Grief over the loss of a pet was investigated to clarify the usual course of symptoms experienced, gender differences in the experience, and the role of attachment to the pet. The sample included 174 adults who had lost a pet dog or cat to death. Participants were administered a modified CENSHARE Pet Attachment Survey (Holcomb, Williams, & Richards, 1985) and a survey of symptoms experienced. Results indicate that initially 85.7% of owners experienced at least one symptom of grief, but the occurrence decreased to 35.1% at six months and to 22.4% at one year. Males and females reported significantly different rates on six of 12 symptoms surveyed. The severity and length of symptoms is significantly correlated with the degree of attachment to the deceased pet. These findings indicate that pet loss can be a potential area of clinical concern, especially if the person's attachment to the pet was strong.According to Cowles (1985), the degree of attachment between owner and pet determines the psychological impact on the owner resulting from the death of a pet. People form emotional attachments with their pets, and these attachments are sometimes very special and different from the ones they form with people. Pets can be a source of unconditional love, support, comfort, safety, security, and stability. In circumstances in which a person feels either physically or psychologically removed from human attachments, these attributes of a relationship with a pet may be especially significant (Sharkin & Bahrick, 1990). For many complex reasons, the emotional attachments which many humans develop for their pets not only equals, but indeed frequently transcends the emotional attachment which they form with humans (Cowles, 1985). 385

Systematic examination of the two established Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) critical item lists had indicated that many of these face-valid statements do not accurately represent client history and behavior. To identify potential critical items that are both clinically useful and empirically valid, 14 criteria reflecting patient motivation to seek assistance and describing foci that guide the inquiry of mental health professionals were identified through the analysis of the medical records of 100 adult psychiatric patients. MMPI items nominated by at least 6 of 14 psychologists were analyzed to predict criterion presence in a sample of 400 adult psychiatric patients. Of 177 items nominated or previously placed on the Grayson or Caldwell lists, 130 items received empirical support. The final Ill-item list was organized under the following headings:

No abstract

A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the relative effectiveness of the broad-based treatments for combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The analysis includes 13 pharmacotherapy studies and 12 psychotherapy studies obtained from a PsychINFO database search and a reference search. Studies of pharmacotherapy treatment efficacy demonstrated a significantly greater decrease in reducing PTSD symptoms, t (22) = -2.74, p = 0.01, d = 0.05. A random coefficient analysis supports this finding with significance determined at p < 0.001 for the fixed effects in the models. A limited examination of depression as a frequently comorbid disorder indicated pharmacotherapy also demonstrated a significantly greater decrease than psychotherapy in depression symptoms, t (15.77) = -2.26, p = 0.04, d = 0.16. Differences between treatments are discussed as potentially reflective of assignment to treatments and assessment techniques as well as therapeutic effects.

Canonical variate analysis of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory scale T scores and factor scores derived from rating criteria from two independent diverse patient samples provided substantial evidence for the validity of the interpretive intent of the standard scales Depression, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate, Paranoia, and Hypomania (accounting for 28.5% and 25.7% of the criterion variance) and their obvious versions (30.4% and 34.9%), while providing little support (13.4% and 5.6%) for the interpretive intent of the subtle scales. Subtle scale elevation was inversely .related to symptomatology on some nonrelated behavioral dimensions. Inclusion of an estimate of client defensiveness did not improve the predictive ability of the subtle scales.