The dying psychotherapist

A previously unpublished paper by a dying psychotherapist describes the therapeutic use of the ensuing grief reactions of five patients to his terminal illness to help them deal with the effects of their previous losses, deprivations, and abandonments. Follow-up interviews with these patients and their subsequent psychotherapists shed light on the efficacy of such therapeutic efforts, the character of the communication of the terminal illness, the transference and countertransference reactions that interfered with the inevitable separation, and conclusions by previous authors regarding patients' reactions to the deaths of their therapists.     

The psychiatrist and solvent-inhalant abuse: recognition, assessment, and treatment

Solvent-inhalant abuse, existent for a century, has been gradually increasing in several sectors of our society over the last few decades. This form of substance abuse involves a variety of pharmacological agents as well as several target groups at risk. A key strategy for effective intervention is early recognition in clinical as well as other settings. Psychiatrists should appreciate the clinical manifestations of these substances because they often appear in psychiatric settings. Assessment and treatment of the solvent-inhalant abuser must take into account the special pharmacological, demographic, and ecological factors associated with this particular form of substance abuse.     

Editorial: The psychiatrist and family planning

The American Psychiatric Association recently appointed a Task Force on Psychiatric Involvement in Family Planning. Major fertility-related decisions may be sexual, contraceptive, abortion-seeking, or procreative. Psychiatrists have a responsibility to be professionally concerned with the psychosocial determinates and consequences of family planning. They may counsel individuals or agencies concerned with family planning, sex education, and other fertility-related matters and also may function as behavioral scientists, as in research on the psychological social, and cultural determinants of fertility-choice behavior. Physicans, including psychiatrists, require information and guidance to reduce indifference and to enhance the idea that family planning should become part of general health care.     

The sex of the psychotherapist

The authors note the recent controversy about whether the sex of the psychotherapist is an important factor in the treatment of patients with certain neurotic and personality disturbances and suggest that much of the confusion is because supportive and insight-oriented psychotherapy are not clearly distinguished. After reviewing the relevant literature they present five clinical vignettes which suggest that the sex of the therapist is immaterial in insight-oriented psychotherapy and that attention to defenses, transference, and resistance remains the cornerstone of successful psychotherapy.     

The psychiatrist, physician in question]

This article presents a comparative study of the respective fields of medicine and psychiatry resulting from the connection between the meaning of death and that of insanity. It deals, in particular, with the study of the position of certain mental and infections illnesses in the pathological sphere. This is the case, amongst others, of the possible viral etiology of the Kreutzfeld-Jacob disease.