hypothesis 4). A short-term holistic group therapy model was applied based on the work of Broom (1997), Crafford (1985), Pretorius (1996) and Yalom (1970). The results of the study showed that there was a statistically significant improvement in the anxiety scores of Group 1 (the experimental group) after completion of the intervention when compared with Group 2 (the control group) who received no intervention. The within group depression and anxiety scores in the experimental group also revealed a statistically significant improvement after the intervention. However, the IBS symptom severity remained unchanged. Thus, it is concluded that holistic short-term group therapy is indicated in the treatment of severe IBS with comorbid depression and anxiety even if the IBS symptoms are unaltered. It is recommended that further research be conducted to ascertain whether holistic group therapy of a moderate duration (approximately eight to ten weeks) has a greater impact on the IBS symptom severity.

Orientador: Francisco Hashimoto / Banca: Catarina Satiko Tanaka / Banca: Walter José Martins Migliorini / Resumo: Atualmente fala-se muito sobre depressão. Este estado tornou-se muito comum no tempo atual, sendo um fato raro encontrar alguém que não tenha tido, com ele, algum contato direto ou indireto. Nosso interesse de investigação partiu destes estados depressivos, tendo como referencial teórico a psicanálise. Foi Freud que inaugurou os estudos sobre os estados depressivos por meio da compreensão oferecida sobre a melancolia em seu conhecido artigo Luto e melancolia (1917[1915]). Este trabalho se tornou referência básica para qualquer estudioso que pretenda desenvolver um conhecimento sobre os estados depressivos a partir da psicanálise. Frente a isto partimos do exame detalhado deste artigo freudiano e elegemos os elementos melancólicos (formados pela articulação entre a organização narcísica e a ambivalência) como objeto de estudo, a fim de apreender a concepção de Freud sobre a melancolia. Mantivemo-nos sempre no campo da metapsicologia freudiana como referência principal. Percebemos que um estudo sobre a melancolia por meio da metapsicologia acabou por se tornar um estudo sobre a constituição e o funcionamento da vida psíquica em geral. Neste sentido, notamos que os estados depressivos se tornaram o paradigma originário do psiquismo e que a idéia de separação ou perda do seio materno foi o modelo aceito em geral pela psicanálise para compreender o momento do nascimento do ego para alguns, ou de integração deste para outros. O comum é que o momento de discriminação entre o ego e o mundo externo seja provocado pela perda e acompanhado por depressividade, provocando uma mutação que vai desde o princípio de prazer até o princípio de realidade, ou ainda, desde o narcisismo... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Nowadays depression is a much discussed issue. The occurrence of depression is so widespread that we may think it as rare to find a person who has not undergone through depression periods or has not had any direct or indirect contact with this phenomenon. Our research interest has been motivated by questions related to depression states and the psychoanalysis theoretical referential framework. It is well known that Freud inaugurated the studies about depression states by his statements on melancholy presented in his article Mourning and melancholia (Trauer und melancolie 1917[1915]). This work has become the basic reference for any scholar who intends a comprehension of the depression states within a psychoanalysis framework. We started our study with a through examination of Freud's article and elected the melancholic elements (the articulation of narcissistic organization and ambivalence) as the main object of our investigation aiming at apprehending Freud's conceptions on melancholy. We have maintained the field of Freudian metapsychology as our main reference frame. We realize that a study about melancholy in terms of metapsychology has turned out to be a study about the constitution and functioning of the psychic life as a whole. Consequently we also noted that the depression states have become the originating paradigm of psychoanalysis and that the idea of separation or loss of the mother's breast has become the model accepted as a whole by psychoanalysis to comprehend ego birth moment by some and its integration by others. What is common is that the moment of discrimination between the ego and the external world is brought about by loss and depressiveness, leading to a mutation which extends... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

This study tested whether participants exposed to a vignette describing an individual experiencing symptoms of depression, which included only the specific diagnosis label of "depression," would report significantly less stigmatized responses than participants exposed to an otherwise identical vignette which included only the non-specific diagnosis label "mental illness." The study is grounded in past research on stigmatization of mental illness and is informed by three theoretical frameworks, the social identity perspective, attribution theory, and labeling theory. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of the two alternate vignettes, then respond to a series of measures testing desire for social distance, negative emotion (affective reaction), beliefs about people with mental illness, and perceived dangerousness of the character in response to the vignette they viewed. The results showed that labelling the character in the vignettes as struggling with "mental illness" did lead to greater perceived dangerousness of the character described, although labelling did not lead to more stigmatization in any of the other measures. This research demonstrated that people tend to consider a character in a vignette as less trustworthy and more of a risk based solely on the label "mental illness." The experiment also tested if people who have had a personal relationship with someone who has experienced mental illness will have less stigmatized responses to mental illness vignettes, but no significant difference was shown. Overall, the results imply that use of specific language in communication labelling an individual as experiencing a mental health condition is less stigmatizing than non-specific language and may improve chances for successful treatment-seeking and future patient outcomes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Lancaster Bible College, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-87).