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Biomedical subjects

M Horenstein

Publications and source records attributed to M Horenstein.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Chronometrics of attentional processes in anxiety disorders.

Two experimental paradigms were used to test for the presence of attentional bias in patients with panic disorders and social phobias. The results of the first experiment on the detection of visual probes employing the paradigm of MacLeod et al. indicate specific affects as a function of the physical or social emotional connotation of the probe words. Attention of patients with panic disorders was apparently restricted to words denoting physical threat. No effect related to the threatening connotation of words was observed for the social-phobia patients. In contrast, the control subjects presented an avoidance reaction for social-threat words. Experiment 2 showed an interference effect for words indicating physical threat in the panic disorder patients. However, the same subjects exhibited avoidance of social-threat words. The distractor effect for physical-threat words was only observed when these words were displayed in the left visual hemifield. This finding is interpreted as strengthening the hypothesis of a right-hemispheric specialization for the processing of words with emotional content.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

[Spasmophilia or panic attack?].

For many years, the symptoms grouped under the label "spasmophilia" have been differently evaluated in France by psychiatrists, who ascribe them to hysteria or anxiety, and by endocrinologists and general practitioners for whom they are all due to neuromuscular hyperexcitability, the cause of which must be sought in the biochemistry of calcium. Recent studies on anxiety should reduce the gap between these discordant views. The concept of anxiety itself has changed owing to the discriminant effects of psychotropic drugs and to a classification based on precise diagnostic criteria without theoretical presuppositions. Since anxiety can be biochemically induced, the hypotheses put forward by "spasmophilologists", such as disorders of calcium metabolism or hyperventilation, can now be tested in the laboratory.

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMed1986

[Place of cognitive-behavioral therapies in resistant depressions].

Several behavioural models have been proposed to explain the psychopathology of depression. One of these models, the cognitivo-behavioural approach developed by Beck since 1963, seems to be gaining a renewed interest in psychiatric circles, especially in North America. This model postulates the predominant role of thought content and thought processes in the psychopathology of affective disorders. In depression, there is activation of certain idiosyncratic cognitive structures (schemes) which dominate the thought processes and lead to cognitive distorsions. The therapeutic techniques proposed by Beck involve the identification and correction of these distorsions and the schemes responsible for them. This therapy is directive and structured, involving about 20 sessions over a period of three months. Three phases can be defined corresponding to the course of the depressive manifestations: The first phase involves the use of behavioural techniques such as self-recording and the prescription of tasks designed to increase the patient's activities and to test the validity of the patient's judgement of himself, on the basis of experience. The second phase involves identification and critical evaluation of the characteristic automatic thoughts in depressed patients. They reflect the combination of themes with a negative content and certain systematic errors in the thought process. In the third phase, when the patient has a sufficient behavioural and cognitive repertoire, the treatment focuses on the "silent postulates" (contents of the schemes), which are the basis for the depressive manifestations.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Depressive Disorder↗