A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF AFFECT AND COGNITION IN A PSYCHOTIC CHILD.
Item
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Title
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A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF AFFECT AND COGNITION IN A PSYCHOTIC CHILD.
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Identifier
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AAI8203327
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identifier
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8203327
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Creator
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SLOATE, PHYLLIS L.
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Contributor
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PHYLLIS L. SLOATE
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Date
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1981
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Clinical
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Abstract
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Eight psychotherapy sessions spaced over an eighteen month period in the treatment of a six year old psychotic boy was subjected to intensive scrutiny in an effort to validate three hypotheses: (1) The structure of cognition in childhood psychosis differs significantly from that found in normal development. (2) During the process of psychotherapy over time there will be significant changes in the interplay of cognition and affect. (3) These changes are specifiable as hierarchical stage-specific progressions which increasingly approach normative structures.;The data base consisted of reconstructed verbal transcripts produced immediately following every ninety minute psychotherapy session over eighteen months. The eight particular sessions selected for analysis from the more than two hundred available sessions were approximately equally spaced through the interval but were each chosen to fulfill the joint criteria of concurrence with significant events in the life of the child, and concurrence with significance affective changes.;Every reconstructed behavioral observation in each session was assessed for any affective or cognitive feature, both logical and infralogical, according to a three dimensional notational system. Affect was categorized as positive, sadness, anger or withdrawal. The logical component of cognition was categorized as sensory-motor, primary process, fantasy language, normal speech, each of which could be accompanied or not by animism. The infralogical component was named contact, and included the categories of confused, fantasy play, silent fantasy play, stereotyped play, body contact, reality contact, joint reality/fantasy contact and transient behavior. Interpretations and dissociative shifts were also noted.;To assess the reliability of the notational system, three judges were trained in its use, and independently coded three representative sessions (1, 4 and 7). Using the author's coding as a standard, the overall reliability was 95% and ranged from 94% to 97% over raters and sessions.;When the codings for the eight sessions were completed and intercompared, it was found that some categories were rarely utilized while others were nonsignificant variations of primary ones. Additionally, some categories such as animism, transient behaviors and silent fantasy play unaccompanied by cognition were invariant over the sessions. Accordingly, condensations were made in order to achieve a final set of categories which were then found to be related in natural developmental hierarchies. The final categories for affect were binary (merging positive with sadness and anger with withdrawal), while those for cognition and contact were four fold: sensory-motor, primary process, fantasy language, and normal speech for the former; confused, fantasy play, reality and reality/fantasy for the latter.;In session by session comparisons it was found that all steps of the hierarchy were present at the beginning of the eighteen months while by the end of the interval only the more developmentally mature categories remained. Orderly stages were discerned, as less mature categories disappeared in strict developmental order. The initial hypotheses were thus confirmed and support the applicability of stage-sequential models to childhood psychosis.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Clinical Psychology
