Herman Feifel

Coping strategies and associated features of medically ill patients.

&NA; This study examined the psychological and behavioral correlates of three major coping strategies used by medically ill patients in dealing with their illness; namely, confrontation, avoidance, and acceptance‐resignation. The subjects consisted of 223 male medical patients with a variety of life‐threatening and chronic illnesses. Coping responses were measured by the Medical Coping Modes Questionnaire, while other variables were tapped by a variety of self‐report and test measures, as well as by interview data. Significant correlates were found for each of the coping strategies accounting for 10 to 53% of the variance. These included demographic, illness, and psychological variables. Employment of acceptance‐resignation as a coping strategy was particularly evident in patients with little expectation of recovery and a lack of hope. Effectiveness of coping appeared to be negatively linked to frequent use of avoidance and acceptance‐resignation in life‐threatened patients. Overall, it seems that a variety of variables across several domains accompany the use of a particular coping strategy; that choice of a specific strategy is most likely multidetermined; and that the configuration of variables associated with a particular strategy is likely to be different for each coping strategy. Coping behavior is a subtle, multifashioned expression the complete grasp of which demands an integrative approach.

Coping with conflict situations: middle-aged and elderly men.

In this study we investigated the coping responses of fairly healthy, middle-aged (40-64 years, n = 76) and elderly (65-92 years, n = 106) men to five conflict situations (i.e., decision making, defeat in a competitive circumstance, frustration, authority conflict, and peer disagreement). Coping responses were measured by the Life Situations Inventory, developed to assess three forms of coping: problem-solving, avoidance, and resignation. Scales were based on a 28-item questionnaire and were derived rationally through item analysis. Alpha coefficients ranged from .75 to .82. Elderly subjects used avoidance significantly less often than did middle-aged subjects in handling decision-making and authority-conflict situations. No differences were noted between the age groups in use of problem solving or resignation. Both middle-aged and elderly persons favored use of problem solving in managing all conflicts. Results suggest that studies that do not address potential interactions between age and stress situation may be missing an important element in the age-coping relation.

Fear of Death in the Mentally Ill

Fear of death is considered a major source of apprehension for many emotionally disturbed individuals. Hypotheses that mentally ill persons would evidence greater fear of death than a control group of normal Ss, and the more intense the degree of emotional disturbance the greater would be the presence of fear of death, were investigated. Fear of death was assessed by means of a multilevel criterion. Results indicated that mentally ill patients did not have any significantly greater fear of death than emotionally healthy Ss. Neither did degree of emotional illness appear to be related significantly to apprehension concerning death. Both groups, however, manifested an over-all similarity in perception of death, i.e., repudiation of fear of death at a conscious level, linked to ambivalence at an imagery level, and to dread at below-the-level-of-awareness.

Death Outlook and Social Issues.

The present study examined the hypothesis that there is a relationship between outlook on death and orientation toward mercy killing, abortion, suicide, and euthanasia. Multiple assessments of death outlook in addition to such variables as religious orientation, life values, self-acceptance, and ethnic background were used as predictors. Populations included alcoholics, drug addicts, prisoners, deputy sheriffs, and normal controls. Major findings indicated some relationships between death attitudes and perspectives on the social issues being considered; and emphasized the need to consider specific circumstances as well as abstract concept when dealing with social issues.

Old is old is old

We examined potential differences between two matched subgroups of elderly men: young-old (65-74 years of age; n = 53) and old-old (75 years of age and older; n = 56). Subjects were fairly healthy men from community agencies, who were interviewed and tested on a number of characteristics involving personality, mood, attitudes, and behaviors. Although t tests and correlations indicated some differences between the groups, the overall findings underlined their similarity on the vast majority of variables scrutinized. The crucial base for enhancing understanding in gerontology should not only focus on the age-advancing senescent person but on the whole individual.

The Problem of Death

Aging in the twentieth century has a singular stamp. There are more older people around than ever before because of the advances of medical science in decreasing infant mortality and prolonging life; and they enjoy better health than most of their progenitors. Nevertheless, with the shift from a n agrarian to an essentially urban economy in this country, there has come a depersonalizing technology with a n attendant devaluation of the older person. Traditional authority over the young, occupational status, social influenceall are becoming echoes from a dim past. The intensity of this disavowing judgment is such that even the aging person himself has become infected by its thesis. Studies increasingly reveal that many senile disorders are as attributable to the emotional deprivation and isolation visited on the aging as to their cerebral arteriosclerosis, and that sociological factors operate as insistently as disease in forwarding the admission rate of the aged into mental hospitals.