Defense and adaptation in uninfected "affected" siblings of HIV-positive children.
Item
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Title
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Defense and adaptation in uninfected "affected" siblings of HIV-positive children.
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Identifier
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AAI9924853
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identifier
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9924853
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Creator
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Silverman, Lauren Iris.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Steve Tuber
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Date
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1999
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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 | Psychology, Developmental | Sociology, Individual and Family Studies | Psychology, Social
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Abstract
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This study looks at the interactions between defense operations and adaptation in the siblings of HIV-positive children. The subjects consisted of 30 older, uninfected brothers and sisters of HIV-positive children. Thirteen subjects were male, 17 female. They ranged in age from 9 to 18, with a mean age of 14.77.;Each subject met with the researcher for one two-hour session, during which time a multi-modal assessment took place. The subjects were administered the Youth Self-Report version of the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) to gauge their own conscious evaluations of their behavioral functioning. They then participated in the semi-structured Sibling Interview, which provided them with an opportunity to voice their concerns about their familial situations and to discuss communication patterns both within the home and within the community. Each subject was also given 10 cards of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). TAT narratives were scored using Cramer's Defense Mechanism Manual, which looks at defensive operations along a developmental continuum.;Results indicate that as a cohort group, the siblings of HIV-positive children display notably different patterns of defense usage from Cramer's normative sample. The subject group exhibited more than twice the Denial, the most primitive of the defenses analyzed, and less than half the Identification, the most sophisticated of the defenses analyzed, than did the normative sample. Overall, the behavioral patterns reported by the subjects of this study did not differ significantly from the behavioral patterns reported by a normative sample on the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist. There were, however, specific symptom scales on which subjects scored higher than national norms, including Delinquent Behavior for the males and Thought Problems for the females. There was also a discernible relationship between symptomatic functioning, as indicated by the Achenbach symptom scores, and Communication about Sibling HIV scores, derived from the Sibling Interview. Higher communication correlated consistently with lower levels of behavioral symptoms.
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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.
