SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “GUILT”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 847 records · Page 47Linked to original sources

PubMed1979

Self-mutilation of the eye.

While the act of self-enucleation is rare, other self-inflicted eye injuries may be more common. Six patients are reported who have documented histories of ocular self-mutilation. Several common factors are observed in these patients and in other cases reported in the literature: (1) the patient was judged to be psychotic; (2) the patient had a tyrannical conscience; (3) a source of guilt was present; (4) this guilt was displaced to the eye; and (5) an attempt at self-inflicted eye injury was followed by relief from anxiety when completed or by frustration when injury was prevented.

Adult↗

PubMed1983

A comparison study of parental adaptation following a child's death at home or in the hospital.

Mothers and fathers of 37 deceased pediatric oncology patients were interviewed 3 to 28 months after their child's death. Twenty-four of these families had participated in a formal Home Care Program for dying children, whereas the remaining 13 families had children who died in the hospital. Parental adaptation following the home care experience appeared to be more favorable than following terminal care and death in the hospital. Specifically, the parents who had cared for their terminally ill child at home displayed more positive adjustment patterns as indexed by their perception of how the child's death had affected their marriage, social reorientation, religious beliefs, and views on the meaning of life and death. Ratings given by parents providing home care indicated a significant reduction in guilt during the home care experience which was maintained at 6 and 12 months following the child's death. In contrast, parents who did not provide home care reported intensified feelings of guilt during their child's terminal hospitalization which were unresolved at one year after the child's death. The results are discussed in terms of the practical and emotional benefits that may be derived from a family's voluntary choice of home care for dying children.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Psychodynamic conflicts in hearing children of deaf parents.

A case study documents the consequences of parental deafness on the personality development of hearing children. Of central dynamic significance are unacknowledged feelings of resentment generated by (1) acute feelings of humiliation experienced about the parents' imperfections, (2) identity confusion resulting from the parents' suspicious attitude toward the hearing world, and (3) the inevitable role-reversal resulting from the parents' handicapped status. The possibility of taking triumphant pleasure in more fortunate life circumstances evokes intense guilt and forms the basis for a conflictual attitude toward success. A proclivity toward guilt appears to be an outstanding psychological characteristic of children of handicapped parents, irrespective of the nature of the handicap. Some relevant variables include: greater resentment due to unavoidable early frustrations, a reluctance to direct aggression outward, despair about making reparations to parents seen as damaged by the child's aggression, and absence of external controls on the expression hostility (victories are easy). Some parallels are noted between conflicts displayed in hearing children of deaf parents and children of immigrant parents.

Achievement↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Oedipus was not the son of Laius and Jocasta.

Neurotics have family-romance fantasies, which they sometimes take to be real and which make them think that their parents are not really their parents. They have other unconscious fantasies in which they feel that their sexual objects are really their parents and in which trivial acts acquire the value of incest and parricide. From these psychoanalytic findings we can interpret the Oedipus legend as a special manifestation of the family romance which has arisen from guilt feelings and an intense desire for punishment. Oedipus fantasies the rulers of Thebes to be his parents and takes his behavior toward them as both incestuous and parricidal. As a displacement on the adult level, the Oedipus legend symbolizes the genital situation of the child both before and during the creation of the superego. As Oedipus was happy in his love life before the plagues afflicted Thebes, the child enjoys, during his infancy, sexual pleasure with his mother and rejects his father as his rival. Later just as Oedipus did, the child learns from his parents and from the rest of his environment, that his incestuous and parricidal behavior is dreadful and that he must feel very guilty and be punished severely. The child also learns this must be repressed: He must no longer perceive these things. In the legend this is symbolized by Oedipus blinding himself. The usual interpretation of the Oedipus legend, which wrongly believes that he really committed incest and parricide, does not take into account the distortions of judgement and preception which guilt feelings can give rise to.

Family↗

PubMed1993

[The shame-blame-worry complex in parents of children after craniocerebral trauma].

The care complex of parents of brain damaged children represents a defense mechanism against the parents' shame-guilt-dilemma. The care complex does not meet with a coping behaviour being beneficial to the children, but demands rather too much of such children and adolescents. There is overprotection, a changed emotional acceptance of the child and a changed method of upbringing together with a strict control over achievements at school and therapies still necessary. Variants of the parents' subjective guilt with regard to the child are described in several case vignettes. Methods of the psychotherapeutic treatment of parents are discussed. Finally, an outlook in the consequences of the care complex as regards the self-image and self-acceptance in adolescence are given.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1993

[What can we learn from the past?].

The author sees the present outbreaks of violence as a confirmation of the continued relevance of the diagnosis of the present-day German condition set out in The Inability to Mourn in 1967. In post-war Germany a pall of silence hung over the subject of Nazi atrocities, guilt and shame were negated and no recollection of, or active mourning for, the millions of German and non-German war victims took place. The author sees an exact parallel to this in the present violence on the part of young people towards foreigners, asylum seekers, Jews and gypsies, and the way it is mutely condoned by a silent majority, interpreting this as an identical instance of the denial of shame and guilt and the incapacity for fellow-feeling towards the poor and the underprivileged. The accusations of part responsibility levelled at the post-1968 generation for the outbreaks of violence among young people are in Mitscherlich's view unfounded. This generation, she argues, was the first to break with the conspiracy of silence in connection with Germany's Nazi past, thus making a process of mourning possible in the first place, and goes on the contend that an increasing sensitivity among the German population towards the prevailing inhumanity that foreigners and the underprivileged are subjected to is an opportunity for renewed self-confrontation with the unbroken virulence of the Nazi mentality and for a resumption of the necessary process of mourning. Here she also sees a possibility of actively curbing the present wave of violence, in contrast to the call to be heard from some politicians for greater toughness in education and upbringing, an approach which she regards as representing not a solution to the problem but rather as a relapse into old authoritarian constraints.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

Childrearing attitudes among parents of very low birth weight and normal birth weight children.

The childrearing attitudes of parents of school-age children born at weights under 1500 g (VLBW) were compared with those of parents of age- and gender-matched children born at full term (NBW) to determine whether there were systematic differences between the two groups and whether parental attitudes were associated with child outcomes. Parents completed a self-report measure of childrearing attitudes and provided information on the child's health since birth. The children were given measures of IQ and self-concept, and their teachers rated their social and academic competence. Neonatal morbidity and subsequent need for hospitalization were unrelated to parental attitudes. Parents of VLBW children reported less use of guilt as a control strategy. They were also less child-centered, particularly if their children had chronic respiratory or ear-nose-throat problems. Greater parental warmth, less control through guilt, and less parental detachment were associated with more socially competent behavior and more positive self-concept in 9-year-old VLBW children.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1996

Franz Kafka's The Trial: guilty or innocent?

Through an examination of The Trial by Kafka I attempt to show that the depiction of the Court apparatus is dynamically related to the commission of unconscious crimes of the type we encounter in our patients. To provide a context for the novel, I discuss Kafka's biography and some possible unconscious motivations. My goal is to show how the concept of a particular type of superego pressure can be used to understand the subtle irony in The Trial. Although Joseph K.'s behavior frequently involves oedipal crimes, there are many preoedipal themes that help account for his experience of the Court. I contrast this psychoanalytic understanding of K.'s guilt with that of literary critics who interpret The Trial as an allegory of guilt but who minimize the psychological dimensions.

Crime↗

PubMed1996

Some subtypes of depression and their implications for psychoanalytic treatment.

The author argues the case for the need to develop an integrative clinical psychoanalytic model of depression which takes into account various pathways leading to different subtypes of depression. Some factors intervening in the genesis and maintenance of depression (aggression, guilt, narcissistic disorders, persecutory anxieties, ego deficits, masochism, identification with depressive parents and fixation to traumatic events in which the subject felt helpless) are examined, as well as certain dynamic interrelations between them. The relationship between aggression and depression is analysed, with particular attention devoted to the steps through which aggression turns into depression. The origins of guilt are reviewed, including those conditions which are independent of aggression. Psychoanalytic interventions that could be pertinent for a given subtype of depression, but which could prove counterproductive when applied to another subtype are discussed. Clinical examples are given to provide support for the ideas presented, recognising that further studies are required to establish more specific correlations between the different depressive configurations and the types of psychoanalytic interventions best suited for changing them.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

[Couple treatment following abortion in prenatal diagnosis. An interdisciplinary and interprofessional cooperation].

Various research studies have shown that prenatal diagnosis has a considerable effect on the couple, irrespective of the result of the diagnosis or the couple's decision. If a couple decides to terminate pregnancy as a consequence of the diagnostic outcome, the ensuing mourning process is known to be similar to mourning after stillbirth; either way it means the loss of a wanted pregnancy. Also, deliberate termination intensifies guilt feelings, especially if, as in Down's syndrome, the anomaly would not have affected the child's viability. For these reasons, psychological support for such couples is primarily aimed at overcoming the loss of a wanted pregnancy. Among the important recurrent topics are the couple's guilt feelings, their fear of another pregnancy with a traumatizing outcome, their insecurity regarding their relationship and sexual life, and possibly an impaired self-image. Since a certain relief may be felt in the first hours or days after the interruption and negative feelings may develop only later, it is very important to ensure long-term counseling and support. Indeed, it would be appropriate and helpful if psychological counseling could be taken up prior to prenatal diagnosis, so that the best solution for the couple can be worked out calmly in conjunction with them.

Abortion, Induced↗

PubMed1996

Parents' use of inductive discipline: relations to children's empathy and prosocial behavior.

Relations between parents' discipline, children's empathic responses, and children's prosocial behavior were examined in order to evaluate Martin Hoffman's claim that children's empathy and empathy-based guilt mediate the socialization of children's prosocial behavior. 78 sixth and seventh graders (138-172 months in age), their mothers, and teachers completed multiple measures of Hoffman's constructs. Results were largely consistent with theory. Parents' use of inductive as opposed to power-assertive discipline was related to children's prosocial behavior. Children of inductive parents were more empathic; and more empathic children were more prosocial. Moreover, children's empathy was found to mediate the relation between parents' discipline and children's prosocial behavior. Few relations were obtained for children's guilt indices, but post hoc analyses yielded theoretically consistent results. Contrary to expectations, parents' use of statements of disappointment was the component of the inductive discipline score which was most strongly related to children's prosocial behavior.

Child↗

PubMed1995

When patients and pediatricians say good-bye in a pediatric resident continuity clinic.

Pediatric residency programs require a 3-year continuity clinic experience for residents. To our knowledge, no authors have examined the impact of termination at the end of the residency among the child, parent, and pediatrician. This article discusses an exploration that evolved in response to the questions that third-year pediatric residents asked concerning how to say good-bye to their primary care patients in the context of their continuity clinic. The first panel addressed parental and patient issues, and the second addressed the impact on the pediatrician. The parents on the panel stated that it was important that they be notified in advance of their pediatrician's departure, that they believed they had played an important role in the resident's education, and that they wanted a voice in the selection of their child's future pediatrician. The pediatricians on the panel all felt sadness, relief, and guilt as a result of the termination, but guilt that the family would feel abandoned was the strongest emotion. Few pediatricians on the panel acknowledged the impact of the relationship on themselves and the importance of including the parents in the decision to choose the child's future pediatrician. The issue of termination needs more deliberate attention in pediatric training programs. A structured system for teaching residents to manage the termination process is proposed.

Academic Medical Centers↗

PubMed1996

Family environment and shame: is there a relationship?

This study was designed to examine the relationship between dysfunctional families in childhood and shame experienced by adults and compare feelings of guilt and shame. The results indicated that the shame young adults feel is correlated with their perceived family environment as a child. Greater feelings of shame on the Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA) were correlated with lower Family Environment Scale scores on Cohesion, Expressiveness, Intellectual-Cultural Orientation, Moral-Religious Emphasis and Organization and higher Conflict scores. Other variables were also examined. The results support the hypothesis that people coming from dysfunctional families experience more shame as adults and that guilt and shame are differentially related to dysfunctional families.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Religious denomination as a symptom-formation factor of depression in older Dutch citizens.

OBJECTIVES: The type of symptoms in depression is likely to be influenced by cultural environment. As religion represents an important cultural resource for older adults, it is hypothesised that religious denomination represents a symptom-formation factor of depression in the older generation. Focusing on older Dutch citizens, it is expected that depressed Calvinists report: (1) less depressed affect, (2) more vegetative symptoms, and (3) more guilt feelings, than Roman Catholics and non-church members. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was used to distinguish depressed (N=395) and non-depressed (N=2333) older adults, and to assess depressive symptom-profiles. The Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) was used to assess major depressive episodes and criterion-symptoms of depression. RESULTS: Depressed Calvinists, especially males, had higher scores on the vegetative CES-D subscale. The same was found for non-church members with Calvinist parents. Among those who have had a major depressive episode in later life (N=84), support was found for all hypotheses. Feelings of guilt were also more prevalent among Roman Catholics. CONCLUSIONS: Religious denomination modified the type of symptoms in late-life depression. As a Calvinist background was associated with less depressive affect and more inhibition, there is a risk of underdiagnosis of major depression in older Calvinists in The Netherlands.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Suicidal behavior among chronic Vietnam theatre veterans with PTSD.

Suicidal behavior among Vietnam veterans with chronic Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was evaluated. Sixty chronic PTSD vets admitted to a Specialized PTSD Unit were divided into two groups based on the presence of suicidal behavior: 29 patients in a Suicide Group and 31 in a Non-suicide Group. Subjects were evaluated on symptoms, psychometric measures, military variables, adjustment factors, and pre-military parental patterns of discipline. Results showed that the Suicide Group possessed problems in paternal child-rearing patterns, current adjustment difficulties, and the PTSD symptoms of survival guilt and crying. In a regression analysis, paternal inconsistency of love, survivor guilt, and tendency to cry, in addition to age and sex, accounted for the significant variance of suicidal behavior.

Chronic Disease↗

PubMed1993

Separation-individuation difficulties and the distinction between bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa in college women.

This study investigated whether patterns of late adolescent separation-individuation from parents, as measured by the Psychological Separation Inventory (PSI), are different for anorexic-like and bulimic-like young women in college. It was hypothesized that anorexic-like women would display a pattern of underseparation from both mother and father. Bulimic-like women were expected to show a pattern of underseparation on the conflictual dimension of the PSI but overseparation on the other dimensions. A total of 198 college women completed the PSI, the Eating Disorder Inventory, and a DSM-III-R symptom checklist. Using that checklist, 19 women were classified as bulimic-like (BUN), 8 as like restricting anorexics (RAN), 11 as showing a pattern resembling both bulimia and restricting anorexia (BULAN), 109 as showing limited bulimic or anorexic behaviors (SOME), and 25 as having no eating disorder symptoms (NED). Results indicated some support for the hypotheses. BUN women were overseparated in terms of attitudinal independence from both parents and underseparated in that they experienced more guilt and conflict concerning separation than did the SOME or NED women. The anorexic-like women reported considerable guilt and conflict about separation and tended to be underseparated in general. The results point to the potential value of separation-individuation issues in the distinction between restricting anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Parent-training programmes for improving maternal psychosocial health.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of mental health problems in women is 1:3 and such problems tend to be persistent. There is evidence from a range of studies to suggest that a number of factors relating to maternal psychosocial health can have a significant effect on the mother-infant relationship, and that this can have consequences for the psychological health of the child. It is now thought that parenting programmes may have an important role to play in the improvement of maternal psychosocial health. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this review is to address whether group-based parenting programmes are effective in improving maternal psychosocial health including anxiety, depression and self-esteem. SEARCH STRATEGY: A range of biomedical, social science, educational and general reference electronic databases were searched including MEDLINE, EMBASE CINAHL, PsychLIT, ERIC, ASSIA, Sociofile and the Social Science Citation Index. Other sources of information included the Cochrane Library (SPECTR, CENTRAL), and the National Research Register (NRR). SELECTION CRITERIA: Only randomised controlled trials were included in which participants had been randomly allocated to an experimental and a control group, the latter being either a waiting-list, no-treatment or a placebo control group. Studies had to include at least one group-based parenting programme, and one standardised instrument measuring maternal psychosocial health. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: A systematic critical appraisal of all included studies was undertaken using the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published criteria. The data were summarised using effect sizes but were not combined in a meta-analysis due to the small number of studies within each group and the presence of significant heterogeneity. MAIN RESULTS: A total of 22 studies were included in the review but only 17 provided sufficient data to calculate effect sizes. These 17 studies reported on a total of 59 outcomes including depression, anxiety, stress, self-esteem, social competence, social support, guilt, mood, automatic thoughts, dyadic adjustment, psychiatric morbidity, irrationality, anger and aggression, mood, attitude, personality, and beliefs. Approximately 22% of the outcomes measured suggested significant differences favouring the intervention group. A further 40% showed differences favouring the intervention group but which failed to achieve conventional levels of statistical significance, in some cases due to the small numbers that were used. Approximately 38% of outcomes suggested no evidence of effectiveness. REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS: It is suggested that parenting programmes can make a significant contribution to the improvement of psychosocial health in mothers. While the critical appraisal suggests some variability in the quality of the included studies, it is concluded that there is sufficient evidence to support their use with diverse groups of parents. However, it is also suggested that some caution should be exercised before the results are generalised to parents irrespective of the level of pathology present, and that further research is still required.

Anxiety↗

PubMed1995

Barriers to carrier testing for adult cystic fibrosis sibs: the importance of not knowing.

Early experience in centers offering population screening for cystic fibrosis (CF) has shown that few of the public are taking advantage of the offer [Miller, 1993: New Scientist 139:6]. There is similar low utilization among adult CF sibs [Fanos and Johnson, 1993: Am J Hum Genet 53:A51]. The purpose of this study was to identify factors motivating or interfering with the pursuit of carrier testing in adult CF sibs. Eighty-four adult CF sibs and their spouses, drawn from Children's Hospital, Oakland, CA, and Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, were interviewed for about an hour, and qualitative material was coded on various themes. Structural and psychological barriers to the transmission of genetic information were identified: 1) sibs encountered difficulty in obtaining information concerning availability of testing; 2) parental guilt and blame prevents parents from discussing genetic issues with the sib; 3) sibs rarely discuss testing with each other; 4) the CF patient or parent often has difficulty with the implications of the sib seeking carrier testing; 5) family and individual myths about carrier status influence the sib's decision to seek testing; 6) statistical odds have lost meaning in families where the rare has already occurred; 7) the sib fears loss of interpersonal desirability; and 8) carrier status can serve an important function in binding guilt. Remaining unaware of their carrier status may serve significant psychological functions for individuals at risk.

Adolescent↗