A clinical hypothesis of increased intrusive and repetitive thought after stress was operationalized into experimental procedures to study cognitive response to stress. In a counterbalanced design, 23 non-psychotic inpatients from a military hospital saw neutral and stress films, performed signal-detection tasks, and gave written reports of mental contents. The data were consistent with clinical predictions and analogous to prior data from Ss without psychiatric diagnosis: after the stressful film patients had significantly more intrusive thinking, film references, and intrusive film references, as measured by content-analysis techniques.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
FreudS. (1920) Beyond the pleasure principle. In StracheyJ. (Ed.), Writings of Sigmund Freud, standard edition. London: Hogarth Press, 1953. Vol. 18. Pp. 7–64.
2.
HorowitzM. J.Psychic trauma: return of images after a stress film. Archives of General Psychiatry, 1969, 20, 552–559.
3.
HorowitzM. J.Image formation and cognition. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970.
4.
HorowitzM. J.BeckerS. S.MoskowitzM. L.Intrusive and repetitive thought after stress: a replication study. Psychological Reports, 1971, 29, 763–767.
5.
LazarusR. S.OptonE. M.The use of motion picture films in the study of psychological stress: a summary of experimental studies and theoretical formulations. In SpielbergerC. (Ed.), Anxiety and behavior. New York: Academic Press, 1966. Pp. 225–262.
6.
NiederlandW. G.Clinical observations on the “survivor syndrome.”International Journal of Psychiatry, 1968, 49, 313–315.
