2 research outputs found
ATTITUDE TOWARDS ONESELF AND OTHERS IN NON-CLINICAL POPULATION, DEPRESSED AND PARANOID EXAMINEES
Background: The theoretical concept of existential/life positions describes person’s basic beliefs about oneself and others. Most
of authors on TA postulated that every person has one of four possible basic life positions: I’m OK, you’re OK; I’m not OK, you’re
OK; I’m OK, you’re not OK and I’m not OK, you’re not OK. The aim of this study was the authentication of Existential positions as
theoretical concepts in Transaction Analysis, and it’s potential to discriminate clinical from non-clinical examinees, and paranoid
from depressive examinees within the clinical population.
Subjects and methods: The research conducted was co-relational. The sample belongs to the convenience sample type, and
comprised 200 examinees, 100 from the non-clinical and 100 from the clinical population of adults.
Results: The results of the research confirm a statistically significant difference between the non-clinical and clinical part of the
sample in the examined theoretical concept. The “I am not OK” existential position is more expressed in the clinical part of the
sample. The differences between the examinees with depressive and paranoid disorders indicate that the examinees with the
depressive disorder are more likely to express the “I am not OK, you are OK” and “I am not OK, you are not OK” Existential
position.
Conclusion: In general, we can infer that the assumptions which the research was aimed at testing received partial validation.
Examinees from the clinical part of the sample have a statistically significantly higher score at the position “I am not OK”.
Examinees with depressive characteristics have a more pronounced “I am not OK, you are not OK” position
THE EFFECT OF HEROIN ON VERBAL MEMORY
Background: As a result of long-term heroin abuse we can see impairment of cerebral structures, that leads to specific
psychopathological and neuro - physiological deficits in the cognitive and connative areas. There is a positive correlation between
the mentioned deficits and the duration of heroin abuse. The memory is a cognitive function highly sensitive to toxic effects of
opiates. The aim of this study was to establish the psychiatric and psychological consequences of heroin abuse, in the sense of verbal
memory deficits, and the specific relation between mentioned deficits with the duration of abuse.
Subjects and methods: The research was devised as a prospective study, including ninety heroin addicts, divided into three
groups, based on the abuse duration. The following instruments were used for data collecting: questionnaire, with basic socialdemographic
and addictive characteristics of subjects and Rey Test of Verbal Learning, a neuropsychological test for verbal memory
estimation.
Results: Only the examinees who have abused heroin for less than a year obtained scores within the domain of the expected
performances within the part of the test which relates to the direct verbal memory, as well as, the part of the test that relates to
delayed verbal memory. With regard to the mentioned criteria, the difference between examinees with different length of opiates
abuse is statistically important (direct memory: F=2.706; p=0.063, delayed memory: F=2.538; p=0.045). With the increase of
heroin abuse length the number of examinees with a rising learning curve is decreased significantly, and the number of examinees
with a flat learning curve is increased (Chi-square=19.589; p=0.003).
Conclusion: Heroin abuse, lasting longer than one year, is connected with impairment of short-term and delayed verbal
memory. The intensity of the mentioned effects is higher with addicts who use a higher daily dose of heroin