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Biomedical subjects

C G Watson

Publications and source records attributed to C G Watson.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
PubMed1979

The frequency and identification of false positive conversion reactions.

The frequency with which conversion reaction diagnoses are inappropriately applied to persons with physical diseases was estimated in a sample of medical hospital patients diagnosed hysteric. This was accomplished by ratings based on file information available at the time of diagnosis and at a 10-year follow"up, and a count of patients whose "conversion" symptoms were later diagnosed as physical illnesses. The estimated false positive rate was 25%. The symptoms most characteristic of the false positives were degenerative diseases and structural failures affecting the spinal cord, peripheral nerves, bones, muscles, and connective tissues. An effort to identify psychological parameters capable of separating true conversion reactions from false positives with a variety of behavioral symptoms and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory scores was not productive.

Conversion Disorder↗
PubMed1979

The relationship of personality style to abstract thinking deficits in schizophrenia.

Hypothesized that the correlation between Inability to Abstract and Autism measures of schizophrenics would be larger after the effects of relevant personality variables were partialed out than before. The multiple correlations of these deficit measures with 15 of the Sixteen Personality Factor scales and a measure of verbosity were determined in a sample of 100 schizophrenics. The correlations between Inability to Abstract and Autism before and after those scales that contributed significantly to the Rs had been partialed out also were calculated. Neither was significant. The results offer no support for the view that observed differences between schizophrenic subgroups in inability to abstract and autism reflect variations in personality style rather than cognitive factors.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Correlates of alpha, beta and theta wave production.

Studied the correlations of alpha, beta and theta time densities with psychological and psychophysiological variables in a psychiatric population (N = 76). The correlations of the EEG variables with measures of adjustment were small and barely exceeded chance expectations. Alpha and beta were correlated positively with pain threshold, while beta was related inversely to blood pressure. Theta was correlated positively with blood pressure and negatively with pulse rate. The implications of these findings for EEG biofeedback treatment were discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

The separation of organics from depressives with ability- and personality-based tests.

Previous research has indicated that ability-oriented organicity tests are of limited value in the separation of brain-damaged from schizophrenic patients in psychiatric hospitals. In the present study the capabilities of nine ability test measures and the MMPI Depression scale to differentiate organics from depressives were evaluated. Only six of the nine ts used to evaluate the differences between the two groups were significant at the 0.5 level and, after the samples were levelled for age, education and IQ, the number fell to zero. In contrast, the Depression scale differences were highly significant both before and after levelling. Multiple correlations run to evaluate the use of personality and ability measures in combination showed that they had considerable promise and suggest that the separation of organic from functional psychiatric hospital groups is best achieved by such combinations.

Adjustment Disorders↗
PubMed1978

An MMPI sign to separate organic from functional psychiatric patients.

Evaluated the utilities of all 90 possible unweighted additive/subtractive two-scale MMPI combinations as indices to separate brain-damaged from functional patient groups in a Veterans Administration psychiatric hospital. One index, Hs-PT, showed more promise than any of the other 89. Hs-PT mean scores were significantly higher among organics than among alcoholics, neurotics, affective psychoses, character disorders, process schizophrenics or reactive schizophrenics. Interpretative information on the Hs-PT index was presented.

Affective Symptoms↗
PubMed1978

Alpha biofeedback therapy in alcoholics: an 18-month follow-up.

In an earlier study on patients with alcohol problems, an experimental group given 10 hour-long alpha biofeedback training sessions showed greater improvement on State and Trait Anxiety scores than did a control sample. In the present study an 18-month follow-up was done on those Ss. The differences between the experimentals and controls in State and Trait Anxiety after 18 months were essentially identical to the differences between them immediately after treatment, which indicates that alpha training had long-range therapeutic effects. A difference between the groups on the Alcohol Rehabilitation Followup Questionnaire also suggested that alpha training may have been associated with some reduction in alcohol consumption as well.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Systems releasing action therapy with alcoholics: an experimental evaluation.

Described Systems Releasing Action Therapy (SRAT) and a controlled study that evaluated its effectiveness. The therapy combines physical and fantasy exercises and has its roots in the Bioenergetic and Gestalt traditions. To evaluate its effectiveness, 56 patients who were receiving treatment for alcoholism were assigned randomly to therapy and control groups. On 3-week follow-up, the therapy sample showed significantly more improvement than the controls on measures of blood pressure, physical symptoms, anxiety, hysteroid tendencies, disturbed feelings and self-image. Suggestive differences (interactions significant only at the .20 level) in favor of the therapy group also appeared on measures of vital capacity withdrawal, excessive drinking, anhedonia and four neurosis-oriented MMPI scales. However, 6-month follow-up data were relatively unimpressive. The results suggest this type of therapy is an effective one, at least for the short term.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

The prediction of outcome from anhedonia and process-reactive scales.

Earlier researchers have suggested that the ability of process-reactive measures to predict future adjustment may result from their relationships to the anhedonia dimension. In the present study the abilities of process-reactive and anhedonia measures, independent of one another, to predict rehospitalization data were compared. After anhedonia scores had been partialed out, schizophrenics' process-reactive scores were correlated modestly with length of the patients' next hospitalization and reclassification as nonschizophrenic. No such significant correlations appeared between anhedonia and adjustment measures after process-reactive scores had been partialed out. Among nonschizophrenics, a sizeable correlation between anhedonia and the probability of later diagnosis of schizophrenia appeared, which suggests that anhedonia may be a useful prodromal marker for schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Utilization of the Goldberg MMPI profile classification rules for the assessment of psychopathology in different clinical populations.

MMPI profiles of 545 psychiatric inpatients and 560 incarcerated offenders were separated sequentially into normal, sociopathic, neurotic and psychotic groups by means of Goldberg's profile classification rules. Patient-prisoner differences in both rates of classification and profile patterns of groups within diagnostic categories were assessed quantitatively, and profiles were interpreted by use of standard MMPI codebooks. For the hospitalized Ss comparisons also were made between clinical diagnoses and Goldberg-MMPI classifications. The resulting differences in classification rates, similarities of profiles within diagnostic categories, correspondence between obtained and codebook-expected profiles, and agreement between clinical and Goldberg-MMPI classifications were not such that this approach could be used with confidence as a basis for establishing diagnostic group membership. Although Goldberg's system appears to represent certain improvements over previous criterion-related methods of profile classification, it was concluded that its value nonetheless is limited by the assumption of an invariant relationship between test patterns and nontest variables.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Can and should the ethics of a cottage industry survive?

In an era of rapidly escalating costs of health care, government and the consumer can be expected to play an increasingly active role in determining the character of health care systems. In this setting, professional behavior will become increasingly conspicuous. In reviewing a physician's responsibilities to his patient, to his community, and to himself, emphasis is placed on the pivotal qualities of integrity, selflessness, professional commitment, communication, and continued intellectual and personal growth. Underscroing this a code of ethics that is flexible, comprehensive, and sensitive to the needs of contemporary society.

Community Health Services↗
PubMed1977

Alpha wave biofeedback training therapy in alcoholics.

This investigation evaluated the therapeutic efficacy of alpha-wave biofeedback treatment for alcoholics. Twenty-five Ss were compared to a matched control group before and after administration of a 3-week alpha-wave biofeedback regimen on a wide variety of criteria that included State-Trait Anxiety, the MMPI, Multiple Affect Adjective Check List, Zuckerman's Sensation Seeking Scale, Watson's Anhedonia Scale, the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, and baseline alpha. The experimental Ss received 10 hour-long alpha training sessions. The experimentals showed more improvement than did controls on alpha production and two anxiety measure. Contradictory results appeared on two suspicion/paranoia measures. Alpha training appeared useful in the treatment of anxiety, but not other problems. However, the absence of significant correlations between amount of change on alpha and the anxiety measures suggests that the improvement may be due to a placebo effect.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Anhedonia as a function of non-affective interpretation of ambiguous stimuli and threshold for affective and neutral stimuli.

A theory that schizophrenic anhedonia-the failure to express pleasure-is associated with a tendency to interpret ambiguous stimuli as neutral rather than emotion-laden and arises from selectively high perceptual thresholds for affective stimuli was tested. Seventy-six schizophrenic males were required to guess whether words presented to them tachistoscopically for extremely short periods were positive, negative or neutral in content. The high-anhedonic Ss were significantly more likely to guess neutral words and less likely to offer pleasant interpretations than the low-anhedonic sample, which suggests that anhedonia is associated with a tendency to interpret one's environment as lacking in positive emotional value. The tresholds of high-and low-anhedonic schizophrenic groups then were compared on pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral tachistoscopically-presented stimuli. In the only two significant differences in the latter analyses, high anhedonics showed greater tresholds for neutral stimuli than low anhedonics. These findings suggest that anhedonia is not mediated by peculiarly high tresholds for affective stimuli.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Evidence for a dual-factor concept of psychopathological emotional deficit: anhedonia and sensation-seeking.

Correlations between measures of anhedonia and sensation-seeking were calculated in two psychiatric samples. The correlations indicated that, despite their conceptual similarity, the two represent different motivational deficits. Ther correlates appeared to indicate that sensation-seeking represents neurotic inhibition, while anhedonia reflects a separate motivational deficit apparently characteristic of process schizophrenics.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Responses of high- and low-emotional deficit patients to exciting, grating, and neutral stimuli.

The preferences of high- and low-anhedonia and sensation-seeking psychiatric hospital groups for music rated as exciting, grating, and neutral, and the tendencies of these groups to modify the volume level at which they were exposed to these pieces, were compared. Volume-level choice was unrelated to anhedonia and sensation-seeking, which casts doubt on the theory that these affective deficits are mediated by efforts to reduce the quantity of incoming emotional stimulation. Anhedonia scores were not related to preferences for the three types of music. However, in contrast to high sensation-seekers, low sensation-seekers tended to dislike all types of music, and especially those rated as grating.

Acoustic Stimulation↗