A comprehensive and systematic review of the psychological theories and practices of a prominent Mexican psychoanalyst were presented in English for the first time. This included both published and unpublished materials, personal correspondence, interviews, training tapes, and journal articles from the foreign press. The marathon group psychotherapy process (Convivial) developed by Dr. Roquet was described in detail and its impact assessed using the Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) and the Hartman Value Inventory (HVI). The POI was selected as a widely accepted measure of positive mental health used extensively in psychotherapy outcome studies. Fifteen participants were tested immediately before the September 1984 convivial and one week after the day-long "follow-up" one week later. Significant differences between pretest and posttest performance were found for the Time Competence (p $<$.01), Inner Directedness (p $<$.05), Self-Regard (p $<$.05), and Acceptance of Aggression (p $<$.05) Scales of the POI and for the Actualization through Work Scale (p $<$.05) of the HVI using paired-comparisons t values. Consistent changes in the direction of "positive psychological functioning" were noted on all 14 POI scales and on 22 of 25 HVI scales. High- and low-fantasy cohorts (HVI DIM%) were analyzed. Results indicated significant trends into fantasy for the low-fantasy group (p $<$.01) and out of fantasy for the high-fantasy group (p $<$.05). The significance of fantasy as a crucial variable in psychotherapy is hypothesized.

This dissertation contributes to redefining the relationship between literature and psychoanalytic therapy. It first presents a theoretical synthesis of contemporary literary approaches to psychoanalytic therapy as a form of narrative. It then applies this conceptual framework in close readings of four autobiographical accounts of therapy written by patients. These works, each of which exemplifies important narrative formulations of psychoanalytic therapy, are the following: Marie Cardinal's (1983) The Words to Say It, Joanne Greenberg's (1964) I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Phillip Roth's (1974) My Life as a Man, and Irvin Yalom's and Ginny Elkin's (1974) Every Day Gets a Little Closer. The literary/clinical reading emphasizes the patient's point of view and attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of narrative metaphors in understanding the therapeutic experience and the stories patients tell in therapy and about it. Also included are an annotated bibliography of fictional and nonfiction accounts of therapy narrated from the patient's viewpoint and a review of empirical studies about discrepancies between therapists' and patients' perspectives on therapy.

Two studies test the idea that the psychoanalytic defense of splitting involves alternating activation of global, opposing self-schemata, including a good-self schema, and a bad-self schema. Subjects were chosen on the basis of scoring very low ar very high on Sharon Gerson's (1984) Splitting Scale, allowing frequent splitters (FS) and infrequent splitters (IS) to be contrasted on a variety of experimental measures. Subjects were asked to rate their schematicism on a variety of trait dimensions and to rate 2 characters in a Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) card on the same dimensions. They were also asked to judge whether perceptibly and subliminally presented trait adjectives were best characterized as me or not me. Results indicate that IS identify themselves more schematically than FS on the trait dimensions good, bad, loving, and hateful. FS showed longer average reaction latencies in the me/not me judgment tasks, but there was no consistent evidence that either group enjoyed a speed advantage in responding to trait terms of interest when response times were standardized. These results suggest that FS are not more schematic than IS on the trait dimensions listed above. On the other hand, FS did tend to differentiate TAT characters more on the trait dimensions under study than IS, an indication that they projected split object relations onto the neutral TAT stimulus card. FS also showed a greater tendency to respond nonrandomly to the trait terms good and loving when these were presented subliminally, suggesting a greater degree of priming on these trait dimensions. The mixed results suggest that although splitting cannot be conceptualized in the schematic terms proposed at the outset of the study, further research into differences in the information processing advantages of FS on the trait dimensions good, bad, loving, and hateful is warranted.

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Clinicians and researchers have begun to consider the interface of sex-roles and psychotherapy. This study investigated gender differences among therapists with respect to the dimensions of empathy and authority in an attempt to explore the impact of sex-role socialization on psychotherapy. An integration of literatures on gender and psychotherapy, sex-roles, the psychology of women, and gender identity development suggests that these two dimensions are central to psychotherapy as well as differentially tied to prescriptions for masculinity and femininity. Whereas "good therapy" is believed to involve empathic and authoritative abilities of therapists, masculinity is more powerfully linked with authoritativeness and femininity with empathy. The major questions addressed by the study concern whether or not male and female psychotherapists differ in their self-reported levels of empathy and authority with women outpatients, and whether or not therapy outcome significantly interacts with these process dimensions. Also investigated was whether successful therapists experience higher levels of empathy and authority than unsuccessful therapists. Parallel versions of a questionnaire were devised to assess therapists' experiences of empathy and authority. One version focussed on a successful therapy with a woman client and the other on an unsuccessful therapy. The questionnaires included two adjective scales and two process statement scales. All four measures were found to be highly internally consistent. One hundred and eighty-four Ph.D. psychologists returned analyzable questionnaires. As predicted, ANOVAS revealed that, regardless of gender, therapists who reported on successful cases portrayed themselves as significantly more empathic and authoritative than therapists who reported on unsuccessful cases. Counter to predictions t-tests revealed that women rated themselves as significantly more authoritative than men with respect to successful therapies, and significantly less empathic than men with respect to unsuccessful therapies. The study illustrates that gender is an important variable in psychotherapy and supports the view that empathy and authority are central process dimensions. Methodological and theoretical considerations regarding the gender differences found along these dimensions are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine psychotherapists' perceptions of the psychological health of women and men of varying ages. Three hundred and twenty-two randomly selected clinical members of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (AAMFT) rated a "mature, healthy, socially competent" individual using one of nine target descriptions (male, late 20's; male, late 40's; male, late 60's; female, late 20's; female, late 40's; female, late 60's; adult, late 20's; adult, late 40's; adult, late 60's) on the 79-item Sex-Role Stereotype Questionnaire (Broverman, 1981). The response rate was 72%. To test the hypotheses, total scores of socially desirable masculine stereotypes (TMVI) and socially desirable feminine stereotypes (TFVI) were created. One way ANOVAS on TMVI and TFVI by sex of target (male, female, adult) were performed. As predicted, female targets were rated as significantly healthier than male targets on TFVI but, contrary to prediction, female and male targets were not rated differently on TMVI. As predicted, mean psychological health scores of male and adult targets on TMVI and TFVI did not differ. Contrary to prediction, scores of female and adult targets on TMVI and TFVI also did not differ. Also, contrary to prediction, male therapists did not rate female targets more stereotypically on either TMVI or TFVI than did female therapists. One way ANOVAS on TMVI and TFVI by age of target (late 20's, late 40's, late 60's) were performed. Contrary to expectation, no differences on TFVI were noted between targets in their late 20's, late 40's, and late 60's. As predicted, targets in their late 60's were rated as less psychologically healthy on TMVI than targets in their late 40's, although no other age-of-target differences on TMVI appeared. Analyses of the 79 individual items indicated that targets in their late 40's were perceived as more self-confident and aggressive than were the older targets. Implications for clinical practice focus in particular on the negative stereotypes displayed toward targets in their late 60's, as well as on findings that therapists viewed males less positively than females on socially desirable feminine stereotypes.

Many researchers believe that Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) may be a chronic condition, and that effective treatment must involve teaching the patient coping skills to manage his or her symptoms. The importance of such skills is also suggested by reviews of treatment programs designed for this disorder: They typically direct intervention toward the development of skills to cope with PTSD as well as to the underlying symptomology. The present study describes the initial stages in the development of the PTSD Coping Inventory (PCI); a tool for evaluating the acquisition of coping skills specific to combat related PTSD. In Phase I of this study a previously developed 50-item PTSD coping inventory was refined and reduced using data from a sample of 121 PTSD diagnosed veterans. Phase II consisted of re-administering the resulting 35-item inventory to a sample of 90 PTSD diagnosed combat veterans. Additional data reduction resulted in a 24-item inventory for which psychometric properties were examined. The measure as a whole yielded adequate reliability and correlated predictably with a number of related measures. While additional refinement of the scale is suggested—including further examination of the underlying factor structure—the PCI shows promise as a psychometrically sound instrument for measuring PTSD coping skills in combat veterans.

This longitudinal study investigated the association between adolescent depressive symptoms and adolescents' behavioral coping during a conflictual family interaction task. The primary hypothesis was that adolescents' use of behavioral-avoidance coping predicts concurrent and future adolescent depressive symptoms. Four secondary hypotheses were: (a) adolescents' use of behavioral-approach coping is negatively related to depressive symptoms, (b) adolescents' use of behavioral-avoidance coping uniquely predicts depressive symptoms, and thus, does not predict externalizing symptomatology, (c) adolescent boys use behavioral-approach coping to a greater extent than adolescent girls, and (d) adolescents model their mothers' coping strategies. Seventy adolescents engaged in videotaped conflict interactions with their mothers and filled out questionnaires. Trained coders watched thirty-four fifteen-second segments of these interactions and rated adolescents and mothers on behavioral indicators of avoidance and approach coping during each segment. The hypotheses that adolescents' use of behavioral-avoidance and behavioral-approach coping predicts adolescent depressive symptoms were not confirmed. Gender differences in behavioral coping strategies were not supported. As predicted, adolescents modeled their mothers' behavioral coping. The influence of contextual characteristics of interpersonal stress on adolescent behavioral coping strategies is highlighted and clinical implications are discussed.

There is evidence that cultural difference between client and therapist affects psychotherapy process variables and treatment outcome. However, little is known about what dialogues are taking place in psychotherapy dyads regarding therapist-client difference. The current study examined to what extent therapists engage in discussions of difference with clients who are ethnically and racially dissimilar. Seven hundred and seventy-four psychologists, who are members of the APA, responded to a mail survey on this topic. The results suggest that a majority of psychotherapists (85%) are having discussions about difference, and these discussions are taking place with less than half (43%) of their cross-cultural clients. In the survey, therapists reported they were more likely to initiate these dialogues than clients, although the gap is not particularly large. Several group differences were identified. Women therapists were more likely to participate in these dialogues than men therapists. Minority respondents were less likely to initiate discussions of differences than White and European American respondents. The less experience therapists had in working with diverse clients, the more likely they were to have these discussions. A majority of respondents reported finding these discussions facilitative to the therapeutic process and they also perceived themselves as being comfortable and skilled in this area. Several limitations of the current study are identified, and directions for future research are discussed.