The purpose of this study was to identify and measure the situational fears and anxieties held by participants before, during, and after participation in an outdoor program. Subjects in the study were college students with recreation and physical education majors, who were completing separate, but similar Outdoor Education Practicum (OEP) courses…

Job stress in health care professionals who provide care to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) patients has been a subject of interest to a number of health center and hospital physicians, administrators, and to some extent, behavioral scientists. In this study psychosocial correlates of burnout and depression in HIV counselors were…

This book examines sexual abuse and provides a plan of action for educators in schools. Following a historical perspective and a report on the extent of the problem in chapters 1 and 2, chapter 3 presents case studies of abuse involving adult males and female students, adult males and male students, and adult females and male students. Chapter 4,…

Wilderness Alternative for Youth (WAY), conducted by the Pacific Crest Outward Bound School, is a treatment program for adjudicated youth that integrates wilderness or adventure therapy with a community-based component. Participants were 115 boys and girls, aged 13-18, recommended by court counselors and screened for appropriateness by Outward…

This paper examines the consequences of the chronic trauma produced by parental inadequacy, when the need to know a painful reality is coupled with the need not to know. It follows what the author believes was Freud's intent in making a distinction between the processes of denial and disavowal. In particular, the paper examines the fantasy that…

Prior research has established that gender differences in self-perceptions exist. It was hypothesized that self-consistency tendencies can partially explain gender differences in self-evaluations. College students (N=488) were presented with either a feminine, masculine, or neutral gender-typed task, each containing 35 multiple-choice questions.…

Research has shown that unrealistically-optimistic people believe that they will experience fewer negative events and more positive events than other persons. This paper analyzes a scale which was designed to measure the several cognitive dimensions underlying unrealistic optimism about health. For this study, 220 college students completed a…

The depressed person is often trapped in a vicious cycle of dysfunctional thoughts and feelings of powerlessness. Young adults are prone to depression because of the intimacy versus isolation conflict. Young adulthood (ages 18-35) focuses on the search for intimacy, establishment of a career, and formation of a lifestyle. The failure to succeed in…

In response to the Hurricane Hugo disaster, the South Carolina Department of Mental Health (SCDMH) deployed 10 percent of its workforce to serve as members of "Go Teams" that worked with the Charleston Area Community Mental Health Center (CACMHC) staff and provided crisis intervention services to the community. This study examined the…

The Precursors Study, initiated in 1946, has focused on searching for links between psychological patterns and future disease and death. Gathering a broad spectrum of psychobiological characteristics from a large group of medical students, this study has continued year after year. This study examined the role of psychological factors on mortality,…

As a result of the Holocaust, many survivors developed long term psychosocial impairment known as the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is characterized by depression, anxiety, hypocondriasis, inability to concentrate or to express anger, nightmares, insomnia, obsessive thoughts, guilt, mistrust, and alienation. The literature in this…

This four-chapter monograph, translated from a 1977 Russian book written originally in Russian for Russians, describes methodology and results of the study of cognitive activity in children with cerebral palsy. An initial chapter reviews research on impairments in cognitive activity and speech defects in such children and on methods of…

The view that humans fail to solve certain types of problems because they are helpless and passive originated from a series of studies with animals; subsequent research attempted to replicate the findings of the learned helplessness behavior with humans. In an attempt to replicate and extend the Hiroto and Seligman (1975) study of humans exposed…

In its broadest context, play can be interpreted as any pleasurable use of discretionary time. Playfulness is an intrinsic feature of being human, and should be viewed in the light of a total lifestyle, not as an occurrence in an isolated time of life. Adult play appears to be an indefinable and controversial concept. A holistic approach should be…

Stress has been hypothesized to be both a negative and a positive prognostic factor. Stress was examined in relation to total symptomatology as rated by the patient and a significant other and to five symptom factors. This was accomplished at the time a patient was hospitalized and one year subsequently. (Author)