In this domain we are aiming to measure the degree and quality of attentiveness or mutuality that marital partners show for each other in a relationship where constraints or limitations have been applied to the interacting system through the emergence of depressive symptoms in one or both partners. Raush, Barry, Hertel & Swain (1974) have formulated the interactive dynamics of a disturbed marital system and see contextual variables such as depressive behaviour as enhancing or diminishing the meaningful quality of communication between individuals.Human communication can only continue so long as one individual responds to the other in some way either verbally or non-verbally. The communication also has to be punctuated so that both can participate and contribute to the ongoing communicative patterns. To be properly responsive to one's communicative partner means listening carefully to the content and intention of what it is he or she is trying to communicate and to respond to this, but to respond to it idiosyncratically and thus add to the richness and flow of the pattern. The depressed patient has long been held to be unable to do this since he is seen as someone who is so preoccupied with his own internal feeling state that he is unable to respond to the outside world as he would ordinarily be able to do. If this were true we would expect to find that with patients and their spouses there was a very distorted pattern of communication and one which was quite different from that of our surgical patients and their spouses.We have already shown in earlier papers how there are certainly enhanced levels of tensions between psychiatric patients and their spouses. This could arise from the fact that the non-communicative quality of the interaction is so great that it generates a good deal of tension between the members of the couple as they struggle to get across to each other. This domain of responsiveness should illuminate this fact, therefore, more clearly than we have been able to so far. Mishler & Waxier's (1968) analysis of patterns of responsiveness with young schizophrenics and their families demonstrated that the parents at least had a strongly idiosyncratic response pattern which persisted regardless of which of their children they were actually being tested with. Thus with both the 'sick' child and the 'well ' child their style of responsiveness tended to be rather similar, but they did find marked differences between the normal families and the families with a schizophrenic member. In general they produced a rather fragmentary style of responsiveness by comparison with the sick families, which had either a ritualized pattern of response with low levels of interruption and fragmentation or something approaching it.Raush et al. (1974) studied patterns of conflict and avoidance in marital partners and found more coercion and punitiveness in the discordant couples and high levels of mutual support and empathy in the harmonious group. We have not found any other parallels in the literature to the detailed way in...

This paper reports the initial analysis of a series of observations of a number of depressed patients communicating with their spouses and with a third party. This is part of a larger study which arose out of our dissatisfaction with the traditional ways of thinking about depressed patients. By and large there is general agreement about the people who are called ‘depressed’; there are constellations of symptoms and signs which can be evaluated by using one of the many rating scales for depression which have a degree of reliability and consistency. However, we feel that most of the thinking which underlies these efforts is based on presuppositions which would place ‘the depression’ within the patient, that is to say that there is something wrong within the patient which causes the symptoms and gives rise to the signs. These views are reductionist in character and we have by contrast attempted to reexamine certain aspects of depression using non-reductionist ideas.

Eye-contact is a prominent Non-verbal cue in any Dyadic interaction and can be easily observed and measured. Argyle (1969) has postulated a relationship with Intimacy and Distance, Kendon (1967) described its expressive and regulatory function in conversation and Exline et al. (1965 and 1967) have related it to other variables, e.g. sex, dependency and affiliative needs.

Weintraub and Aronson have described a method for the study of Psychological Defence Mechanisms through verbal behaviour analysis in psychiatric patients and controls (Weintraub and Aronson, 1962, 1964, 1965 and 1967). In this study we have re-tested their method on a group of middle-aged English depressed patients and matched surgical controls.

Riemer (1955) has argued that gaze is an ‘expression of affect’ between individuals. Kendon (1967) writes that the direction of gaze has a regulatory and expressive function, and ‘fluctuations in the amount of eye-contact during the course of one conversation showed that it was inversely related to the amount of emotionality displayed by the participants'. Also that it has a regulatory function which governs the pattern of social interaction. Argyle and Dean (1965) made similar observations in their concept of intimacy. They postulate that there is an Intimacy Equilibrium; Intimacy is a function of eye-contact, physical proximity, intimacy of topic, amount of smiling etc. They have shown that an alteration in one variable produces a change in the others until an equilibrium is reached. Exline et al. (1965, 1966, 1967) have described other aspects of eye-contact in relation to sex, dependency, social reinforcement, affiliative needs and affective relations. These findings support those of Kendon and Argyle.

Research suggests that professionals and volunteers who work with forcibly displaced people (FDP) experience burnout and secondary traumatic stress (STS) as a result of working with such a highly traumatized population. In the present systematic review and meta‐analyses, we report the pooled prevalence rates of burnout and STS in individuals working both professionally and voluntarily with FDP. The CINAHL Complete, E‐Journals, ERIC, MEDLINE Complete, OpenDissertations, PsycARTICLES, and PsycINFO databases were searched for articles published historically to September 2019. Studies (N = 15) were included and assessed for quality if (a) their sample comprised individuals working in a professional or voluntary capacity with refugees, asylum seekers, forced migrants, or displaced persons and (b) reported on an outcome of STS or burnout. Two meta‐analyses were conducted using random‐effects models to assess the prevalence of (a) burnout and (b) STS. The pooled prevalence of high‐level burnout was 29.7%, 95% CI [13.8%, 45.6%], with considerable heterogeneity between studies, Q(5) = 112.42, p < .001, I2 = 95.6%. The pooled prevalence of moderate, high, and severe STS was 45.7%, 95% CI [26.1%, 65.2%] with considerable heterogeneity between studies, Q(12) = 1,079.37, p < .001, I2 = 98.9%. Significant differences were observed in reported prevalence depending on the measure administered. This review highlights the high prevalence of high‐level burnout and moderate‐to‐severe STS reported by individuals working with FDP. The results have implications for future research, employment support for individuals working with FDP, and measure selection for assessing STS.

A study was made of forty‐three theological students in order to define the factors which had affected their religious experience, in particular, their acquisition of belief. The influence of age, parental belief and family relationships, guilt, neuroticism and extraversion were considered. Those whose conversion was sudden and towards the faith of their parents were found to have high scores on the MPI neuroticism scale.

No abstract