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PubMed2005

[Knowledge about the relationship through protagonist-director interactions in psychodrama groups].

This report follows emotional behavior in two psychodrama groups from the "present moment" until "moment of contact" using the Consensus Rorschach method. In the analysis of verbal and nonverbal material of protagonist-director dyads the following patterns were distinguished: a) early relationship patterns; b) affective attunement; c) fit of knowledge about the relationship. The author describes the relationship between the concept of "present moment" in therapy and the role of eye contact. Eye contact produces emotional tension in the context of the "present moment". Moments of contact, however, require implicit and explicit knowledge about the relationship to be constructed simultaneously as well as development of affective interactions. Emotional impulses are stored in implicit memory, which has no immediate availability. However, therapy--including psychodrama--attaches words to behaviors that are beyond the verbal levels as well, and therefore it extends the domain of memory. This is the way in which non-symbolized emotional behavior (including eye contact) and the play's verbal level with symbolic representations of memories are interconnected.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

A formal classification of 3D medial axis points and their local geometry.

This paper proposes a novel hypergraph skeletal representation for 3D shape based on a formal derivation of the generic structure of its medial axis. By classifying each skeletal point by its order of contact, we show that, generically, the medial axis consists of five types of points, which are then organized into sheets, curves, and points: 1) sheets (manifolds with boundary) which are the locus of bitangent spheres with regular tangency A1(2) (Ak(n) notation means n distinct k-fold tangencies of the sphere of contact, as explained in the text); two types of curves, 2) the intersection curve of three sheets and the locus of centers of tritangent spheres, A1(3), and 3) the boundary of sheets, which are the locus of centers of spheres whose radius equals the larger principal curvature, i.e., higher order contact A3 points; and two types of points, 4) centers of quad-tangent spheres, A1(4), and 5) centers of spheres with one regular tangency and one higher order tangency, A1A3. The geometry of the 3D medial axis thus consists of sheets (A1(2)) bounded by one type of curve (A3) on their free end, which corresponds to ridges on the surface, and attached to two other sheets at another type of curve (A1(3)), which support a generalized cylinder description. The A3 curves can only end in A1A3 points where they must meet an A1(3) curve. The A1(3) curves meet together in fours at an A1(4) point. This formal result leads to a compact representation for 3D shape, referred to as the medial axis hypergraph representation consisting of nodes (A1(4) and A1A3 points), links between pairs of nodes (A1(3) and A3 curves) and hyperlinks between groups of links (A1(2) sheets). The description of the local geometry at nodes by itself is sufficient to capture qualitative aspects of shapes, in analogy to 2D. We derive a pointwise reconstruction formula to reconstruct a surface from this medial axis hypergraph together with the radius function. Thus, this information completely characterizes 3D shape and lays the theoretical foundation for its use in recognition, morphing, design, and manipulation of shapes.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1988

[Comparative studies of the population structure of a Kurd village population in Southeast Turkey. I. Morphologic regional comparison].

The paper is dealing with an anthropological investigation of a Kurdish village population from southern Turkey. We especially attached importance on the complete registration of all inhabitants to get a reliable sample for regional comparison of morphological features. Anthropological data of other Kurdish population groups are used for univariate and multivariate analysis. The resulting clusters are discussed beside the question of representation under the standpoint of regional and cultural origin of the samples.

Anthropometry↗
PubMed1984

An acoustic holding environment: from the analysis of a 'transitional character'.

The significance of the sounds of human voices is often blurred by our customary emphasis on the visual representations of objects and part-objects in the reconstruction in analysis of patients' unconscious fantasies. A case has been presented highlighting an individual's sensitivity to the noises of his early holding environment, and his use of them for perpetuating his early attachments, as well as in substituting for his stunted phallic development. The case is offered in support of the contention that our instruments of reproducing and transmitting human sounds often become auxiliaries in mediating the problem of separation: as such, they also become internalized influences in character formation. The clinical type described is seen as representative of a genre of people whose early transitional development has directed their choices toward certain life roles that are inordinately stamped with the imprint of illusion. Many of them receive a legitimization from the outer society (like the child's transitional object receives confirmation from its mother), thereby justifying their being classified as having 'transitional characters'. In this broad category, one could list entrepreneurs and actors from business and entertainment, including impresarios and magicians, mimes and comedians. The fields of politics and religion, philosophy and psychology, are by no means exempt from attracting individuals of this order.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

The effect of fantasies of merging with a good mother on schizophrenic pathology.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of subliminal symbiotic stimulation alone and in conjunction with an enhancement procedure on the pathology of relatively differentiated and relatively undifferentiated schizophrenics. It was hypothesized that enhancing the positive attributes of the schizophrenic's image of his mother prior to stimulating a fantasy of a symbiotic merger might increase his ability to benefit from the subliminal symbiotic stimulus. This hypothesis was not supported. Differentiated schizophrenics who received both enhancement procedure and the subliminal symbiotic stimulus showed no pathology reduction, whereas differentiated schizophrenics who received only the subliminal symbiotic stimulus manifested significant reductions in both pathological thinking and pathological behavior. Undifferentiated schizophrenics showed no reduction in pathology after the symbiotic stimulus regardless of whether or not they also received the enhancement procedure. An important finding which emerged was that the subliminal enhancement stimulus alone--i.e., without the symbiotic stimulus--resulted in reductions in pathological behavior for both differentiated and undifferentiated schizophrenics. It was concluded that although enhancing the positive attributes of the schizophrenic's maternal representation did not increase his ability to benefit from subliminal symbiotic stimulation, it did reduce pathology in its own right.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Object representations and their relationship to psychopathology and physical health status in African-American women in primary care.

Object relations theories hypothesize a relationship between self/other representations and level of psychopathology. Research has lent support to this hypothesis. This study was conducted to examine the link between object representation and psychopathology, stress, physical health status, and alcohol abuse in 110 African-American women in primary care. Object representations were assessed through spontaneous descriptions of parents. Psychopathology and physical health status were assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire and the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form Health Survey, both of which were designed for medical settings. The results support the link between dimensions of object representations (developmental level, benevolence, punitiveness) and psychopathology and between object representations and aspects of health status. Punitive maternal and paternal representations were most robustly associated with psychopathology and health status and were the only representational variables associated with alcohol abuse. The findings provide additional support for the object representations-psychopathology link and extend the research by demonstrating associations among object representations, alcohol abuse, and health status.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Personality, shame, and the breakdown of social bonds: the voice of quantitative depression research.

Scheff's argument (2001), whereby shame and the breakdown of social ties are causality implicated in depression, has potential to inform quantitative research on depression, particularly research focused on determinants of personality vulnerability. In the present article, I relate Scheff's argument to more than two and a half decades of theory and research on the interpersonal nature of depression, and on personality vulnerability to depression. The focus of this review is on the personality theories of Blatt (1974) and Beck (1983), in which an introjective/self-critical/autonomous personality dimension and an anaclitic/dependent/sociotropic personality dimension are each conceptualized as a marker of vulnerability. Reviewing empirical research on these two dimensions, I then point out a certain puzzle emerging from previous findings: The introjective personality dimension appears to confer considerably more vulnerability than the anaclitic personality dimension. An attempt is made to reconcile this puzzle by drawing from Scheff's discussion of shame, as well as from psychosocial research on internal representations of self and others (Blatt, Auerbach, and Levy 1997), and from sociological work on the depressogenic conditions of modernity (Giddens 1991; Seligman 1990).

Depression↗
PubMed1990

The origins of Freud's concept of object representation ('Objektvorstellung') in his monograph 'On Aphasia': its theoretical and technical importance.

In 'On aphasia' Freud finds it necessary to ask a question: 'In what manner is the body reproduced in the cerebral cortex?' His answer to this question would provide the foundation for the essential concepts of psychoanalytic theory and technique. In this paper I present in detail Freud's conception of the process of representing the body in the cortex. I also attend to the vocabulary he selected to present his ideas. Finally, I describe the consequences of both for his later theorizing. Freud was the first to oppose Meynert's notion that 'a representation is localized in the nerve cell'. Freud suggests that representations are processes without any localization. The process, once formed, has the potential to reappear under proper stimulation, to bring forth, as mnemic images, something psychical (das Psychische). These psychical representations are the sole possessors of the proper stimuli that motivate human beings to talk spontaneously and voluntarily.

Aphasia↗
PubMed2002

Implementation of a generalized TACT algorithm for arbitrary source-object distances.

OBJECTIVES: To implement, refine, and evaluate a generalized TACT reconstruction method that corrects for misregistration caused by uncontrolled variations in projective magnification, alleviates normalization artifacts at borders of backprojections, and exploits all available source information to minimize losses produced from projective truncations in three dimensions. METHODS: A new Java-based software application was designed and tested in vitro using clinically representive data derived from four titanium dental implants in a cadaver jaw segment. These implants were irradiated by an intra-oral X-ray machine from various angles and distances using a solid-state sensor producing 48 radiographs. Six radiopaque markers were attached to the segment facilitating inference of associated projection geometries from analyses of the distributions of their respective shadows as seen by the sensor. Three-dimensional (3D) images were produced using the new algorithm, and the results were compared with those obtained from existing code. RESULTS: Slices processed using the new program were corrected for magnification errors. The resulting 3D displays showed significantly reduced tomosynthetic blur relative to uncorrected counterparts. The new reconstructions also minimized known border artifacts and made use of all available information. These images demonstrated apparent details otherwise hidden or lost when comparably processed using the control algorithm. CONCLUSIONS: The new software reduces both misregistration and scaling artifacts in tomosynthetically reconstructed slices. Hence, these modifications are expected to increase diagnostic accuracy and facilitate the appropriate application of TACT to an enlarged set of diagnostic tasks as compared with earlier implementations of the method.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1994

A model system for evaluating filing technique.

The aim of this study was to develop a model system to demonstrate the pattern of load and how much is applied. A lower molar was mounted on a beam and attached to a mandibular phantom head jaw. A strain gauge fitted to the beam allowed loading of the molar to be recorded, during root canal preparation. Ten operators were asked to instrument the distal root canal; after preparation the operators were shown a graphical representation of the loads applied. This formed the basis of discussion and instruction in filing technique. The operators then repeated the filing. The results showed that prior to instruction operators used a push-pull motion, applying a constant lateral force to the canal wall. After instruction and discussion of the graphical representation of the loads applied the stroke rates used were slower and loads applied were higher (two-sample t-test, n = 10, P < 0.01). The experiment was repeated 1 year later and this showed that the change in technique had been retained. In conclusion, this model system allows visual feedback to the operator and can be used as an aid to teaching filing technique.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2005

Changes in representations of a self-designated significant other in long-term intensive inpatient treatment of seriously disturbed adolescents and young adults.

Blatt and colleagues (1996) found that severity of psychopathology in seriously disturbed, treatment-resistant, hospitalized adolescents at the beginning of treatment was positively correlated with the degree to which these adolescents were involved in describing their parents. At the end of long-term, intensive, psychodynamically oriented, inpatient treatment of these very troubled adolescents, reduction in the severity of psychopathology correlated significantly with increases in the development of the structural organization of descriptions of mother, father, self, and therapist. These findings suggested that treatment of seriously disturbed, treatment-resistant, adolescent and young adult inpatients seems to involve at least two primary dimensions: 1) disengagement from an intense involvement with parents and 2) development in the structural organization of representations of self and a significant new figure, the therapist. The present study extends these earlier findings by examining changes in the description of a "significant other" that each patient elected to describe at the beginning and the end of treatment. Clinical improvement over the course of treatment was significantly correlated with developmental progression of the significant figure each patient selected to describe (from a grandparent to a close friend) as well as with progression in the developmental organization in which this significant other was described. These findings suggest that treatment of seriously disturbed adolescents and young adults involves a disengagement from an intense involvement with primary caregivers to involvement with others outside the family matrix and the developmental elaboration of the representation of these figures.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Levels of mental representation and communicative modes of the bipersonal field.

The bipersonal field is an extraordinarily subtle and complex pattern of interaction which has roots in the first weeks of life. The communicative modes described by Langs (1978a,b) are implicitly tied to cognitive functioning, although the relationship between the interpersonal/interactional aspects of the bipersonal field and cognitive development have yet to be explored. A theory of cognitive development is advanced in which close connections are made between early object relationships and various levels of cognitive functioning. The building up of increasingly more sophisticated mental representations is traced, and the slow emergence of mature techniques of thinking is described. Both are intimately tied to the unfolding of object relationships. It is concluded that the communicative modes (Types A,B,C) involve important differences in the nature of the mental representations and the techniques of thinking associated with each.

Child Development↗
PubMed1993

[Psychic discrepancies between animals and humans. A new light on the "autistic monad"].

Beyond obvious contrasts, cognitivist and psychoanalytical conceptions according to which austistic subjects suffer from cognitive deficiencies or from "lack of access to symbolic order", appear to meet at two points. First, they characterize autists by their lack rather than by their structure or modalities of psychological functioning. Secondly, the deficiencies they reveal--"lack of theory of mind", "absence of second order representation" or "failure of access to symbolic order"--bear witness of a particular kind of relationship the autists establish with members of their family are in relation. Comparisons between animal and human relationships allow us to specify their own characteristics: those which distinguish between "the attachment bond" (on a dyadic level) among animals and the "love bond" between humans (on a triadic level). Moreover, these comparisons allow us to specify the "autistic monad" or the kind of avoidance of all relationships autistic subjects show.

Animal Population Groups↗
PubMed2000

The size of the visual size cue used for programming manipulative forces during precision grip.

We used a perturbation technique to quantify the contribution of visual size cues to the programming of target force when lifting an object. Our results indicate that the nervous system attaches a reasonable weight to visual size cues when programming the target grip force for a novel object. In a subsequent lift of the same object, however, the confidence attached to the visual size cue fell dramatically. It is not clear whether the decrease in the use of size information was accelerated by the presence of a cue conflict or whether the fall represents the normal shift towards the use of a memory-based representation for programming grip force. In a second experiment, we used the "size-weight illusion" to explore the relationship between the verbal report of an object's weight and the programming of the grip and load force. We found that erroneous motor programming (as indexed by a number of measures) was neither necessary nor sufficient for the size-weight illusion to occur. These findings call for a re-evaluation of a previous explanation for the size-weight illusion. We suggest that the illusion arises because the cognitive system attempts to rationalise the fact that objects of apparently equal density but different size feel as if they have the same weight.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

The social life of bonding theory.

'Bonding' as a crucial factor of the early post-partum entered obstetric and paediatric practice after the publication of Maternal and Infant Bonding in 1976 by Klaus and Kennell. The concept has held its place since, as witnessed by medical textbook accounts of it, and the perception of 'instantaneous bonding' as a vital component of the ideal birth experience has dominated media representations of childbirth and, until very recently, feminist writing. Only during the last few years has this literature taken into account research findings concerning the guilt and anxiety experienced by women whose expectations regarding 'bonding' are not realised. While it is now generally acknowledged that maternal attachment develops over an extended period of time, 'bonding' as used extensively in both popular and scientific literature conflates a wide range of meanings and blurs the boundaries between process and outcome. This facilitates the entry of ideological elements into a field which is, by its very nature, deeply significant for human experience. We therefore argue for a continuing critical appraisal of the role of 'bonding' in both general and scientific research.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1992

[Psychosomatic disorder, psychosis and object relations].

This paper presents a case who successively suffered from regional ileitis followed by a reactive psychosis. The author looks at the object relations of a patient afflicted by a narcissistic defect. The fundamental narcissistic disorder models the object relations of the somatic patient and of the psychotic patient. Less differentiation is found in the object representation of the psychotic patient. A comparison is suggested for the two modes of relating to objects.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Boyhood separation anxiety disorder: thought disorder and object relations psychopathology as manifested in Rorschach imagery.

Rorschach scales were used to examine the quality of thought disturbance and object relations in boys meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition (DSM-III; American Psychiatric Association, 1980) criteria for separation anxiety disorder (SAD). Nineteen urban, middle and low socioeconomic status (SES), SAD boys were compared to a group of 14 male control subjects. The hypotheses of the study were that SAD boys as compared to controls would: (a) have significantly more thought disordered responses as measured by a Rorschach Thought Disorder Scale (Blatt & Ritzler, 1974), and (b) evidence significantly less adaptive object relations scale scores as measured by the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale (Urist, 1977). Results confirmed both hypotheses. The SAD group had more thought disordered responses and more disrupted object relations scores than the controls. Ideas and images of these boys were found to generally be more unstable, boundary compromised, fluid, idiosyncratic, tangential, and psychotic-like than the controls. It was concluded that these boys possess a significant potential to have thinking abnormalities that will interfere with their independent functioning. Concerning their object relations scores, the SAD subjects were found to have significantly fewer benign, adaptive object interactional percepts, and a greater number of dependent and/or clinging interactional object representations (imagery) than the controls. This study supports the viewpoint that SAD boys are deeply psychologically troubled.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

The maternal representation. A comparison of caregiver- and mother-reared toddlers.

Two groups of toddlers and their caregivers were observed at the Margaret S. Mahler Observational Research Nursery on different days. In one group (the caregiver group) the children of full-time employed mothers were cared for at home by paid caregivers. In the other group (the mother group) the children were cared for full-time by their actual mothers. These two groups are compared in terms of the children's expression of affect, interest in peers, identifications, separation protests, signals of communication, and symbolic functioning. Contributions from infant research are used to illustrate how recent conceptualizations about the construction of the maternal representation further understanding about the child's experience of multiple caregivers.

Adult↗