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Biomedical subjects

D H Buie

Publications and source records attributed to D H Buie.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1987

A view of aggression in phobic states.

This article attempts to apply a theory of aggression as motivation to overcome obstacles to the understanding of phobic states and their formation. The role of aggression in the genesis of phobic conditions is discussed, and the traditional analytic view of aggression as instinctual drive is contrasted with a motivational approach. The motivational view offers the advantage of a clearer understanding of the stimulus contexts, representational connections, and both real and imaginary object connections that are lacking in the more traditional understanding of aggression as a biological drive.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

The Sustaining Fantasy Questionnaire: measurement of sustaining functions of fantasies in psychiatric inpatients.

The concept of the sustaining fantasy and the Sustaining Fantasy Questionnaire (SFQ), an instrument for its measurement, is introduced. Sustaining fantasies represent characteristic ways to ameliorate intense negative affect or to restore self-esteem. The responses of 134 psychiatric inpatients were used to construct ten scales. The SFQ and MMPI were then administered to 125 nonpatients. Psychiatric inpatients had higher scores than normals on fantasies of death, withdrawal, restitution, suffering, God, and closeness. Fantasies of power and revenge, admiration of self, competition and aesthetics did not differentiate between groups. SFQ scales correlated significantly with MMPI scales and demographic characteristics as well with staff ratings of the inpatients.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Empathy: its nature and limitations.

Empathy is usually regarded as an irreducible inborn capacity, operative from birth, for knowing the inner experience of another person without necessarily perceiving cues from that person about his thoughts or feelings. Merging of the type characteristic of early infant-mother symbiosis has often been considered the origin and basic component of empathy. However, merging is an illusory experience which cannot function as an active mechanism in the perceptual process, and the psychological structures needed for certain kinds of empathy do not commence development until eighteen months of age. The mechanism of empathy has also been ascribed to vaguely defined variants of identification. This is not a settled issue, but the idea is not compatible with a recent rigorous effort to define identification. The author offers a different theory of empathy, according to which empathy is a capacity that evolves with neuropsychological maturation and interpersonal interactions in the course of individual development. Empathy depends on sensory perception of behavioral cues from the object about his inner state. The empathizer compares these behavioral cues with one or more kinds of referent in this own mind which could be expressed by similar behavior. He then infers that the inner experience of the object qualitatively matches that associated with his referent. Limitations in the accuracy and scope of empathy are threefold: patients may limit or distort the expression of behavioral cues about their state of mind; referents available in the mind of the empathizer may be inadequate; and the inferential process is inherently uncertain. As a result, knowledge of another person's thoughts and feelings which can be acquired through empathy is limited. The theoretical understanding of empathy offered in this paper implies ways for improving empathic accuracy, especially by means of applying two or more kinds of referents to the same set of perceived cues.

Cues↗
PubMed1979

Aloneness and borderline psychopathology: the possible relevance of child development issues.

The experience of intense painful aloneness is a common event in the lives of borderline patients, especially those closer to the psychotic spectrum. This experience is defined as an intrinsic aspect of the borderline personality defect and consists of a relative or total inability to remember positive images or fantasies of sustaining people in the patient's present or past life, or being overwhelmed by negative memories and images of these people. The development of borderline aloneness is related to a possible developmental failure, defined by Piaget, Fraiberg, and A.-M. Sandler. These workers describe the child's development of object permanence and evocative memory capacity (Piaget's sensori-motor stage VI). We postulate that a major borderline vulnerability is the tenuous achievement of the capacity for affective object permanence and its regressive loss to recognition memory or earlier when under specific stresses. We relate our hypotheses to possible empathic parental failures during the substages of separation-individuation, especially the rapprochement sub-phase. The treatment implications of our formulations are discussed, with an emphasis on the clarification of the need for the therapist's availability and the use of transitional objects during times of the patient's loss of his affective cognitive capacities. These regressive experiences often emerge as a core transference manifestation during psychoanalytic therapy with borderline patients, and often become the basis of significant therapeutic work.

Child Development↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Definitive treatment of the borderline personality.

A discussion of "Notes on the Potential Differentiation of Borderline Conditions," by W.W. Meissner, M.D. Through psychotherapy, borderline personalities can develop a mature level of emotional autonomy. Their fundamental psychopathology involves annihilation anxiety consequent on inadequacy and instability of holding-soothing introjects. Psychological corollaries of this deficit render them unable to effect the internalization of real caring relationships that is necessary for development of effective holding introjects. Ideally, psychotherapy proceeds in three phases. Phase I is devoted to amelioration of the pathological impediments to using relationships with the therapist and others as resources for a holding-soothing form of emotional security. The outcome is development of a relatively stable idealized self-object transference in terms of holding-soothing, along with formation of relatively stable idealized holding-soothing introjects. Phase II of treatment involves optimal disillusionment in relation to idealization of the therapist as holding-soother; this results in gradual acceptance of the realistic use of external objects along with modification of holding-soothing introjects to correspond more nearly with reality. Stable autonomy in the area of self-security is fully attained in Phase III, in which the relationship with the therapist provides the context for the patient's developing capacities by means of identification to care for, esteem, love, and trust himself or herself. Psychotherapy of narcissistic issues is also important, but special precautions must be observed.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The abandoned therapist.

A discussion of "The Holding Environment and Family Therapy with Acting Out Adolescents," by E.R. Shapiro, M.D. It is presupposed that the central motivation of psychotherapists is to derive a secure holding environment from the patient. The most fundamental need of human beings is the allaying of separation anxiety. As parents use their children to maintain an inner sense of security, the unresponsive child will cause the parent significant depression and anxiety. The parallel of the therapist's and parent's position with the patient/child is explored.

Adolescent↗