RJAP

Abstract: Hyde (2005, American Psychologist) concluded from a review of meta-analyses on psychological sex differences that men and women are similar on most (but not all) psychological variables (i.e., the so-called Gender Similarities Hypothesis, GSH). This conclusion has elicited various critical comments to which the present contribution adds. In particular, it is argued and shown that (1) the study selection criteria for Hyde’s review are unclear; (2) Hyde’s focus on reviewing only meta-analyses introduces a bias in favor of GSH and against larger sex differences (because meta-analyses frequently sum up contentious fields of research with small effect sizes); (3) remarkably, Hyde’s review omits several authoritative monographs on sex differences and also neglects a considerable number of well-documented sex differences of large size from various research domains; (4) the practical importance of sex effects (and other group differences) is better gauged by focusing on the tails of trait distributions (i.e., on tail ratios), rather than merely on mean group differences; and (5) GSH, as a sociocultural framework, cannot accommodate strong evidence for early (perinatal) sex differences which must be of biological (and prenatal) origin. On the whole, GSH appears noticeably less supported than Hyde (2005) suggests.

Keywords: psychological sex differences, gender similarities hypothesis, sexual fantasy, homicide, motor behaviour, perinatal differences

Address of correspondence: martin.voracek@univie.ac.at

Abstract: Menopause is perceived as one of the most stressful events in the sexual life of women. The present study assesses the intimate relationships of menopausal women and the manner in which the level of anxiety, depression and self-esteem influences these relationships. We must take into consideration the social and cultural background present in Romania and which influences highly the women’s attitude. While in Western countries women, like men, work until the age of 65, or at least 60, in our country until recently retirement was normal between 50 and 55 at women. Also, marriage was normal between the age of 20–25, a period of time when also the first child was conceived. Just in the last years the model of late marriage and conceiving children after the age of 30 has gained support in Romania. This means that the woman aged around 50 has to face approximately in the same period of time at least 3 very stressful events: menopause, retirement and becoming a grandparent. To all this we might add any health related problems as cardiac diseases, as it is unfortunately a known fact that our country is on the first place in Europe concerning death of cardiac diseases and not to forget osteoporosis for which substitution is seldom done, as it is not very well known and also expensive. This is why we thought that a study regarding the sexual needs and the parameters, which influence them at this particular age, seemed a necessity.

Keywords: menopause, sex life, stressful events, self esteem

Address of correspondence: mona.vintila@socio.uvt.ro

Abstract: The client's necessity to be treated as a complex person and not only as an impersonal subject is not fulfilled today because of the therapist's reflex for using a strictly therapeutic protocol. The consequence is a waste of information regarding the personal history and the history of the family of origin. Systemic therapy and its transgenerational approach seem to solve this problem. In this article we are doing a review of the main transgenerational theories. To illustrate the utility of such a perspective we are analyzing the genealogical trees of some Italian emigrant families that have moved to Romania in the late 19th century.

Keywords: systemic therapy, transgenerational approach, genealogic trees, socio-cultural frame, personal history

Address of correspondence: mixich@gmail.com

Abstract: One of the applied psychologist’s more pressing tasks is to provide accident investigators with a better classification of the possible varieties of human failure. The human-made causes of closely – examined events suggest that an adequate framework for aberrant behaviours requires a distinction to be made between biological, psychological, neurological and social factors. The present study presents some elements from this four parts of human aspects.

Keywords: car accident; human failure; danger; risk; neurological, psychological, biological and social factors

Address of correspondence: mihai.hohn@email.ro

Abstract: Over the time, there were many lethal diseases, characteristic to a specific period in time, diseases to which there was no form of treatment or possibility of improvement. Breast cancer occupies a very important place in death cauzes, ranking first among women in all cancer localizations. Breast cancer is a widely debated and mediatised subject in Romania, emphasizing the prevention programs in order to educate women for a healthy and harmonious way of life and to underline the importance of the prevention rather than fighting the disease. The inner modifications which occur at women once they are diagnosed with breast cancer are essential aspects which reflect the quality of life under its various aspects. Feelings such as: sadness, anger, concern, combined with anxiety and depression, together with physiological, psychological and physical troubles are important aspects of the disease which alter mental health and life quality of an adult woman which has been diagnosed with breast cancer. The general purpose of this study is to have an allaround view of the modifications wich occur in women once they are diagnosed with breast cancer and of the essential psychological aspects caused by these balance losses which reflect the quality of life and the changes in the relationship with the partner. The present work is intented to demonstrate the idea that there are important differences, at various levels concerning anxiety, depression, self-esteeem, quality of life and couple relationship between women breast cancer diagnosed women and healthy women.

Keywords: breast cancer, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, self-image, quality of life, couple relationship

Address of correspondence: mona.vintila@socio.uvt.ro

Abstract: The paper focuses one of the phenomena that have been on the rise in our country since 1989: delinquency. The present research tries to point out the differences regarding the pulsional factors between delinquents and persons that have never been convicted for a crime. It establishes pulsional profiles depending on the crime category, rape, pedophilia, murder, theft and robbery. In order to fulfill these objectives the Szondi projective test was used. The resulted data allowed establishing different pulsional profiles for the different crime categories involved.

Keywords: delinquent personality, typologies of delinquents, pulsional profiles

Abstract: Nautical professions differ from other occupations because they also entail a way of life. People engaging in the maritime professions must cope unique working conditions. The underlying assumption of this research is that a more effective selection test will reduce the drop-out rate by choosing the students – boys and girls – who are most suited to these studies in psychological, academic and temperamental terms, so that they will not drop out and will also become good professionals. A new selection process may also contribute to a higher student level and to a concomitant improvement in academic achievements. Based on the results at the task analysis of the students, we developed a selection model. The model implies several predictors, focusing on both the cognitive and the personality dimensions of the candidates and criteria against which the predictors could be validated. The selection model was tested and proved to be efficient in predicting future performance of the students. The results of our tests were synthesized in a selection strategy, to guide the further process of accepting the applicants to the school.

Keywords: nautical profession, selection test, psychological test battery

Abstract: This short story highlights an important element of a great man’s psychology. Perhaps, on the verge of death man (and even in the case of an “emperor”) could feel the necessity of recovering those emotive urges which everyday life, especially for a powerful man on Earth, deifies and suppresses under a blanket of Pharisaic egoism. Probably, an ingenuous, naif, poor and disadvantaged man could always keep alive a little flame, nearly a “fatuous” hope in himself. It is obvious that the novel is about the wholeness of the mental powers, which can include even archetypical elements and evidences of ancestral experiences; the effector Ego receives the sub-encephalic urges without adopting the role of the main character, but the Ego’s diligence is unquestionable. Actually, it would be also possible to suppose that consciously Kafka wants to describe a scene becoming a symbol not only of the courtiers’ hypocrisy and of incommunicability among men, but also of the objective difficulties in overcoming the obstacles getting into the “wish and its fulfilment”. Perhaps the author wants to highlight the impossibility to reach any meaningful aim in one’s short human life.

Keywords: emotive urges, pharisaic egoism, hope, meaning of life

Address of correspondence: tomassoni@unicas.it

Abstract: The Method of Infant Observation, created by Esther Bick, is one of the most known and apreciated method in child psychotherapist training. This method is originated in Freud, Abraham, Klein and Bick's concepts and it offers a deep access to the pacient's innate reality. The structure of this method is tripartite: 1. the observations themselves, occuring during a weekly visit, at a prearranged and regular time, during which the trainee comes to the home of a newborn baby and his or her family for an hour, over a period of one to two years; 2. the private written account of the encounter, noted down after the observation and including as many details as possible, both of the minutiae of the moment-by-moment action and interaction in the context of the infant and his or her surroundings, and also of the states of mind stirred in the observer; 3. the observations are brought to a small supervised seminar group where they are read out and commented upon, such groups providing a form of reflective processing in which the original observations can be benignly scrutinized. The way in which this method is functioning offers, both for the parents and for the students, the opportunity to improve their observational skills, to better understand their own emotional reactions and to better help their patients.

Keywords: infant observation, conscious and unconscious motivations, clinical implications

Address of correspondence: pansper@yahoo.com

Abstract: Kafka presents his a vision of man as an ephemeral and paretic being. He cannot stand the empty indifferent eye of those “walking skeletons” that, by giving up to true knowledge, fool themselves into a false insubstantial superiority. We could say that the whole story is supported by a clear-minded, aware Ego. The Ego is also aware of the ridicule which is implied in the very expression of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. In this story, on the scene we find the grotesque even if in a mood of sorrow; as matter of fact a bitter merciless irony underlies the worthlessness of the human being, in general.

Keywords: Homo Sapiens Sapiens, ephemeral and paretic being, insubstantial superiority, merciless irony

Address of correspondence: tomassoni@unicas.it

Abstract: The analytic attitude within interpretation and in the choice of making the countertransference a verbal or a nonverbal message proves to be, from the perspective of the contemporary psychoanalysis, a personal choice guided by the patient's pathology. If in “nevrosis” the mirror soliloqui proves to be a good choice, in borderline disorders, the patient might turn this approach into a pretext for initiating fits of delirium or deluging high aggressiveness, which may fully compromise the session or the whole course of the therapy. The “neurotic” does not entirely need the psychotherapist to keep playing the role of a “good enough mother”, who must stay „good”, whereas with the borderline case, the analyst must necessarily use his/her entire capacity to receive the patient's projective identifications and reshape them through his/her own efforts so to re-project them in the patient's psyche in order to get his reshaped reintroiections. The “neurotic” makes use of logical and rational interpretation whereas the borderline case have their own understanding of the interpretation derived from their never-met needs in their infancy.

Keywords: countertransference, borderline, infancy needs, interpretation

Address of correspondence: oanascorus@yahoo.com