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Biomedical subjects

M Prosen

Publications and source records attributed to M Prosen.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1983

Disordered thinking in schizophrenia: intermingling and loss of set.

In a study of schizophrenic thought pathology, potential loss of set and intermingling were examined. The responses of 36 acute psychiatric patients who showed intermingling were analyzed. Intermingling, frequently seen in the speech and thinking of schizophrenic patients, involves the blending of personal material from one's experiences into one's thinking and communication, leading to bizarre and inappropriate speech. The results indicated that intermingling frequently leads to some loss of goal-directed thinking, but not usually to complete loss of set. Patients adopt new sets based partly on the original topic and partly on their own personal idiosyncratic concerns. The apparent "looseness" of schizophrenic patients is based on thematic shifts to idiosyncratic ideas, often from the beginning of their responses, rather than on word-to-word associative looseness. Intermingling of personal concerns typically occurs in a nonfragmented fashion. Schizophrenics and other psychotic patients show significantly more intermingling of personal material in open and undisguised fashion, as though they do not recognize how inappropriate their intermingling appears. The results suggest that although the intrusion of personal material is task inappropriate, it still represents a form of systematic, goal-oriented thinking.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Guilt and conscience in major depressive disorders.

The authors propose definitions of guilt as a self-critical feeling state and of conscience as a set of standards, to permit independent assessment of their prevalence in a sample of 93 depressed, 29 schizophrenic, and 43 normal subjects. Patients with feelings of guilt tended to have a more severe conscience and lower self-esteem. While guilt is prominent in a moderate percentage of depressed patients, negative self-esteem may form one of the cornerstones for depressed patients of all types. The authors propose that the operational definition of psychoanalytic concepts such as guilt and conscience permits a valid and more rigorous test of clinical generalizations.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

Schizophrenic thought disorders: bizarre associations and intermingling.

The authors assessed bizarre verbalizations elicited from 37 schizophrenic and 16 nonschizophrenic patients. Interviews with subjects indicated that much bizarre schizophrenic language results from patients intermingling material from past and current experiences into their verbalizations. This intermingled material comes from many different problem areas rather than one central emotional complex. It does not arise from emotional overresponsiveness, overinvolved thinking, or delusional ideation. Two factors hypothesized as responsible for bizarre schizophrenic language are the schizophrenic's monitoring problems and difficulty maintaining perspective about his own behavior.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Intermingling and disordered logic as influences on schizophrenic 'thought disorders'.

A technique was devised to elicit bizarre or idiosyncratic responses from 30 young schizophrenics, who were then re-interviewed a week later to determine the reasons for each patient's idiosyncratic verbalizations. Taped interviews of the schizophrenics, scored along a series of rating scales, indicated: (1) An overt mechanism involved in bizarre schizophrenic language is a tendency to intermingle into their responses material from their current and past experiences. (2) Careful analysis suggests that the seemingly bizarre intermingled material of schizophrenics usually is close to the original "correct" topic. (3) The bizarre intermingled material is related to the patients' personal lives. (4) The intermingled material does not usually represent a failure to screen out or repress primitive drive dominated sexual or aggressive material. (5) Disordered logic was not a major factor in accounting for bizarre schizophrenic language.

Adult↗