Arnold Meadow

Psychiatric Diagnosis as a Function of Assessor Profession and Sex.

Diagnostic impressions formed by 26 clinicians after intake interviews with 200 randomly assigned outpatients at a community mental health center were analyzed by assessor discipline and sex and by patient sex and age level. Professional status was positively related to diagnostic severity among male assessors—nurses, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists made increasingly higher proportions of psychotic diagnoses. Female therapists were less likely than their male counterparts to render psychotic diagnoses. This finding was most robust for doctoral interviewers, especially psychologists, and for patients who were female or under 30. Results are discussed in relation to the need for a model of the diagnostic process that allows for the role of practitioner attributes. Previous largely negative findings may have had their source in the failure of contrived analogue procedures to evoke emotions in the rater comparable in intensity to those aroused in the real-life encounter.

Emotional stress as a factor in ventricular arrhythmias

Abstract Clinical evidence suggests that in some cases psychologic stress may be a more potent factor than exercise in precipitating pathologic cardiac effects. An experiment designed to test this hypothesis with one patient is described. The data suggest the importance of a more careful evaluation of the differential cardiac effects of emotional factors and physical exercise when outlining a treatment plan for coronary patients.

Cultural Differences in Child Guidance Clinic Patients

host of anthropological, sociological, and psychological researches have pointed A to major cross-cultural differences in the distribution, frequency, and types of psychopathology, as well as in basic personality structures (For example: Benedict, 1958; Cohen, 1961; Moffson, 1954; C~pler, 1959 and 1967; and Tooth, 1950). There have been some explorations of the differences in psychopathology and personality between Anglo-American and subjects of Latin-American cultural backgrounds (Abel and Calabrisi, 1951, Jaco, 1959; Kaplan, 1954, 1955, 1956; Lewis, 1949, 1951, 1959, 1961, 1964; Meadow, Stoker and Zurcher, 1967). Previous studies have shown wide and consistent differences in the psychopathology of adult Mexican-American and Anglo-American clinical groups (Stoker, 1963; Meadow and Stoker, 1965; Stoker, Zurcher and Fox, 1969). The present study investigated Mexican-American and Anglo-American child guidance clinic files to determine the patterns of psychopathology, cultural and family dynamics which might give further insight into the previously demonstrated differences in adult patients.

School-related problems of Mexican-American adolescents

Abstract An attempt is made to explain certain selected aspects of the school problems of some Mexican-American adolescents by an analysis of major cultural themes. The data presented suggest that for some Mexican-American adolescents, school has at least the following four meanings: (1) a place where teachers are frequently perceived and treated as authority figures similar to their fathers and, therefore, are targets of rebellion; (2) a place lacking strict external prhibition of encounters with the opposite sex; (3) a public arena of activity where one can bring honor or shame to ones family: and (4) an institution which expects participating individuals to value individual competition and success. Finally, these problems are discussed with respect to problems that Mexican-American female adolescents have in direct expression of anger.

An experimental test of two opposing theories of the perception deficit in schizophrenia.

Devised the experiment to test two alternate theories of the etiology of the perceptual defect in schizophrenia: The theory supported by Searles and Hartmann that it is a secondary recation to defense and that proposed by McGhie that it is a primary defecrt. Two groups (N = 32) of schizophrenic patients were compared, one of which was administered low doses and the other hight doses of fluphenazine HCL. Both groups were given before medication and 7 days after medication a batery of five-digit span tests. The tests differed in that they were accompanied by orally presented distracting words presented with varying combinations of emotional and neutral content and affect or with no distracting stimuli. Results indicated that patients administered high as compared to patients administered low doswages of medication performed significantly better on two-digit span tests, the test comprised of words with emotional content presented. with neutral affect, and the test with no-distracting stimuli. Because the higher dosage did not produced greater improvement on the test that utilized emotional-distracting stimuli than on the test accompanied by no distracting stimuli, the results are interpreted as supporting the theory of McGhie.