Donald B. Leventhal

The effects of therapeutically oriented instructions and of the pairing of anxiety imagery and relaxation in systematic desensitization

In an attempt to examine counterconditioning and expectancy factors in systematic desensitization, four groups of seven subjects each were given therapeutically or nontherapeutically oriented instructions and anxiety imagery paired or unpaired with relaxation. A 2×2 randomized blocks factorial design was employed. It was found that both therapeutically oriented instructions and the pairing of anxiety imagery and relaxation contributed to decreases in rat phobic avoidance behavior. Results were taken to indicate evidence for both counterconditioning and expectancy factors within the systematic desensitization technique. The possibility is discussed that the pairing procedure may produce increased patient expectancy of improvement.

Proprioception in schizophrenia.

B. Ritzier (J. Abnorm. Psychol., 86: 501–504, 1977) failed to replicate previous weight- lifting studies showing a proprioceptive deficit in schizophrenics. However, Ritzier did not use the same standard weights that the previous studies employed. Could this difference in procedure have caused his failure to replicate? Two experiments were completed to provide additional information about this question and related issues. In Experiment I, chronic hospitalized schizophrenics and normals were tested with light and heavy weights. Rosenbaums original modified method of limits and the method of constant stimuli were utilized. Both methods provided comparable results, which, like Ritzlers data, failed to show a differential impairment in the discrimination of the light weights for paranoid schizophrenics. In Experiment II, outpatient paranoid schizophrenics, outpatient nonparanoid schizophrenics, outpatient psychiatric patients, and aged normals were evaluated utilizing the same psychophysical procedure and standard weights employed in the original studies. No differential impairment was found for the light weights for any group. These results provide strong support for Ritzlers position that a proprioceptive deficit is not unique to schizophrenia.