Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to F Borgeat.
The objective was to elicit the mental representations about the sex of the future child of 89 nulliparous pregnant women who declared having no sex preference, using the Kelly's Repertory Grid. Analyses showed that 67% of these women had no explicit and clear representation about the sex of their first child. These data suggest that these pregnant women seemed really to have no sex preference.
EMG was recorded in nine subjects suffering from chronic tic disorder. Six subjects suffered asymmetrical tics and three had symmetrical tics. EMG in tic-affected and contralateral nonaffected sites was recorded at rest, during a baseline period, and at postbiofeedback training. All subjects received 2-4 biofeedback training sessions aimed at enhancing their ability to control levels of muscle contraction in both affected and nonaffected sites. All nine subjects met the criterion of discriminating unaided between levels of 0, 25%, 50%, and 75% of their fullest contraction. Five of the six people with asymmetrical tics showed lower resting EMG on the affected side at baseline, but EMG significantly increased in tic-affected but not nonaffected muscles after exercises aimed at enhancing muscle control. Six subjects reported a clinically significant > or = 40% decrease in tic frequency. The reflexlike quality of tic muscles can modified by biofeedback training and this constitutes a useful and relatively quickly acquired aid to tic management.
Considering the frequent denial of the importance of social factors associated with non psychotic postnatal depression, the objective of this study is to check whether social variables contribute or not to the prediction of postnatal depression. 369 subjects, primiparous or secondiparous, were followed up from early pregnancy up to the sixth month after delivery. Analyses show the importance of the social variables measured at the beginning of the pregnancy, these constituting one third of all the significant variables.
The objective was to assess the relationship between vulnerability to postpartum depression and perceptual defense evoked by tachistoscopic stimuli alluding to perinatal themes in pregnant women. Tachistoscopic stimuli have been shown to produce different thresholds of conscious identification according to their emotional content: a phenomenon termed perceptual defense. A total of 412 women in their 3rd of 4th month of pregnancy were asked to identify 14 pictures and 18 verbal stimuli shown for initially very brief but increasing durations. Presentation times required for a correct identification were measured. Depression was assessed, at 2 and 6 months postdelivery, by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale: 53 women were defined as depressed by a score > or = 15. Discriminant analysis showed that the women who would become depressed 7 to 11 months later were slower than the nondepressed to identify 5 stimuli alluding to pregnancy, sexuality or a father image. Particular attitudes towards the themes of being pregnant, of sexuality and of the father could be components of a psychological predisposition to the development of depressed mood in the postpartum.
The author presents a critical and polemic essay bearing on the organization of psychiatric services based on catchment areas. Several negative consequences are discussed: the loss of initial goals related to community psychiatry, the adoption of a major first-line role for psychiatrists and the identification of psychiatrists to the treatment of chronic and severe psychiatric disorders. Catchment area psychiatrists and psychiatric teams frequently function in a unique manner within the medical profession, and their spreading throughout the community leads to the development of closed subcultures often characterized by resistance to change and a lack of academic motivation. Catchment area psychiatry is also described as generating crisis after crisis and as detrimental to the positive evolution of former mental hospitals.
The relationship between muscular response to the therapist's presence and symptomatic improvement was studied during biofeedback. Thirty-two patients suffering from tension headaches received muscular biofeedback training of six sessions plus a follow-up session two months later. Patients' electro-myographic frontal response was measured prior to treatment both with and without the therapist present. A relationship was found between symptomatic improvement at follow-up and muscular response to the therapist's presence before treatment: patients showing a decrease of at least 10% in muscular tension response to the presence of their future therapist improved more regarding headache intensity than the patients showing increase or smaller variation of their EMG. A significant correlation of .59 was found between the frontal EMG response to therapist presence during the evaluation session and headache improvement at follow-up. The results suggest that the decrease of muscular tension during the first contact with the therapist could be an indicator of good prognosis, possibly because of an immediate positive therapeutic relationship and/or favorable expectancies concerning future benefit of treatment.
The aim of this study was to characterize further the experimental procedure proposed by Borgeat and Goulet in 1983. Subliminal activation auditory suggestions were expected to increase heart rate and skin conductance in presence of a stressing task. 20 subjects were alternately exposed to activating or neutral (random numbers) 25-dB suggestions masked by a 40-dB white noise. Analyses of variance and covariance indicated an effect of the activating suggestions on heart rate but not on skin conductance. Partly confirming previous results, the data support the reliability of heart rate and the importance of a stressing factor to reveal the effects of preconscious or subliminal stimulations.
The stimulation of erotic fantasies through the association of relaxation and erotic conscious or preconscious suggestions has been evaluated. This study was attempted following positive results in the stimulation of fantasmatic activity in alexithymic subjects with a similar procedure. Thirty female subjects, allocated into three groups practiced relaxation daily for two weeks including three sessions with psychological measures. During the second week, erotic suggestions, preconscious for one group and conscious for another one, were added. The third group (control) received only relaxation throughout. Results have shown an increase of sexual arousal and erotic imagery during the sessions with erotic suggestions. Sexual activities and desire increased in the two experimental groups. There was no difference between the effects of the preconscious and conscious suggestions. Possible clinical applications of such a procedure are discussed.
A radio experiment carried out over many years, added to previous clinical tests, has shown a sustained interest of the people for using preconscious (subliminal) suggestions combined with soothing music, as a relaxation technique. The purpose of this study was to compare systematically some combinations with their own components, i.e. the suggestions alone or the music alone. Moreover, drawing inspiration from the works of a Bulgarian psychiatrist, Georgi Lozanov, there were comparisons made of the efficacy of three types of combinations whether they included different kinds of suggestions: preconscious, close to the level of consciousness or conscious. Thirty-five (35) persons were subjected to tests in five experimental sessions, (music alone, three suggestion-music combinations, and suggestions alone), according to a latin-square design (5 x 5). Physiologic and psychologic measurements were used. The physiologic measurements did not show any significant difference between the various treatments. On the other hand, the psychologic measurements favoured the combinations rather than their components alone and specially the combination where suggestions were of an intensity close to the level of consciousness.
The majority of patients consulting for mental health problems are treated by non psychiatric physicians. Thus, the teaching of therapeutic skills of a psychological nature to future physicians takes on a considerable importance. A survey bearing on the objectives, methods, orientations and problems related to the teaching of psychotherapy for non psychiatric physicians has been conducted in the departments of psychiatry of Canadian medical schools. That survey indicates that the Canadian experience remains presently limited and confronted with many obstacles at the practical and psychological levels. The coordinators of undergraduate psychiatric education in Canada are almost unanimous to underline the necessity of providing physicians with some training in psychotherapy but also to deplore the actual state of development of that teaching.
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Psychophysiological responses to masked auditory verbal stimuli of increasing intensities were studied in twenty healthy women. Two experimental sessions corresponding to two stimulation contents (neutral or emotional) were conducted. At each session, two different sets of instructions (attending or not attending to stimuli) were used successively. Verbal stimuli, masked by a 40-dB white noise, were presented to the subject at increasing intensities by increments of 5 dB starting at 0 dB. At each increment, frontal EMG, skin conductance and heart rate were recorded. The data were submitted to analyses of variance and covariance. Psychophysiological responses to stimuli below the thresholds of identification and detection were observed. The instruction not to attend the stimuli modified the patterns of physiological responses. The effect of the affective content of the stimuli on responses was stronger when not attending. The results show the possibility of psychophysiological responses to masked auditory stimuli and suggests that psychophysiological parameters can constitute objective and useful measures for research in auditory subliminal perception.
The majority of patients suffering from emotional problems are treated by non psychiatric physicians. In this context, the improvement of health services to those patients requires the involvement of general practitioners trained in appropriate therapeutic skills. At the present, general practitioners often feel unprepared to treat those patients with non-pharmacologic methods and tend to overuse psychotropic medication. The psychological therapeutic skills expected to be acquired by physicians, are often described in very general terms and remain under evaluated in medical schools. The improvement of these aspects of medical training requires them to be evaluated systematically, similar to the more traditional medical skills and biological knowledge. Such an evaluation is facilitated if the learning objectives are specified. This paper proposes specific learning objectives describing the psychological therapeutic skills expected from medical students at the end of their studies on the one hand, and from family physicians at the end of their family medicine training on the other. The authors' goals are to faciliate the discussion of this complex matter between the many medical (psychiatric or not) groups concerned and, in this manner, to clarify this issue which is fundamental to the teaching and implementation of the biopsychosocial model in clinical practice.
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Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The study compared the subjective effects of different relaxation techniques and their susceptibility to influence by information and suggestions provided by the trainers. Two groups of twelve subjects each were trained in autogenic training and in progressive relaxation successively. On three occasions during their training, each group was given one of two contrasting sets of information and suggestions concerning the subjective effects to be expected. At the end of training, differences in the subjective effects accompanying the two relaxation techniques were found but no significant effect of the contrasting sets of information and suggestions emerged. These results suggest that the subjective effects of relaxation were resistant to simple suggestions and, being more robust and real than often thought, could constitute a basis for differential indications of various relaxation methods.