Alvin R. Mahrer

Difficulty Falling Asleep

180 hospitalized patients with expressed difficulties falling asleep were compared with 131 control patients on a psychological problem inventory to investigate the heightened anxiety view of insomnia. Cross-validated results indicated that (a) groups were not differentiated on the basis of anxiety, and (b) groups were differentiated on 44 of 149 items occurring in four factors: somatization, depression, dependent rejection, and decreased control.

Transitional problems accompanying vocational development and college graduation

Abstract In order to determine whether college graduation and vocational development are accompanied by an upsurge in amount and kinds of personal problems, senior students were contrasted with juniors according to three categories of specific-diffuse postgraduate career endeavors. Personal adjustment problems were assessed by the Mooney Problem Checklist, and response bias controlled by the MMPI K Scale. Results indicated that students report increased personal problems during the senior year, specifically where vocational choices are decisively formulated; furthermore, problems tend to cluster into specifiable adjustment areas. Findings were discussed in terms of college graduation as a transitional stage, and implications were drawn for the career counseling process.

Childhood Determinants of Adult Functioning: Strategies in the Clinical Research Use of the Personal-Psychological History

Nine research strategies are proposed (a) to investigate the relationships between childhood variables and adult functioning, and (b) to define a research instrument for the assessment of childhood determinants of adult functioning.

Suicide attempts and threats as goal-directed communications in psychotic males.

15 suicide attempters and 33 threateners were compared with each other and with 276 control male psychiatric patients on a Psychological Problem Inventory. Results indicated that suicide attempters were characterized by patterns of self-rejection and aggressive tendencies. Threateners were characterized by suicidal sexual anxiety, self-directed aggression, and a trend toward inadequacy. Implications were drawn relative to the motivational goals of attempters and threateners.

A preface to the mind-body problem

SummaryAs a preface to the mind-body problem, this paper proposed three assumptions basic to the issue. The assumptions referred to the number of basic events, the method of organization, and the nature of the basic events or substances. An approach to the mind-body problem was proposed in terms of a position on each of the three assumptions. This approach was applied to clinical practice on the strong presumption that mind-body approaches have striking implications for the operations of the clinician. Accordingly, implications were drawn from this approach and applied to the criteria and meaning of psychological and nonpsychological clinical events, the processes and occurrences of the human body from a strictly psychological viewpoint, the nature of psychological explanation of clinical events, the hierarchy of sciences, the relationships between psychological and nonpsychological concepts including the presumption of intermediating factors, and the nature of diagnostic rationale and procedure.