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PubMed1995

Body image in preoperative and postoperative lumbar laminectomy patients.

Many patients each year undergo a lumbar laminectomy for removal of a herniated disc. This study was conducted to determine if the patient had a change in body image from the preoperative to postoperative period. Body image was measured using the Body-Cathexis Scale. Twenty-four (24) patients were included in the study. Results indicated that there was a significantly higher difference in the total Body-Cathexis score postoperatively as compared to preoperatively. In addition, there was a significantly higher difference in the patients' ratings of back, knee, posture, energy level and sexual activity in the postoperative period. Further research is needed with a larger sample and over time to see whether these effects hold true.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Body image and psychological well-being in pregnancy. A comparison of exercisers and non-exercisers.

This study compared the perceptions of body image and psychological well-being between exercising and non-exercising pregnant women. A prospective longitudinal study was conducted with 65 nulliparous women (mean age years = 30.3, range = 23-39) who were allocated to 2 groups based on level of recreational exercise participation; 25 exercisers were compared with 18 non-exercisers. A self-report exercise history questionnaire and a 10 item Body Cathexis Scale were completed on two occasions during the pregnancy, at approximately 17 weeks and 30 weeks of gestation. The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) was administered in late pregnancy. There was a significant difference between the exercise group and the non-exercise group in late pregnancy for some items on the Body Cathexis Scale. The exercise group had a lower level of probable caseness on the GHQ-28 with reduced frequency of somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, and a higher level of psychological well-being.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Paranoid phenomena and pathological narcissism.

Paranoid phenomena can be seen to arise from pathological narcissism. As a result of certain kinds of trauma to the ego-ideal and/or losses of important self-object relationships, the self becomes dislodged from internal agencies and representations. Narcissistic cathexis of the self to these internal psychic structures loosens and hope, aspiration, affection and will become markedly diminished. Meaningful goals and choices become impossible to adopt and make. The paranoid patient is internally at "loose ends"; he is lost. Tragically, being gripped by the paranoid condition and its manifest delusional system is the only kind of security that the paranoid patient knows. No wonder it is so hard to give up. The vulnerability to paranoid phenomena may be seen to be a result of past experiences of subversion of "selfhood." In significant ways, the patient vulnerable to paranoid phenomena has not been adequately attended nor adequately "left alone." The self can be seen as arising out of crucial mother-infant exchanges that are paralleled by interactions between developing internal psychic structures. Out of these "reflections," the self is born. The narcisstic cathexis of self to the ego, superego and ego-ideal is the result of self-expression. If full self-ownership has not been possible then self-expression is vulnerable. Given these understandings of the relationship between paranoid phenomena and pathological narcissism, treatment will focus on reducing the threats to selfhood, refinding the self, and reestablishing ties to internal sources of affection, initiative and aspiration.

Ego↗
PubMed1982

Body-image, personal space and self-esteem: preliminary evidence for "focusing" effects.

A repeated-measures design was used to investigate the effects of a self-esteem manipulation on measures of body-image and personal space. Significant interaction effects were obtained for penetration, body-cathexis, and simulated interaction distance, and the results confirmed the prediction that subjects whose self-esteem had been enhanced would obtain significantly higher body-cathexis, and significantly lower penetration and interaction distance scores than those whose self-esteem had been reduced. Although the interaction effect was nonsignificant, similar trends were observed for barrier. Figure drawing and spatial orientation appeared to be unrelated to self-perception. Factor analysis showed that the tests were unrelated, but the self-esteem manipulation had a "focusing" effect on boundary and interaction distance. Overall, the results provide experimental support for the defensive distancing hypothesis.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1989

Effects of selected physical activities on health-related fitness and psychological well-being.

To determine the effects of participation in selected physical activities on scores of self-concept, body-cathexis and four items of health-related fitness, 88 women in university physical education service classes participated 3 hr. per week for 8 wk. in one of five activities (aerobic dance, jogging for fitness, swimming for fitness, life saving, and weight training). A total of 108 subjects participated in the study, with 20 students in health science classes serving as the controls. Few differences were noted between the activity groups and the controls on the posttest with pretest scores controlled. Specifically, joggers and aerobic dancers performed significantly more situps than did the controls, and joggers, aerobic dancers, weight trainers, and those in the lifesaving group displayed significantly greater flexibility on the sit and reach test than did the controls, on the posttest. None of the activity groups differed from the controls regarding self-esteem, body cathexis, body fat, or the step test scores at posttest.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Comparison of the effects of walking and weight training programs on body image in middle-aged women: an experimental study.

Purpose. This study was conducted to determine the effect of a resistive training intervention on body image in middle-aged women compared to an exercise walking program. Another purpose was to develop two multivariate models to explain improvement in body image among the lifters and walkers. Design. A pretest-posttest experimental design with random assignment of subjects to two exercise groups was employed. Setting. Subjects trained in their own homes and were tested at the university. Subjects. Participants were 60 women recruited from the local community with an average age of 42.5 +/- 4.2 years. Intervention. Subjects were randomly assigned to a resistive training or exercise walking program, both of which were three days per week and 12 weeks in duration. Measures. Body cathexis was assessed using the Body Cathexis Scale; cardiovascular endurance was measured using the one-mile walk test, and muscular strength was assessed using standard weight training procedures. Results. After completion of the exercise interventions, lifters showed greater muscular strength than walkers, and walkers displayed greater cardiorespiratory endurance than lifters, as expected. Lifters also improved significantly more in body image than the walkers. Conclusions. Participation in a three-day-per-week resistive training program seems to improve body image in middle-aged women more than participation in a three-day per week walking program. Further, it appears that hard work and fitness improvements contribute significantly toward positive changes in body image.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

The work of hypochondria. A contribution to the study of the specificity of hypochondria, in particular in relation to hysterical conversion and organic disease.

The authors present a metapsychological conception of hypochondria. Following Freud, they contrast the complaints of the hypochondriac with the belle indifférence of the hysteric, and they then inquire into the heuristic value of hypochondria as an actual neurosis; this leads them to a consideration of psychosomatic illness and the importance of the object cathexis in hypochondriacal anxiety. In the development of Freud's theory of the drives, the explanatory concept of the damming up of ego libido proves insufficient and has to be coupled with the notion of primary erotogenic masochism: from this point of view, hypochondria can be seen as a form of binding which thus distinguishes it from other somatic outcomes. On the basis of three case histories, the authors endeavour to show hypochondriacal anxiety not only as a pathological process but also as a type of necessary minimum cathexis of the body; this leads to the idea of hypochondria as psychical work.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

[Psychoanalytic aspects of depression, including mania].

The narcissistic emptiness respectively depletion in depression with the consecutive deficient narcissistic cathexis of ego, id, superego as well as of the body leads to the fact that the people concerned lose all the pleasureful freshness which healthy persons have, but are also unable to build up or to maintain a communicative object relation. On the one hand depressives have the desire to incorporate and to possess in a compensatory-fusionary way objects and on the other hand, since the objects lose by this their object character, they fear them at the same time. Partners of depressives experience themselves often as being totally in their hands respectively "devoured" by them. How so ever the fusion of the depressives might be, they always suffer from the impression having lost their self as well as the objects. Submitted to their narcissistically uncathected archaic superego, depressives are strictly directed towards law and order. An individual who is not able to accept himself in such a way, has also no possibility for an object love since the basis of each object relation is always the enlargement of the self onto the object and only on this basis an identification can be realized. Due to a narcissistically insufficient cathexis of the body respectively of certain body functions, pains are often experienced, whereby it may happen that the pain experience represents the depression itself. Due to this narcissistic deficiency the depressive considers himself to be outside any social relationships. The depressive suffers therefore not only from the lost self but also from the object from which he feels estranged. In mania however the people concerned succeed to have the enthralling experience of a compensatory grandioe self and of the fusion with the object. Why this defense against the narcissistic emptiness respectively depletion is possible, even when admitting a genetic predisposition, must still be clarified.

Adult↗
PubMed1980

[Inhibitions or neurosis and masculine characteristics in women. Contributions to analysis of denial].

The first part of this paper describes the general qualities of the psychical apparatus in two groups of women, male character and inhibition or neurosis. A different attitude towards the realization of the sexual difference in the phallic phase originates these two groups. The girl with a male character identifies herself with the little boy and maintains an autoerotic attitude. In the case of inhibition or neurosis the girl undervaluates herself and renounces her pleasure in masturbation. In the second part we develop a pattern of analysis, the theory of the places within the psychical apparatus: ideal, wish object, assistant and rival of the subject. The ideal is defined as warrantor for the being, for the feeling of oneself. When this ideal-cathexis happens the subject is put in the place of assistant of the ideal, in order to be recognized, to get the identification, the being. The place of rival is occupied by the one whose wishes are identical with the subject's, with whom the former has an exclusion relationship. The place of wish object appears in a heterosexual link, as the consequence of a libidinous cathexis. The distribution of these places in inhibitions or neuroses and male characters is considered in the next three parts of the paper. In inhibitions and neuroses the girl takes her mother as ideal, and her desire is to complete her, in identification with her father. The latter becomes a hostile character for the girl, and his fate is destruction, loss of meaning. The idealized link with her mother, however, progressively becomes hostile while the Ego of the girl develops. The girl then looks for shelter in worthless and multiplied men, and afterwords in a single man, idealized. These characteristics already belong to male characters. An analysis of the metapsychology of denial (Verleugnug), main defense mechanism against the registry of a traumatic perception, is offered in the next part. This defense preassumes an equivalent of an action aimed at putting something in the place of the traumatic registry, therefore maintaining the idealization of somebody as ideal, warrantor for the being. This idealization is questioned by an existence and value judgement. A link is then established between the Ego and three positions: the ideal, whose idealization the Ego tries to keep (love link); a hostile ideal, who assures the traumatic perception (hostile link) and an assistant of the hostile ideal (link of denounciation and disqualification). Denial implies the splitting of the Ego together with the existence of two preconscious organizations with different rules. One of these systems is connected only with primary identifications and the other also includes object-cathexes. In the last item we study how denial works in inhibitions and neuroses and in male characters. The girl may deny as regards either her own body (male characters) or her father's (inhibitions and neuroses). What really happens in both groups is a double denial, and the real definitive Ego, the reflexive judgement, is left out...

Denial, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Psychoanalytic aspects of migraine].

After a clinical example the migraine attack is interpreted as an attempt to reparate the hurted self. A comparison with psychoanalytic literature shows that migraine attacks were seen in the past above all under dynamic aspects of the drives and not under a narcisstic point of view. Specific genetic influences lead to a negative cathexis of the self and to obsessional defenses against sadness and mourning. The migraine attack generally decrease in the middle age of the life because of cathexis-changes in the self and a reduction of the libidinal drive in this age.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

[The vicissitudes of the therapeutic alliance or going from childhood to adolescence during psychotherapy].

By tracking the modifications of the therapeutic alliance between a pre-adolescent boy and his therapist, the author attempts 1/to describe the differences in terms of techniques and goals between low frequency session therapies and intensive therapies, and 2/to outline some of the characteristics of the psychic functioning of this age. In this particular case going form the first demand to the desire to end therapy, from sessions given on demand to more regular sessions, the transference evolved from a narcissic type to an oedipal type, heterosexual and homosexual. Some typical conflict of the age has emerged: mourning of childhood and anticipation of adolescence in its physical, relational and psychic implications. In elaborating this temporal dimension, the child develops, with the decline of the Oedipus complex, a cathexis of a personal historical space. This cathexis is a crucial process and facilitates the going through adolescence.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

[Body image of patients with acute paranoid schizophrenia. A follow-up study].

In the light of the heterogeneous literature on disturbances of body image in schizophrenic patients, we examined body schema, body concept and body cathexis, their changes during hospital treatment and their correlations with psychopathology in 38 patients with acute paranoid schizophrenia. The image-marking method according to Askevold, the Body Distortion Questionnaire, a visual-analogue scale on body cathexis and psychopathometric scales were applied. Body schema was also investigated in 27 healthy controls. On average, patients underestimated the size of their lower extremities, indicating a centralized body schema. They accurately assessed proximal fixed points. Underestimation was significantly correlated with anxiety, overestimation with grandiosity. Body schema and body concept were relatively independent from each other and from body hallucinations. Disturbances of body perception were reduced significantly, but not completely, during the time from admission to discharge. The results confirm and clarify some findings in the literature on a distorted perception of body size and support theories on body perception in schizophrenia.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1985

The different narcissistic disturbances of personality and their psychotherapeutic approach.

Narcissism is defined as the self-representation which gives to the instances ego, id and superego as well as to the body the narcissistic cathexis which makes the individual feel an entity and continuity. Three kinds of narcissistic disorders are differentiated concerning their psychodynamics: Narcissistic personality disorders (narcissistic neuroses) with an ego basically able to function well, but a lack in the self; borderline conditions with a more or less severe ego pathology and the consecutive difficulty of the concerned individual to build up a consistent self; major depressions with a more or less pronounced emptiness or evacuation in the realm of narcissism. The psychotherapy of these three disorders is explained. The psychotherapy of narcissistic personality disorders (narcissistic neuroses) consists in a slightly modified psychoanalytic approach. The psychotherapy of borderline patients is described as an analytically oriented expressive one. The psychotherapy of major depressions consists in the depressive phases mainly of an empathic approach. In the intervals not only the almighty superego, but also the huge oral and narcissistic expectations as well as the defense mechanisms of the patients against them, as e.g. the lifelong pattern of law and order, should be worked through.

Borderline Personality Disorder↗
PubMed1977

New ideas on mental disorders.

Three types of mental disorder, based on libido-destrudo balances are introduced: (1) Hyperinstrumental-narcissistic type, or psychopathic type with destrudo object hypercathexis; (2) Dysmutual-cyclic type with libido-destrudo shifting cathexis; (3) Hypervectorial-schizotype with object hypercathexis of libido. Five levels of regression: neurosis, character neurosis, latent psychosis, psychosis, and dementia are linked to declining ego strength.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed1983

Psychological characteristics of bisexual, heterosexual and homosexual women.

One hundred and twenty-five female volunteers completed a questionnaire designed to measure masculinity, femininity, body cathexis, and self-esteem. Women were categorized as bisexual, heterosexual or homosexual according to self-labeling and according to erotic preference. The proportion of androgynous and undifferentiated individuals was much greater among self-labeled homosexual women. Feminine individuals were conspicuously under-represented among self-labeled homosexual and bisexual women. Women who reported both opposite-sex and same-sex sexual experiences, regardless of their self-label or erotic preference, were more agentic (i.e., possessed more socially desirable masculine traits), more satisfied with their bodies and its functions, more satisfied with both their sexual activities and their biological sex, and more satisfied with themselves and their abilities than were women who only reported opposite-sex sexual experiences.

Body Image↗
PubMed1988

Body image: the dimension of size.

In view of a dearth of clear data concerning phenomenal body size and the shortcomings of the assessment methods, the purpose of the present study was to apply a new kinaesthetically based Body Size Estimation method for investigating differences in size estimations of 10 body parts by men and women of different age groups, comparing them to estimations of a neutral object, and examining their interrelations and relations to attitudinal and personality variables. Two hundred and forty Israeli subjects, 80 (40 male, 40 female) in each of three age groups (4 to 6, 10 to 12, and 28 to 30 years) were administered estimations of body and object, figure drawing, and questionnaires in two individual sessions. Results showed overestimation of body size in all groups, decreasing regularly with age or U-shaped, few gender differences, differences from object estimations, a grouping into bodily and facial images, increasing unitariness, negative correlations with body cathexis and satisfaction, bodily sophistication, and the richness of the self concept and positive correlations with exercise, field dependence, and figure drawing distortions.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

A note on narcissism.

The connection of the concept of narcissism with the concept of the self is re-examined in the light of Hartmann's formulation of narcissism as cathexis of the self. While the formula is valid, its converse remains open to question. Implications for a psychology of the self independent of (but not divorced from) the dynamics of narcissism are suggested in regard to the understanding of perversions, development, narcissistic object relations, and self-esteem. The viability of a separate psychology of the self in each area is proposed.

Cathexis↗
PubMed1976

Psychoanalytic contributions to the relationship between dreams and psychosis--a critical survey.

The author surveys psychoanalytic contributions to the relationship between dreams and psychosis as well as adding some of his own observations. He uses as his frame of reference questions relating to the similarities between dreams and psychosis, whether there are psychotic dreams and whether dreams may presage psychosis. There seemed to be some general consensus that the answers to these questions were positive, depending upon the frames of reference used, i.e., whether one referred to the topographical or structural model of the mind, the level of ego cathexis, the function of the ego vis-a-vis reality, etc. Most contributors felt that a dream taken out of context from the overall clinical situation would be difficult to evaluate as either presaging or representing a psychosis despite the fact that many dreams may appear which are suggestive.

Cathexis↗