Bertram D. Cohen

Functional Asymmetry of the Human Brain

Verbal and nonverbal memorization skills were tested before and after electroconvulsive shocks to the left, right, or both cerebral hemispheres of neurologically normal patients. As predicted, decrements for the left-hemisphere—shocked group were larger on the verbal than nonverbal tasks, while the reverse was true for the right-hemisphere—shocked group. Largest decrements on both tasks were shown by the bilaterally shocked group.

REFERENT COMMUNICATION IN SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN

Variations in communication accuracy among third-, fifth-, and seventhgrade children were studied using a word-communication task. In this task, a speaker provides clue words to distinguish referent from nonreferent stimuli; his listener chooses the speakers referent from each stimulus array, given the speakers clue words. The task included 30 different stimulus arrays, all administered to each pair of Ss. There were 20 boy and 20 girl S pairs at each grade level. Communication accuracy-frequency of correct listeners choices, of speakers referents-increased significantly with grade level. No significant sex difference was found. Further analysis of the findings revealed differences in speaker-versus-listener development. The various developmental changes were discussed in relation to a theory of referent communication.

SPEAKERS' AND LISTENERS' PROCESSES IN A WORD-COMMUNICATION TASK.

A communication task was developed to investigate the processes by which a speaker selects verbal clues in order to distinguish one word (referent) from another (nonreferent) and the processes by which a listener identifies the speakers referent word. Data from speakers and listeners in this task were linked to word-association norms by means of a stochastic model.

Personal Identity and the Schizophrenic Process: An Integration

In this paper we explore the relation between theories of self, particularly identity theory, and the schizophrenic process. A fundamental assumption in identity theory is that a persons self includes a hierarchically organized set of identities. When an individuals set of identities is limited in range and/or diffusely organized he/she is thought to be at risk for schizophrenia. The onset and relapse of schizophrenic episodes are assumed to occur when important identities are negated. Implications of identity theory for integrating extant conceptions of schizophrenia are discussed. Also discussed are the effects of medication in establishing a patient identity and the role of the patient identity in preventing psychotic relapse.

Self-editing deficits in schizophrenia

WHEN manifest, disturbances in language usage are among the most convincing symptoms of a schizophrenic psychosis. These symptoms, however, are not impairments in language, per se; but are, rather, impairments of interpersonal communication. Thus, measures of communicability are much more effective discriminators of schizophrenic from normal (or neurotic) speech than are measures of linguistic structure, style or content.l** In the studies to be considered in this paper, the communicability of an utterance is defined in terms of the accuracy with which listeners use the utterance as a basis for identifying a speaker’s referent. The basic paradigm involves the presentation of an explicit set (display) of stimulus objects to a subject (speaker) who is instructed to provide a verbal response to one of them (the referent) such that a listener, given the response, will be able to pick the referent out of the display. This essential paradigm has been adapted to the study of referent-communication in normal children and normal, as well as pathological, adults.3.8 The purpose of the experiments to be considered here has not been simply to demonstrate that schizophrenic speakers’ utterances are lower in communicability (communication accuracy) than those of normals, but rather to specify what goes wrong in the process through which normal speakers select appropriate responses. I will consider first the source of the schizophrenic speaker deficit; second, theory and data concerning the nature of dysfunctional self-editing in schizophrenia; and third, changes in the speaker’s communication process from early- to later-term schizophrenia. 1. The source of the speaker deficit: deviant repertoires or faulty self-editing? It is possible that a schizophrenic speaker’s associations, meanings, or descriptions of a referent object are idiosyncratic and that communication failures are therefore due to differences between speaker and listener in their referent-response repertoires. Alternatively, the schizophrenic speaker’s referent-response repertoires may be nondeviant but he fails to edit out responses inappropriate to the momentary context before they intrude into overt speech. In an initial study by COHEN and CAMHI,~ schizophrenic and normal subjects were assigned to speaker or listener roles. It was shown that the schizophrenics were poorer than normals in communication accuracy as speakers but not as listeners. These results held regardless of whether the patients were listening (or speaking) to other patients or to normals. Since the

On Scapegoating in Therapy Groups: A Social Constructivist and Intersubjective Outlook

Abstract The social constructs of the group, the group self of an individual member, and the moral order of the group as a whole are described as basic, interrelated concepts essential to our understanding of scapegoating. Two patterns of scapegoating are then introduced: one concerns antagonistic, the other, agonistic relations of scapegoat to scapegoaters. A series of case examples are presented, one involves an advocacy group of socio-cultural “outsiders;” the other three pertain to scapegoating in therapy group settings. The case materials illustrate the meaning and usefulness of an intersubjective/social constructivist perspective on the problem of scapegoating.

Self-structure and self-transformation in group psychotherapy.

This article first outlines a theory of self-structure as a hierarchically organized multiplicity of versions of self. It then describes self-transformation as a two-part process: (Part 1) the articulation and strengthening of individual self-boundaries, and (Part 2) the reclaiming of split-off, denied, or projected aspects of self. Clinically, both parts are products of the communicative interaction among members, the therapist, and the group as a whole. A parallel conception of group development posits that the group, as an object and as a social system, also needs to: (a) articulate and strengthen its boundaries so that it may (b) contain the sustained interdependent, sometimes conflictual, interactivity among members that is essential to the self-reclaiming process.

REFERENT COMMUNICATION IN SCHIZOPHRENIA: THE PERSEVERATIVE‐CHAINING MODEL*

Disturbances in the use of language are often among the most convincing indications of a schizophrenic psychosis. Yet, as cryptic or disorganized as schizophrenic speech may sound, it rarely (if ever) includes hard instances of agrammatism or word-finding deficits. It is a disturbance of communication, rather than of language per se; its most dependable feature is that listeners find the patient’s referents too elusive to grasp. Thus, measures of “communicability” are among the most effective discriminators of schizophrenic speech samples, such measures being clearly superior to measures of style, structure, or thematic content.’ Accordingly, the emphasis in this paper is on disturbances of the referential process, itself the process through which a speaker selects his utterances so as to make it possible for his listeners to know what he is talking about. I will also have something to say about the listener’s process; that is, how the listener uses the speaker’s utterance as a basis for identifying the speaker’s referent. Putting the issue this way requires that we have some grasp of the normal referent-communication process, one that would permit investigators to pinpoint components of the process as possible “loci” of schizophrenic disturbances. Previous investigators in this field have rarely paid much attention to the need for an explicit conception of normal referent communication, perhaps on the assumption that normal processes are so obvious that they can be taken for granted. In order to provide background for our own conception of normal and pathological referent communication, 1 will first review briefly the major approaches to schizophrenic language and thought and the normal referent communication processes that they imply. A productive place to start is Bleuler’s* 65-year-old analysis of schizophrenia as a cognitive disorder. Bleuler’s theory dealt with “ideas” and “associations”-which were, of course, the popular concepts of the eighteenth and nineteenth century psychology. Ideas were psychological representations of objects and events, and associations were the relational “threads” that connected ideas. For Bleuler, associations came in two main kinds: logical and autistic. Bleuler believed that logical associations are the dominant forms of association in the normal adult. They occur more frequently than autistic associations and are, in effect, models of reality. Thus, if one’s associations are predominantly logical, one is not likely to combine ideas in a bizarre, delusional, or incoherent manner. Autistic associations, by contrast, give rise to combinations of ideas that are likely to be analytically or empirically false. For Bleuler’s normal adult, autistic associations are, in effect, held in check by the logical associations and intrude into thought-and through thought into speech-only during moments of high emotional stress. With the onset of schizophrenia, the single crucial change was, for Bleuler, the “loosening” of the associations, a psychopathological process that he assumed to

Working Through a Psychotherapy Group's Political Cultures

Abstract Macropolitical evolution, starting with authoritarian monarchism, has moved through anarchistic transitions either to the totalitarianism of fascism and communism or to liberal and social democracy. We posit analogous micropolitical development in process-oriented therapy groups: “dependence” and “counterdependence” corresponding to monarchism and anarchism; and “independence” and “interdependence” to liberal and social democracy, respectively. Transition from counterdependence to independence and interdependence may be: (1) facilitated through group members’ cooperative experience of rebellion, or (2) blocked by collective identification, the internalization of dystopian or utopian fantasies that coalesce as “group–self” perceptions. We explore how group therapists work clinically with and through these several “political cultures” in the service of group and self transformation.

Group Psychotherapy as the Century Turns: Toward a Philosophy of Care

A futuristic essay should be written by two persons so as to invoke Bions “basic assumption pairing” (Bion, 1964) with its connotations of hope, no matter how irrational. Accordingly, I split my self in two parts, one, the hard-headed realist, and the other, the prophetic visionary. As idealized identities, neither comes easily to me. But, perhaps heeding the two has permitted the articulation of some presentable notions about group psychotherapy and its evolving fate.