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Biomedical subjects

E Bachar

Publications and source records attributed to E Bachar.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Empirical comparison of two psychological therapies. Self psychology and cognitive orientation in the treatment of anorexia and bulimia.

The authors investigated the applicability of self psychological treatment (SPT) and cognitive orientation treatment (COT) to the treatment of anorexia and bulimia. Thirty-three patients participated in this study. The bulimic patients (n = 25) were randomly assigned either to SPT, COT, or control/nutritional counseling only (C/NC). The anorexic patients (n = 8) were randomly assigned to either SPT or COT. Patients were administered a battery of outcome measures assessing eating disorders symptomatology, attitudes toward food, self structure, and general psychiatric symptoms. After SPT, significant improvement was observed. After COT, slight but nonsignificant improvement was observed. After C/NC, almost no changes could be detected.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Childhood vs. adolescence transitional object attachment, and its relation to mental health and parental bonding.

871 participants, 375 boys and 496 girls, mean age 16.7 + 1, were administered the Parental Bonding Instrument (P.B.I.), the Brief Symptom Inventory (B.S.I.), the General Well-Being Questionnaire (G.W.B.) and the Chestnut Lodge Transitional Object Scale. Results supported Winnicott's theory: participants reporting attachment to a Transitional Object (T.O.) in their childhood reported significantly more optimal maternal bonding than participants who were not attached to a T.O. Participants reporting attachment to a T.O. in adolescence had significantly more psychiatric symptoms and less general well-being. Adolescence T.O. attachment might be considered a marker of mental distress in the general, normal population.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1998

The contributions of self psychology to the treatment of anorexia and bulimia.

This article reviews the contribution of self psychology to the treatment and understanding of anorexia and bulimia. It tries to show that the unique conceptualization of self, selfobject relations, and this theory's conceptualization of resistance and defenses constitutes a therapeutic stance which especially fits the therapeutic needs of eating-disordered patients. Clinical vignettes illuminate three main issues exemplifying the opportunities and dilemmas that this new development in psychoanalytic theory brings to the fore in the treatment of eating disorders: (1) empathy with deeds and attitudes of the patient that the therapist finds difficult to empathize with; (2) empathic understanding "from within" from an experience-near stance vs. experience-distant interpretation "from without"; (3) self, selfobject relations with food and as a result of progress in therapy, with human beings.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Word Association Test and psychosexual cues in assessing persons with eating disorders.

The present study aimed to detect psychosexual conflicts in patients with eating disorders using the Word Association Test which tests the perceptual sensitivity of the subject to conflictual words. We also expected patients to show concern about food and eating. 19 anorexic patients, 21 bulimic patients, and 20 control subjects without eating disorders provided associations to four groups of words: psychosexual words, food words, emotionally loaded words, and neutral words. Reaction times were recorded. Analysis showed that anorexic patients were slower than controls in responding to food-related words but bulimic patients were not significantly different from controls. Anorexic patients reacted more slowly than controls to psychosexual words. Bulimic patients were also somewhat slower than controls but faster than anorexic patients; however, these differences were not statistically significant. Results are congruent with research that points to sexual problems and delays in the psychosexual development of anorexic patients and to a lesser extent of bulimic patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Psychotherapy--an active agent: assessing the effectiveness of psychotherapy and its curative factors.

In the last two decades there has been a remarkable expansion in research on psychotherapy in two areas: (a) assessing the effectiveness of psychotherapy compared to wait-list, no-treatment patient groups and groups treated with pharmacotherapy; (b) investigating curative factors in the therapeutic process: the extent of the psychotherapist's experience and kinds of interventions and errors in handling techniques. The first section of the review deals with the first of these areas and the second with the other. The following are the main research findings: 1. The effectiveness of psychotherapy compared to wait-list and non-treatment groups has been proven by so many research papers that there is hardly any need t do so again; 2. Psychotherapy was found to be effective in treating focused psychiatric disorders such as OCD, depression and anxiety disorders (with preference to cognitive-behavioral approaches) over psychodynamic approaches, and in some instances in preference to pharmacotherapy). Psychotherapy was also effective in less focused disorders, such as personality disorders and mixed neurotics (with preference to psychodynamic approaches over cognitive-behavioral approaches); 3. The advantages of patients receiving psychotherapy over those who did not receive it persisted in follow-up studies of one year's duration or more; 4. Psychotherapy was more effective than "psychotherapeutic placebo" (the encounter between therapist and patient where systematic psychotherapeutic work using one out of the three main psychotherapeutic approaches is experimentally prevented), which in turn was more effective than wait-list or non-treatment groups; 5. Psychotherapeutic maintenance of one session a month was effective in preventing relapse; 6. Experienced psychotherapists are more effective than beginners; 7. Empathy, the ability to identify the central thread of the session, and encouragement of the patient to reflect were found to be the key factors in techniques most associated with therapeutic success.

Combined Modality Therapy↗
PubMed1997

Pre-adolescent chumship as a buffer against psychopathology in adolescents with weak family support and weak parental bonding.

This study examines the degree to which the existence of a pre-adolescent "chum" interacts with family and social environments to buffer mental distress in adolescents. 831 high school students participated in this study, (male: 355; female: 476; mean age 16.7 +/- 1.0). Subjects were administered questionnaires assessing psychopathology and support systems. A pathway analyses model was used to investigate pathways and their interrelationships from chum to psychopathology and from social and family support to psychopathology. Only when adolescents experience weak parental bonding does chumship have a role in buffering distress.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Psychological well-being and ratings of psychiatric symptoms in bereaved Israeli adolescents: differential effect of war-versus accident-related bereavement.

Eight hundred seventy-one Israeli adolescents, 375 boys and 496 girls, mean age 16.7 +/- 1, participated in this study. Twenty-three of them lost relatives in war and 19 in road accidents. All participants were administered the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), the General Well-being Scale (GWB), the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) and the Perceived Social Support-Family/Friend (PSS-Fa and PSS-Fr) measures. War-bereaved adolescents showed significantly higher scores in psychological well-being (GWB) and significantly lower scores in reported psychiatric symptoms (BSI) than accident-bereaved adolescents. War-bereaved adolescents also had significantly better BSI and GWB scores than the general nonbereaved adolescent population. These results persisted after controlling for family socio-economic status, gender, and the degrees of closeness of the deceased relative. War-bereaved adolescents did not differ either from accident-bereaved adolescents or from the nonbereaved general adolescent population in social and family support systems (PSS-Fr, PSS-Fa) and did not experience different basic parental attitudes (PBI). Results are discussed in terms of the different meanings ascribed to death in battle versus death in a road accident.

Accidents↗
PubMed1997

Long lasting blindness, availability of resources, and early aging.

The present paper studied the influence of long lasting blindness on processes of aging. It addressed the broader issue of the effects of familiarity with and earlier experience of stress on the capacity of individuals to deal successfully with similar stressful situations at a later point of development. 75 chronically blind men and women, aged 45 to 65, were compared with 75 sighted individuals (matched by age, sex, and cultural origin) on scores on the Shanan Sentence Completion Technique, an interview designed to assess perception of change in various areas of everyday living, and on scores on the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Test. Blind subjects showed less psychological and less social engagement with the outer world. Availability of resources, education, and assistance considerably reduced differences between the nonsighted and sighted subjects. These findings were interpreted as pointing to a potentially preventable process of premature aging.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1997

Parental bonding and mental health in adolescence.

Attachment between parent and child plays a crucial role in the healthy development of the child. Accordingly disturbances in parental bonding will be linked with the development of mental disorders later in life. The present study examines the relationship between parental bonding and mental health in healthy adolescents. Participants were 847 Israeli high school students who completed the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), the General Well-Being (GWB), the Perceived Social Support (PSS), and the Social Desirability scale (SDS). In general, Israeli adolescents reported more parental care and less control than did Australian adolescents and adults. Female subjects reported more maternal care than did males. Subjects who reported high care and low control (optimal bonding) reported less distress, better general well-being and better social support that did all other groups. In contrast, those who reported low care and high control (affectionless control bonding) had the highest BSI scores and the lowest GWB and PSS scores. These results are in line with Bowlby's theory of attachment. They also show that specific configuration of parental bonding are linked with distress and isolation in adolescents.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1997

Physical punishment and signs of mental distress in normal adolescents.

Adolescents (375 males and 496 females) were administered the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), the General Well-Being Scale (GWB), the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), and two questions about each parent, supplementing the PBI, tapping violent punitive behavior. Signs of mental distress in adolescents and reported physical punishment from parents were analyzed. Results indicated that greater physical punishment was associated with higher levels of psychiatric symptoms and lower general well-being. These results persisted after controlling for parental attitudes, as quantified by the PBI, and socioeconomic status. The findings of this study can contribute to efforts to raise public awareness of the negative consequences of physical punishment on the mental health of children.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Demandingness and belligerence in hospitalized depressed Holocaust concentration camp survivors as perceived by the staff.

Twelve staff members, blind to the hypotheses, rated depressed, hospitalized concentration camp survivors, 40 years after their liberation, as more demanding, belligerent and irritating in their behavior towards staff in comparison with their matched counterparts. Survivors' behavior was discussed in terms of reenactment of traumatic scenes from their past. Staff shows consistent although not significant tendencies to dislike the survivors. Theoretical and clinical implications were drawn.

Concentration Camps↗
PubMed1994

Aggression expression in grandchildren of Holocaust survivors--a comparative study.

Ninety-seven Israeli children (59 girls and 38 boys), with a mean age 10.1 +/- 1.9, participated in this study. Fifty-four of them were grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and 43 were controls. All subjects were administered the EAS, a projective test designed to assess the extent of externalization of aggression in reaction to frustrating events. Grandchildren of Holocaust survivors did not differ in their expression of aggression from controls. As difficulties in externalizing aggression are considered in the literature to be a central factor in the maladaptation of survivors and subsequently in their sons and daughters, the results of the present study were interpreted to be one possible indication that transgenerational transmission of trauma has ceased in the third generation.

Aggression↗
PubMed1993

Auditory startle response in blind subjects.

Blindness is often associated with hypervigilance and arousal. The auditory startle response has been suggested as a measure of arousal. This study evaluated the auditory startle response of 10 blind individuals and 10 sighted controls who were exposed to a series of 15 1000-Hz, 95-db, 0-rise-time pure-tone stimuli, administered to both ears. The subjects' heart-rate, skin-conductance, and orbicularis-oculi-electromyogram responses to the tones were measured. Blind subjects did not differ from controls in the magnitude and in the habituation-rate of their responses. Results were interpreted as showing that blind persons' capacity for discriminative learning and for regulation of arousal is unimpaired. Task-related anxiety of blind persons should be differentiated from stimulus-related anxiety.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1991

Reminiscing as a technique in the group psychotherapy of depression: a comparative study.

Reminiscing as a technique of group psychotherapy for severely depressed hospitalized patients was found by patients and staff to be more efficacious than the traditional reflective non-directive group psychotherapy approach. The therapeutic potential of reminiscing in combatting depressed mood was supported by the present findings. The suitability of reminiscing to the difficult task of handling groups of severely depressed hospitalized patients was demonstrated.

Depressive Disorder↗
PubMed1989

Correlates of parental distress and competence in a child psychiatric population.

Parents of children referred to a child mental health clinic were assessed by questionnaire for demoralization, coping ability and perception of their children's behavior problems and social competence. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the extent of parental distress in the clinic population and its influence on the child's behavior problems. In the group studied, 30% of parents reported significant distress, but no simple correlation between parent distress and child pathology was observed. However, a high correlation was found between parent coping ability and child competence (with a strong gender effect), and competence value as a clinical parameter is discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1985

Ciliary ganglia and spinal cord explants release an ascorbate-like compound which stimulates proline hydroxylation and collagen formation in muscle cultures.

A low-molecular-weight factor from embryonic rat brain stimulates collagen production in rat muscle cultures. This effect is associated with increased hydroxylation of proline residues in collagenous proteins produced by the cells. Here, we show that increased hydroxylation (22-and 7.5-fold) was also observed with extracts of rat embryonic spinal cord and extracts of the rat pheochromocytoma cell line PC12. A 5-25-fold stimulation in proline hydroxylation was obtained when muscle cells were cocultured with chick ciliary ganglia or with embryonic rat spinal cord explants. Medium conditioned by rat spinal cord explants also increased prolyl hydroxylation. Incubation of the muscle-nerve cocultures with ascorbate oxidase markedly reduced the observed increase in proline hydroxylation. These results show that the cultured explants release a factor which promotes proline hydroxylation and collagen production by muscle. This factor seems to be ascorbic acid or an ascorbate-like compound.

Animals↗