Biomedical subjects

R Plutchik

Publications and source records attributed to R Plutchik.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1996

State and trait anxiety in adolescent suicide attempters.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between anxiety and suicidal behavior in adolescents. METHOD: Forty-six adolescents who had been hospitalized in an inpatient psychiatric unit after a suicide attempt were compared on measures of anxiety and depression with 72 adolescent psychiatric inpatients who had no history of suicide attempts. RESULTS: The suicide attempters exhibited significantly higher levels of both state and trait anxiety. However, when controlling for depression, the attempters did not differ in their level of state anxiety from the nonattempters, but they still manifested significantly higher levels of trait anxiety than nonattempters. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that anxiety, both state and trait, is a risk factor for suicidal behavior in adolescents. Yet, only trait anxiety appears to be relatively independent of depression in its effect on suicidal behavior risk. These findings imply that clinicans should take into account anxiety, both state and trait, for assessment and treatment of adolescents at risk for suicidal behavior.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1995

Outward and inward directed aggressiveness: the interaction between violence and suicidality.

This paper examines the relations and interactions between suicidality and violence. It reviews the recent literature indicating that more than 40 variables have been identified as risk factors for suicide. Evidence is presented to indicate that the differences between suicide attempters and suicide completers are a matter of degree, and that most conclusions that apply to one also apply to the other. A review of the recent literature on violence revealed that 37 variables are risk factors for violence and that 23 of them are risk factors for suicide as well. Evidence indicates that at least 17 variables have been identified as protective factors that decrease the risk of both suicide and violence. These considerations and others have led to the development of a Two-Stage Model of Countervailing Forces that systematically relates suicide to violence.

Aggression↗

PubMed1995

Parental loss and family violence as correlates of suicide and violence risk.

Seventy-nine psychiatric inpatients were administered a battery of psychometric instruments that obtained information about early parental loss, exposure to family violence, and behavioral problems in themselves and in their first-degree relatives. These variables were correlated with suicide and violence risk measures. Suicide risk significantly correlated with all family variables whereas violence risk correlated with behavioral problems both in oneself and in one's first-degree relatives. Moreover, suicidal and/or violent patients had experienced maternal loss significantly more frequently than the nonsuicidal/nonviolent patients. In the suicidal/violent group, age of patient at death of parents was significantly lower than in the nonsuicidal/nonviolent group. Finally, family violence was significantly correlated with behavioral problems in self and in first-degree relatives. Findings are interpreted according to the authors' theoretical model of aggression regulation.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1994

Effects of alprazolam on increases in hormonal and anxiety levels induced by meta-chlorophenylpiperazine.

The effects of alprazolam, a triazolobenzodiazepine, on hormonal and behavioral responses induced by meta-chlorophenylpiperazine (MCPP), a serotonin receptor agonist, were investigated in 10 healthy men. Alprazolam (0.5 mg) or placebo was given 1 hour before MCPP (0.5 mg/kg) or placebo. Cortisol, prolactin, and growth hormone (GH) release, MCPP and alprazolam plasma levels, anxiety level, and panic symptoms were measured over 210 minutes. MCPP was found to increase cortisol, prolactin, GH, and anxiety levels. Alprazolam decreased cortisol and GH levels but had no effect on prolactin. When used in combination with MCPP, alprazolam blunted MCPP-induced cortisol and GH release, and it blocked the anxiogenic effects of MCPP.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Suicide risk and violence risk in alcoholics. Predictors of aggressive risk.

The purposes of the study were: a) to examine whether risk for suicide and risk for violence were positively or negatively correlated; and b) to investigate potential predictors/mediators of suicide risk alone, violence risk alone, and risk for both suicide and violence. Suicide risk and violence risk were considered outcome variables. The predictor/mediator variables were eight ego defense mechanisms and 13 dysfunctional personality styles (both have been linked to aggressive risk). Seventy-four male alcoholics were administered questionnaire measures of suicide risk and violence risk, defenses, and disordered personality functioning. Results indicated that suicide and violence risk were significantly positively correlated. Three sets of predictor/mediator variables were identified: those predicting violence risk alone, those predicting suicide risk alone, and those predicting combined aggressive risk (risk for both suicide and violence). Connections obtained between predictor/mediator variables and outcome variables were explained in the context of existent clinical theory.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Critical incidents in psychotherapy.

The critical-incident technique was used to obtain a list of patient behaviors that create special difficulties for the psychotherapist. The list was prepared by a group of seven clinicians during a series of meetings. Included in the list were such items as: insulting the therapist; coming late to the session; threatening suicide; and offering gifts. The list was given to 21 experienced psychiatrists who were asked to rate both the importance and the frequency of occurrence of each incident in their experience. The critical incidents could be divided into five major categories: threat of harm from the patient; criticism of the therapist or the therapy; occurrence of a major life crisis; attempts by the patient to seek friendship or seduction, and miscellaneous incidents, such as being consistently late. When ratings by the experienced psychiatrists were compared with those of 10 third-year psychiatric residents, it was found that the inexperienced psychiatrists in almost every case rated the incident as less important and more frequent than did the experienced clinicians. In terms of implications, knowledge of critical incidents in psychotherapy may provide a source of material for training purposes, may enable the development of modeling procedures for training in communication skills, and may encourage supervisors to focus attention on important therapeutic issues.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Stress, coping, and suicide risk in psychiatric inpatients.

The present study investigated the relationship between interpersonal problems, coping styles, and suicide risk. Seventy-one adult psychiatric inpatients completed a suicide risk scale, a measure of interpersonal problems, and a coping scale designed to measure eight coping styles. Patients admitted with a history of suicidal attempts were compared with patients admitted for other reasons. Interpersonal problems were found to be significantly and positively related to suicide risk. The coping style of "suppression" (tendency to avoid threatening or uncomfortable situations) was found to be significantly and positively related to suicide risk [F(2, 68) = 4.54, p < .01]. Several other coping styles were found to be significantly related to suicide risk. These findings are congruent with a "two-stage model of countervailing forces" and have both research and clinical implications.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1993

Correlates of suicide and violence risk in an inpatient population: coping styles and social support.

Forty-six suicidal psychiatric inpatients were compared with 44 nonsuicidal psychiatric inpatients on measures of suicide risk, violence risk, impulsivity, feelings of anger, social support, and eight coping styles. The two groups were similar on demographic variables, but the suicidal patients were higher on the suicide risk scale, the violence risk scale, the impulsivity scale, and feelings of anger. Suicidal patients were significantly less likely to use the coping style of minimization to deal with life problems. A negative correlation was found between the social support measure and both suicide risk and violence risk. Three coping styles were found to correlate negatively with violence risk, but none with suicide risk. Coping styles were found to be a better predictor of violence risk than of suicide risk. It was also found that the more variables included in the predictor equation, the higher the correlation with the risk measures.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1993

Anxiety, impulsivity and depressed mood in relation to suicidal and violent behavior.

Many different variables have been associated with suicidal behavior as well as with violent behavior. This study was designed to test a model that attempts to relate such variables to violence and suicide risk. Sixty psychiatric patients were evaluated and divided into suicidal and nonsuicidal groups and then into violent and nonviolent groups. Scores on suicide risk, violence risk, anxiety, anger, impulsivity and mood were then compared between these groups. In a second analysis, scores on suicide risk and violence risk were correlated with all the other variables. Anxiety and impulsivity were found to strongly correlate with suicide risk. Angry and resentful mood correlated with violence risk; trait anxiety correlated negatively with violence risk. The results contribute further insight into the authors' two-stage model of countervailing forces.

Adult↗

PubMed1993

Development of a therapist activity rating scale: preliminary findings.

A 61-item scale was constructed of relatively explicit descriptions of behavior in which a psychotherapist might engage. The scale is largely noninferential, is basically atheoretical but applicable to psychodynamically oriented therapy, may be completed by either the therapist or an independent rater with minimal training, and may be used to rate entire therapy sessions or specific segments of sessions. The scale shows high interrater reliability and discriminant validity.

Humans↗

PubMed1992

Suicide and violence associated with panic attacks.

Several studies have indicated that patients with panic attacks have a higher rate of suicide attempts as well as deaths from suicide. Additionally, several investigators have presented case reports of individuals manifesting suicidal and violent behaviors directly and temporally associated with panic attacks. We report on four additional cases and suggest that these findings may explain, in part, the increased rate of suicidal behavior among patients with panic attacks found by some investigators. Furthermore, these case reports offer preliminary evidence that the relationship between violent behavior and the panic state may be clinically significant and deserving of further elucidation.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Multivantaged assessment of depression in schizophrenia.

While it is recognized that depression frequently can occur together with fundamental symptoms of schizophrenia, estimates of the prevalence of schizophrenia-related depression have been very variable. This variability may be due in part to the difficulty in clearly separating depressive symptoms from negative symptoms. A more valid method of assessing depression might combine evaluations from multiple vantage points. This study, which involved 26 hospitalized schizophrenic patients, tested the proposition that complete assessment of depression requires three separate sources of input: self-rating (subjective mood state), clinician rating (affective state), and observer rating (behavioral manifestations). In the present study, patients were evaluated on self-rating instruments for mood states, clinician-rated scales including the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, and observer-rated scales. These vantage points, though overlapping in some respects, were found to provide independent information on the experience of depression in schizophrenia. Clinician-rated and observer-rated assessments tended to correlate significantly, while self-rated subjective reports were discordant, thus complementing the assessments from the other two vantage points.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

Correlates of risk of suicide in violent and nonviolent psychiatric patients.

OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to identify variables that correlate with the risk of suicide in two patient groups that differ mainly in their level of expressed aggression. METHOD: Twenty-eight psychiatric patients with a history of violent behavior who were in a forensic psychiatric facility were tested and compared to 28 psychiatric inpatients without a history of violence who were admitted to a large municipal hospital. Measures used included a battery of self-report questionnaires, with acceptable reliability and validity, that provided indices of risk of suicide, risk of violence, impulsivity, anger, anxiety, and various mood states. RESULTS: The two groups, matched on demographic variables and overall risk of suicide, differed significantly on the measured risk of violence. The two groups showed similar patterns of correlations between risk of suicide and such variables as risk of violence, anger, fear, state and trait anxiety, lack of impulse control, suspiciousness, and rebelliousness. They differed in the correlation between suicide risk and depression. In the nonviolent patients there was a high correlation between risk of suicide and sadness; in the violent patients there was no correlation between these variables. CONCLUSIONS: The low correlation between sadness and risk of suicide in the violent patients, and the low prevalence of affective disorder diagnoses in these patients compared to other patients, suggests that suicidal risk should be managed differently in highly violent patients than in others.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

Interrelations between ego functions and personality traits: their relation to psychotherapy outcome.

Ninety consecutive admissions to a large outpatient clinic of a municipal hospital completed two self-report questionnaires: the Self-Evaluation Questionnaire (SEQ) which consists of four 10-item scales that assessed four areas of ego functioning; and the 89-item Personality Profile Index (PPI) that provided measures of eight dimensions of personality traits and also a measure of conflict. Results indicated that the four measures of ego functioning had good internal consistency, and three of the four ego functions had a highly similar pattern of relations to the personality trait dimensions and to the conflict measure. It thus appears that each set of constructs amplifies and sheds light on the other. Two of the ego function measures were significant predictors of psychotherapy outcome. They correlated highly with one another and also with a third measure of ego functioning. This fact, together with the similarity of their correlations with the personality traits, suggests that these ego functions represent different aspects of an underlying construct that could be called Ego Strength. Therefore, combining the three ego functions into a 30-item Ego Strength measure could provide an even more sensitive predictor of therapy outcome and a useful new instrument for psychotherapy research.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

Sex differences in personality traits and coping styles of hospitalized alcoholics.

Forty inpatients on an alcohol detoxication unit of a large municipal hospital were administered a battery of tests consisting of a Coping Styles scale, a Personality Profile scale, a Depression scale and the Brief MAST. A demographically comparable comparison group of 40 outpatients attending the medical screening clinic at the same hospital also completed the battery. The two groups did not differ in terms of age, education or the ratio of men to women. There were significant differences in coping styles and personality characteristics between alcoholics and nonalcoholics and, to a large extent, between men and women within the alcoholic group. Practically no significant differences were found between the men in the two groups, but female alcoholics differed greatly from nonalcoholic women in terms of coping styles, personality variables and also in terms of conflict. These findings indicate that the differences between alcoholic and nonalcoholics in the sample were due largely to patterns uniquely characterizing the female alcoholic group. Results are discussed in terms of cultural expectations.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1990

Interrelationships among anxiety, aggression, impulsivity, and mood: a serotonergically linked cluster?

Serotonin abnormalities appear to be related to a variety of psychopathological dimensions such as anxiety, depressed mood, impulsivity, and aggression dysregulation. We hypothesized that the psychopathological dimensions related to serotonin would be significantly intercorrelated since they seem to have a common biological basis. Sixty psychiatric inpatients were examined on a series of psychometric tests measuring suicidality, violence potential, impulsivity, depressive mood, and anxiety. The scores on all of these measures tended to be significantly correlated with one another. These findings support the additional hypothesis that biological markers may be more closely related to basic psychological dimensions than to nosological categories.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Prediction of risk for drug use in high school students.

On the basis of questionnaires administered to almost 2,000 high school students in Cali, Colombia, a subset of items was selected that deal primarily with parent--child relationships. This 53-item set, referred to as the Drug Risk Scale (DRS), was administered to two new cross-validation samples, one consisting of high school students and the other consisting of drug addicts attending drug rehabilitation centers. Significant differences in parent--child relations were found between these new groups. The DRS was also found to have reasonably high sensitivity and specificity. Its potential value as a risk-prediction instrument is discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1989

Is there a relation between the seriousness of suicidal intent and the lethality of the suicide attempt?

The relation between the strength of an individual's intent to commit suicide and the nature and seriousness (lethality) of any suicide attempt has been a controversial one. Some studies suggest a positive correlation, while others report no connection. The present investigation included 60 patients, who were studied shortly after they had been admitted to a medical service after a suicide attempt. Measures of depression, impulsivity, suicidal intent, seriousness of the attempt, and efforts to prevent intervention were obtained. Results reveal that both depression and impulsivity correlate positively with the strength of the intent to commit suicide, but there appears to be almost no correlation in this population between measures of intent and seriousness of the attempt.

Adolescent↗