No abstract

Prior research has shown that therapists classified as "A's" on the Whitehorn-Betz A-B scale achieve better outcomes than "B's" in psychotherapy with schizophrenic patients, while B's perform better with neurotic patients. The present experiment, a psychotherapy analogue using 72 untrained Ss as quasitherapists, found that A's, when paired with a schizoid patient, and B's, when paired with a neurotic patient, found it easier to select self-chosen helpful responses and were more satisfied with their performance than under the opposite therapist-by-patient conditions of pairing. These results are consistent with data on actual therapists but contrary to "paradoxical discomfort" effects reported by Kemp in a similar analogue study. Methodological implications for psychotherapy and analogue research were adduced.

To delineate homogenous subgroups among hospitalized opiate addicts, a multivariate correlational clustering technique was applied to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory profiles of 1,500 addicts, subdivided into 10 subsamples (5 for each sex) representing four different categories of admission into treatment (civilly committed, volunteers, probationers, prisoners). Within each subsample, two homogeneous and replicable profile types were isolated. Type I (33% of all addicts) showed elevations on Scales 2, 4, and 8, suggesting marked subjective distress, nonconformity, and disturbed thinking. The much smaller Type II (about 7% of addicts) showed a single peak on Scale 4. Sixty percent of addicts thus were unclustered. The two basic types, however, were very effectively discriminated on a variety of other psychometric indexes and were consistent with the two major profile types found among alcoholics in prior research. Recent psychometric characterizations of hospitalized opiate addicts, employing the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), have cast doubt on the relevance of the stereotype of sociopathy (the 4-9 or 9-4 profile) to addicts as a group (Berzins, Ross, & Monroe, 1971). A grand mean MMPI profile with peaks on Scales 4, 2, and 8, obtained in a sample of over 800 male addicts, for example, placed the addicts' nonconformity in the context of acute subjective distress and disturbed thinking. It is important, however, to determine the principal homogeneous subgroups of addicts whose characteristics may or may not be consistent with overall group profiles. The number, size, and nature

Prior research with the "A-B" scale has shown intriguing similarities between practicing therapists and undergraduates varying in A-B status. On that basis, 12 scales from the Omnibus Personality Inventory and the four component scores of the American College Testing Program battery were related to A-B status of undergraduates. A stepwise discriminant analysis showed that the present set of measures significantly discriminated male As from ABs (middles) and Bs, and that the differences between As and Bs involved largely the joint effects of masculinity-femininity, verbal aptitude, and natural science aptitude measures. As and Bs also appeared to differ in a way consistent with previous research on "cognitive style." Correlational and factor-analytic data indicated, however, that the A-B variable cannot be regarded as linearly related to those measures which discriminated As from Bs. A quasi-typological interpretation of the A-B variable was proposed and methodological implications were drawn.

Before patient meets therapist, each has some idea how their interaction should or probably will proceed, i.e., expectancies regarding their roles (rights, obligations, and "appropriate" behaviors). Some writers have viewed role-expectancies as a crucial variable in treatment (see references).Three categories of roles may have some generality. Ruesch ( 1948), using open-ended questions with duodenal ulcer patients, observed that patients expected their physicians to be nurturant or authoritative, or to display an "ideal" personality. Apfelbaum (1958), in a cluster analysis of the pretherapy Q sorts of outpatients at a university clinic, found that patients anticipated dealing with nurturant, critical, or "well-adjusted listener" (Model) therapists. These role-expectancy "types" Apfelbaum interpreted as change-resisting "dimensions of transference." This triad of roles has also been corroborated by several other investigators (Deskins et al., 1960;Goldstein & Heller, 1960;Lorr, 1965). We have chosen to call these three categories Nurturant (NURT), Critical (CRIT), and Self-Reliant (SELF), denoting the respective expectancies of "being taken care of," "being straightened out," and "being helped to help oneself."