The substance and dynamics of secrets were elicited and analyzed for 180 children at three grade levels, to examine developmental trends and gender differences. The recorded frequencies were subjected to loglinear analyses. The results, which revealed a grade effect regarding topics of secrets, indicated a developmental shift in topics with age from secrets pertaining to possessions to secrets pertaining to interpersonal relations, heterosexual involvement, and moral transgressions. A grade effect also emerged regarding reasons for secrecy; a shift was indicated from need for exclusiveness typical of younger children to socially embedded reasons for secrecy characteristic of older children. A gender main effect regarding topics of secrets indicated that boys more often than girls bear secrets pertaining to possessions and moral transgressions, whereas girls tend more often than boys to bear secrets pertaining to family issues. No gender effect was evident, however, in regard to reasons for secrecy. The developmental trends in both aspects of secrecy investigated may be conceived in the framework of a dual shift from separateness to relatedness and from true latency to late latency.
Thirty-four female patients who underwent rhinoplasty were followed through assessment of post-surgical satisfaction (pss), perception of subjective improvement, objective improvement (surgeon's ratings), and objective post-surgical nasal deformity. Assessments of pss and subjective improvement were obtained on 3 occasions: T1, 1 week after surgery, on cast removal; T2, 1 month after cast removal; and T3, 3 months after cast removal. The investigation was aimed at examination of the relationship of patients' subjective post-surgical appraisals of the operation with objective indices of outcome of rhinoplasty. Results indicated that at T1, pss is totally dissociated from objective outcome or its appraisal by the patient. At T2 an association between objective outcome and pss and subjective appraisal of outcome is evident, but seems to reflect the total reliance of the patients' judgment on surgeons' appraisals. At T3 a paradoxical trend is indicated: slim objective favorable outcomes correlate with high pss, while a considerable share of patients with whom a highly favorable outcome has been attained express relatively low pss. This paradoxical trend may be well understood when applying Cognitive Dissonance Theory. The whole pattern of results point again at highly complex and powerful psychological processes, some of them seemingly irrational, operating within patients when relating to rhinoplasty, a simple superficial surgical procedure.
Despite the importance of the assessment of ego strength for appropriate assignment of clients for psychotherapy and/or rehabilitation, existing techniques have not fulfilled expectations. A method for assessing ego strength through the Rorschach Test independent of clinical criterion is proposed. In addition to certain variables of Klopfer's RPRS (M+, FM+, FC+ plus CF+), sharply preceived space responses are included. They constitute a highly intercorrelated global measure of ego strength and are also highly correlated to a relatively independent Rorschach variable of global ego efficiency, i.e. integrated whole responses. In accordance with prediction, non-controlled color responses as well as accuracy of form perception did not correlate in a non-clinical sample with either measure of ego strength.
Bipolar manic-depressive patients in remission are considered normal by phenomenological criteria but many psychotherapists have noted specific personality markers. The Rorschach test was chosen to study such personality markers since it may provide rich information at a psychological level distant from overt behavior and symptoms. 35 bipolar manic-depressives in a euthymic state were tested with the Rorschach Projective Technique. The scores were analyzed using Exner’s Comprehensive System methods and compared with his stratified normal control sample. Nine variables differentiated the patients from controls so that at least 50% of the patients were beyond one standard deviation from the controls’ mean. These variables might be personality expressions of the genetic predisposition to bipolar illness and might thus be measurable even when the patients are clinically free of affective illness.
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