Emotional Repression Research Articles

The Methodology of Syndrome Analysis within the Paradigm of "Qualitative Research in Clinical Psychology"

This article considers the potential for applying contemporary philosophical theories (which distinguish classical, nonclassical, and postnonclassical types of scientific rationality) to the specification of theoretical methodological principles in the study of clinical psychology. We prove that psychological syndrome analysis (developed by the Vygotsky–Luria–Zeigarnik school), taken as a system of principles for organizing research as well as for interpreting its results, conforms to the epistemological complexity of the object of study in clinical psychology, which is understood in the postnonclassical scientific view as a self-developing system. We present an example of the formation of a psychosomatic syndrome in 290 patients with mitral-valve prolapse, applying methods of qualitative and statistical data analysis in a longitudinal clinical-psychological study. We prove that the syndrome is system-defined and has a multilevel character, and that its structure is determined by several factors: the motivational factor (with the domination of the failure-avoidance motive and the unsatisfied self-approval need); the factor of the emotional-regulation disorders, represented by both excessive emotional repression and lack of emotional control; and a psychophysiological factor. We argue that a psychosomatic syndrome can be used as a means for approaching not only diagnostic but also prognostic tasks both in clinical psychology and in medicine. We conclude that the results of our empirical study, conducted within the framework of postnonclassical philosophy and using the methods of psychological syndrome analysis, not only expand the scientific background on the nature of a particular disease (mitral-valve prolapse) but also pose further questions whose investigation will broaden our view of the psychological mechanisms of psychosomatic- syndrome genesis.

Affectivité et alexithymie : deux dimensions explicatives des relations entre symptômes dépressifs et anxieux

The main objective of this study was to support the existence of emotional dimensions common to anxiety and depressive symptomatology, and confirm the common elements of emotional vulnerability, characterized by negative affectivity and alexithymia. The second objective of this study was the identification of characteristics specific to each disorder. We made three assumptions: there is a significant relationship between anxiety and depressive symptoms, exists on community processes between these two entities, objectified by the sub dimensions of negative affectivity and the difficulty in identifying emotions certain dimensions are specific to each disorder. The study participants were students from 1st to 4th year of the University of Provence. The sample consisted of 317 subjects (77% female and 23% male; mean age=20, 61 ± 1.55 years), who gave written informed consent and completed questionnaires collectively. We administered a protocol to the subjects consisting of three self-assessment scales to assess emotional dimensions and anxiety and depressive symptomatology. The dimensions of affectivity were assessed by the EPN-31. It consists of 31 items grouped into three factors: positive emotions, negative emotions and feelings of surprise. The emotional functioning was assessed by the scale of the Twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). It allows an overall assessment of the level of alexithymia, as well as three dimensions as represented by specific sub scales: difficulty identifying emotions (DIE), difficulty differentiating emotions (DDE), and externally oriented thinking (EOT). This scale is most used in the assessment of alexithymia. The anxiety and depressive symptoms were assessed by the subscale of anxiety and depression of the SCL90-R. This scale is widely used in screening for psychiatric symptoms, and has been validated internationally. we performed descriptive analysis, correlational analysis (Bravais-Pearson's correlation) and hierarchical multiple regression using SPSS 15 software. The results validate our assumptions, showing that women are more anxious (M=6.68 ± 6.20 ; P=0.02) and more depressed (M=10.61 ± 8.73 ; P=0.01) than men (mean-anxiety=4.77 ± 4.97 ; mean-depression-6=7.75 ; 53). They also have more "difficulty" identifying feelings (M=17.92 ± 5.95, P=0.01) than men (m=15.65 ± 6.00). The analysis of relationships between the different variables shows the existence of several significant connections. Among them we find a strong positive correlation (r>.50 ; P=0.01) between anxiety and depression. Moreover, these two symptoms maintain strong relationships (r>.50; P=0.01) with negative affectivity, moderate and negative with positive affectivity (r>.30; P=0.01), and moderate and low with emotional activation (r>.10; P=0.01). There are also significant relationships between affective symptoms and emotional dimensions of alexithymia: difficulty identifying feelings (r>.40; P=0.01) and difficulty describing emotions (r>.20; P=0.01). Finally, the regression analysis shows, for the anxiety factor, which only contribute significantly following dimensions: gender, negative affectivity, emotional activation and the two sub dimensions of alexithymia "difficulty identifying feelings" and "externally oriented thoughts", which explain 43% of the variance in scores (R(2)=.43, P=0.0001). Depression shares with the following dimensions: gender, negative affectivity, difficulty in identifying emotions, and includes a specific dimension, positive affectivity. This model explains 51% of the variance (R(2)=. 51, P=0.0001). However, the lack of contribution of emotional activation and "externally oriented thoughts" must be emphasized. Our study reveals the existence of a "common nucleus of vulnerability" characterized by negative affectivity associated with difficulty identifying emotions. Specific dimensions nevertheless appear to exist, and depression is strongly explained by low positive affect (anhedonia dimension); anxiety associated specifically to emotional activation and finally thought outward, marking the size limitation. The imaginary life in alexithymia, appears to operate in depression, perhaps as a mechanism of emotional repression. The involvement of alexithymia in the functioning of the affective disorder is confirmed, this helps to clarify the modalities of therapeutic care that we offer.

Evaluation of a Psychosocial Intervention on Social Support Perceived Control, Coping Strategies, Emotional Distress, and Quality of Life of Breast Cancer Patients

The purpose of this research was to demonstrate that a specific psychosocial intervention changes reactions to cancer and quality of life. This study was carried out on 66 patients with a first breast cancer. Patients were randomly divided into two groups: a specific intervention group (G1, 8 sessions) or a support group (G2, 8 sessions). A control group (G3) was composed of patients who refused to participate in psychological intervention. Social support, perceived control, repression of emotions, coping strategies, emotional distress, and quality of life were assessed one week before (T1) and at the end (T2) of the psychological intervention. Results showed that G1 did not have significantly modified quality of life or psychological scores. Patients of G2 had poorer emotional quality of life, use of internal causal attributions, and minimized their illness at T1 as compared to patients of G3. At Time 2 these differences were not observed.

Impact d’une campagne de sensibilisation sur le cancer sur un échantillon de femmes en traitement pour un premier cancer du sein

In 2007, the French National Cancer Institute initiated a cancer communication campaign entitled “We are two million ordinary heroes”. Aims of this study were to investigate perceptions about this campaign, for 34 women treated for breast cancer. Triangulation of the reports from narratives and assessment of psychological variables ensures better validity of the data. Three psychological identification processes have been identified: identification with the hero character with a value of emotional repression; adherence to content “ordinary” with low-level of perceived self-efficacy; no identification in response to a double-bind message, with sense-making process about traumatic event. These findings underscore the need to promote communication health campaigns taking into account possible effects of media discourse on individuals and families struggling with cancer.

Of Friendship: Revisiting Friendships between Men in American Literature

Traditionally, scholarship on men and masculinities has promoted the association of masculinity with emotional repression and containment. Moreover, emotional expressivity by men, when acknowledged, has usually been considered either apolitical or even politically conservative. However, this article attempts to question such traditional (mis)conceptions by exposing not only the existence but also the subversive political potential of men's emotions in American culture and literature. In particular, the study posits that strong emotional attachments between men could contribute not only to enriching men's emotional lives but also, and above all, to erasing sexism, racism, and homophobia from our societies. It is argued, therefore, that men's friendships with other men might play a fundamental role in promoting greater social equality, as American literature illustrates.

Caractéristiques psychologiques des patients coronariens en situation de gestion de la frustration

Objectives The aim of the present study is to investigate psychological characteristics of frustration management and their consequences in coronary patients. Methods A sample of N = 58 myocardial infarction patients completed questionnaires measuring self-efficacy (Schwarzer), negative affectivity and social inhibition (type D, Denollet), coping strategies (Coping Questionnaire for Coronary Patients [CQCP], Maës); Anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale [HADS], Zigmond and Snaith), quality of life after myocardial infarction (MacNew Heart Disease Health-related Quality of Life Questionnaire, Hillers) and frustration management (Picture Frustration Study [PFS], Rosenzweig). Results The results show that frustration management in coronary patients differs significantly from that of the reference population. During frustration management the coronary patients present comparatively higher levels of culpability (high I answers) or denial of the responsibility of others (high M answers), as well as lower levels of aggressiveness (low E answers) than the reference population. Furthermore, myocardial infarction patients tend to rather repress their feelings (few ED answers) and to look for active solutions (high NP answers) (Table 1). Patients with a high self-efficacy score look significantly more for active solutions in their frustration management (NP) ( r = 0.27), whereas patients with negative affectivity and social inhibition look for fewer solutions (respectively r = –0.31, r = –0.26). The social inhibition is significantly associated with answers of “Obstacle Dominance” (OD) ( r = 0.28). Within the four coping strategies studied, only the focusing on the problem resolution one is significantly linked to the frustration management responses. Patients using a problem-focused strategy show lower levels of “Ego Defence” for frustration management ( r = –0.31) and higher levels of “Need-Persistence” (NP) ( r = 0.31). Furthermore, results show that “Ego Defence” (ED) is positively related to anxiety ( r = 0.27), whereas “Need persistence” (NP) is negatively linked to anxiety ( r = –0.28) and negatively to depressive affects ( r = –0.29). Patients indicating more extrapunitive answers (E) report significantly lower levels of quality of life ( r = –0.29), whereas non-punitive answers (M) are associated with higher degrees of quality of life ( r = 0.31). No other significant associations were found between frustration answers and quality of life. Conclusions Emotional repression may be a short-term efficient strategy for the patients, allowing a distancing from the myocardial infarction trauma and increasing the quality of life. In the long-term, however, high levels of emotional repression could have negative effects on the global quality of life and the health of the patients.

Social Determinants of Education in the Postmodern Society

The main problem of postmodern society is how to deal with plurality, heterogeneity, and different lifestyles, values, experiences, specialization of sciences, and worldwide social developments, so that it would contribute to human dignity in a society. It is necessary to innovate teacher training and teacher readiness to help the young generation to deal with the choices and current social problems. The following social changes must be considered as determinants of all educational activities. 1. Freedom of speech, great possibilities to travel, enormous flow of information (sometimes antagonistic), mass advertising of all kinds of goods creates unrealistic vision of reality. 2. Economic growth is seen as the main priority of present society, justifying all means of reaching prosperity. 3. Parental care is reduced to ensuring satisfaction of material needs of their children, due to overwork and exhaustion. 4. Atrophy of emotionality and repression of emotions in favor of desired performance. That is why only very strong events break into ones mind and we need constantly stronger, more shocking experiences and stimuli. 5. Pressure on the family budget rises, and the number of free time activities provided by schools and educational institutions free of charge decreases. This represents a great barrier for many children in participating in free time activities. 6. New concepts of family coexistence, where parental roles constantly change lead to distorted socialization. 7. Recent school systems concentrate on efficiency of educational processes, performance, and reaching the required level of knowledge, but do not effectively manage social deviations of an individual. The difficulty of the situation of a young individual is obvious and should be considered in all educational contexts. Article in English

Rationality/Anti-emotionality Personality and Dietary Habits in a Community Population in Japan

BackgroundThere are no strong and consistent predictors of dietary habits although some associations have been shown with psychological factors. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships between the rationality and anti-emotionality (R/A) personality and dietary consumption in a Japanese community.MethodsThe Takayama study is a community-based cohort study on diet and cancer in Gifu, Japan, and was initiated on September 1, 1992. Cross-sectional analyses were conducted on dietary and lifestyle data. The consumption of 169 food and beverage items was measured along with portion size by using a food frequency questionnaire. Questions regarding the R/A-personality scale and lifestyle habits were included in the questionnaire. The participants were 28077 adults (13082 males and 14995 females) aged 35 years and over.ResultsBoth males and females with high R/A-personality scores (i.e., high degree of rational thought and emotional repression) consumed more soy products, green and yellow vegetables, other vegetables, and seaweed than the other participants. Males with high R/A-personality scores drank fewer alcoholic beverages, and females with high scores were found to snack less on sweet and salty foods than the other participants. Males with high R/A-personality scores showed higher consumption of meat and dairy products, and females with high scores showed higher consumption of fish, shellfish, and eggs than those with low R/A-personality scores.ConclusionThe R/A-personality scale may differentiate dietary habits in males and females in a Japanese community.

De la non-expression à la surexpression des émotions ou comment l’expérience émotionnelle repose la question des liens entre sexe, alexithymie et répression

Objectives Alexithymia, considered as a disorder of affect regulation, is well known for its consequences on the vulnerability to negative emotions, but nevertheless it raises the question of the repressive dimension according to Myers’ (1995) and Newton and Contrada’s (1994) researches. If, under certain conditions, alexithymia refers to this dimension we should observed traces of this repressive behaviour on emotional distress. We thus studied the influence of alexithymia scores on trait anxiety, state anxiety and depression, and this relatively to the gender of the participants. Methodology We first compared the mean scores of distress of our three groups of subjects (low alexithymia, N = 32; moderate alexithymia, N = 62, high alexithymia, N = 33) with the norms of the general population. Secondly, we studied the consequences of alexithymia intensity on depressive symptoms, trait and state anxiety, with regard to the gender differences. We used 1) the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger) to assess dispositional and acute anxiety, 2) the Center for Epidemiological Scale for Depression (Radloff) to evaluate depressive symptomatology and 3) the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Bagby) for the alexithymia construct. Results In the lower alexithymia group, the total mean scores of depression for men or women (men: 8.06 ± 7.06; women: 8.88 ± 6.84) were significantly lower than those in the general population (men: 12.73 ± 3.02; women: 13.97 ± 3.62). We obtained the same pattern of consequences of a low alexithymia with regard to trait anxiety (men: 32.73 ± 10.20 versus 41.86 ± 9.48; women: 37.17 ± 8.48 versus 45.09 ± 11.11). Finally, there was no difference between the lower alexithymia group mean scores and the general population references, regardless of gender. In addition, in our group of women, the higher the alexithymia mean scores, the more important were the depression (F(2,68) = 21.13, P ≤ 0.000), trait anxiety (F(2,68) = 12.51, P ≤ 0.000) and state anxiety (F(2,68) = 6.72, P ≤ 0.002) mean scores. The male participants did not show a particular vulnerability to the alexithymia intensity, except for trait anxiety in the moderate condition (t(43) = –2.30, P ≤ 0.026). Conclusion Our results support the reality of the emotional repression in the condition of lower alexithymia and raise the question of the links between alexithymia and gender. Indeed, emotional experience follows different and surprising ways, inviting us to think about the relevance of a differentiation of the type of alexithymia according to whether one is a man or a woman.

Catharsis and other heresies: A theory of emotion.

This article first discusses the development of concepts then reviews the literature on catharsis. A new theory is proposed to integrate social, psychological, and neurological components. It builds upon a socio-biological model of emotions by John Dewey and G. H. Mead who proposed that the initiation and climax of bodily emotion process are instinctive, and that conscious feeling occurs to the extent that climax is delayed. This article further develops Shibutani’s application of the Dewey-Mead model. The climax idea, together with the concept of an optimal distance for experiencing emotions, seems to explain otherwise puzzling phenomena. It also points toward the conditions under which bodily processes such as laughing and crying become cathartic. The new theory shows the relationship between distancing, role-taking, pendulation in somatic therapy, and recent studies of mirror neurons. One implication of the new theory is that in modern societies emotions may be frequently initiated but seldom achieve resolution. Collective repression of emotions may be one the main causes of large-scale violence.

Understanding the Complexity of Love in Brokeback Mountain: An Analysis of the Film and Short Story

This essay examines the complexity of the love that develops between Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, the protagonists of Brokeback Mountain. We argue that the heterosexist mindset of 1960s-80s American culture and lack of a nurturing and empathetic upbringing from fathers in particular preclude the establishment of a healthy openly public partnership between two men in love. Both Ennis and Jack struggle with emotional repression resulting from childhood abuse and the expectations of hypermasculinity.

Professorn och kärleken - Sexuella trakasserier i fiktion och verklighet

"The professor in love: Sexual harassment in fiction and real life", by Cristine Sarrimo, senior lecturer in culture studies. Our scholarly and scientific ideals rarely allow the professional subject to be contextually situated; the researcher and teacher is supposed to have a strictly rational and objective approach, not only to his or her own profession, but also on matters involving passions and feelings. These rational ideals are based on the assumption that the division between reason and emotion, and the private and public, is possible to maintain. But academic institutions and their regulative authorities must handle emotionally charged conflicts. These disciplining procedures, meant to regulate the private and emotive sphere, are in reality a central part of how the academic subject is constituted. A comparative discourse analysis, based on J M Coetzee's novel Disgrace and an authentic case of sexual harassment, involving a professor and his student at a Swedish university, shows that it is necessary for the accused to embrace an emotive discourse, with religious and legal confessional traits, if he desires to protect his rationally constructed professionalism. Coetzee's heroe refuses to confess and is consequently disgracefully dismissed. Ethical dilemmas arise concerning the status of truth and the confessional, but power- and gender relations are also influenced in an intricate manner. The public and private, the emotive and rational, is intertwined in a complicated relational process, where professional and gender hierarchies shift. This leads to the conclusion thatthe professional academic subject is exposed to a discursively regulated disciplining process in which the supposed repression of emotion is essential, and therefore one of the subjecfs most constitutive traits.

Forging a link between cognitive and emotional repression

Erdelyi distinguishes between cognitive and emotional forms of repression, but argues that they use the same general mechanism. His discussion of experimental memory findings, on the one hand, and clinical examples, on the other, does indeed indicate considerable overlap. As an in-between level of evidence, research findings on emotion in neuroscience, as well as experimental and social/personality psychology, further support his argument.

“Notice How You Feel”: An Alternative to Detached Concern Among Hospice Volunteers

Medical schools teach physicians to practice "detached concern," a simultaneous emotional distance from and sensitivity toward their patients. Medical students learn detachment to protect themselves from emotion-laden experiences, including death and dying, by employing mechanisms of defense and adjustment, such as suppression and repression of emotions. In this study, the author inquires whether hospice volunteers are trained for and practice detached concern and finds that hospice volunteers are trained for concern. They are concerned for the well-being of patients and their families. The author argues that concern is a social product that can be trained; hospice volunteers are not trained to suppress and repress their emotions, and the hospice as an institution produces and transmits cultural norms, values, and practices surrounding death and dying, thus maintaining a pool of concerned volunteers.

Breaking Loose: Frederick Faber and the Failure of Reserve

Frederick William Faber holds an uneasy position among the Tractarian poets. One of their brightest hopes in the late 1830s and early 1840s, in terms of his considerable poetic gifts which could, it was hoped, be harnessed in the service of religion, he was also (after Newman) the most sensational example of "perversion" from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. After his dramatic conversion in 1845, Faber went on to become one of the most extreme practitioners of ultra-montane Catholicism and the founder of the London Oratory, known for his devotion to Mary and his patron saint, standing for everything that conservative Protestantism most despised. He continued to write poetry and hymns throughout his life and his early works were republished after his conversion, but there are some marked differences between the subject-matter and language of the poems written as an Anglican, and those written or revised as a dedicated Catholic priest. Roman Catholicism appeared to provide Faber with an outlet for his intensely emotional poetics, a license to express passionate love for Christ and Mary. The poems published during his High Anglican years and his comments on his poetics in letters from that time, in contrast, display tension in their expression of strong feeling—particularly when that feeling is directed not to God but to a specific person—and seem to regard emotional release as self-indulgent and potentially dangerous. Much of Faber's early poetry consists of fairly standard Wordsworthian hymns to the beauty of Nature and sentimental memories of his time spent in Oxford, Europe, and the Lakes. But the poems addressed to his male friends and those specifically dealing with Tractarian issues stand out for their intense engagement with feeling and faith, and raise questions about the nature of male friendships and, more generally, about the relation between reserve and release, which were to have significant implications for Anglican poetics in the succeeding decades. The young Faber, charming, handsome, and (according to himself) fatally attractive to both sexes, was always regarded with some suspicion by the more sedate Tractarian leaders. Where Keble and Pusey largely sought to defuse controversy and downplay the radical and Catholic tendencies of Tractarian thought, Faber courted controversy and was drawn to extremes in both religion and poetry. Where they advocated reserve, submission, humility, [End Page 25] and the concealment or repression of intense emotion, and represented these practices in their poetry and sermons, Faber's poems walk a thin line between respectable reserve and flamboyant revelation. As I will argue here, he pushed the boundaries of what could be done and said within a Tractarian mode to the extent that his most striking poems effectively shattered the formal and linguistic confines of Anglican verse. His poems gesture toward the poetic theories of Keble and Isaac Williams, while self-consciously agonizing over their failure to conform to them. Indeed, it is this failure, this sense of transgression, which then becomes the subject matter of many of his finest poems and letters. Faber was born in 1814 to a family who were largely Evangelical in their beliefs. He attended Harrow and then Oxford, where he was an undergraduate at Balliol from 1832 to 1836 and later a Fellow at University College. Besides his Oxford connections, he knew Wordsworth well as a result of leading reading parties in Ambleside in the late 1830s. In fact, he has been credited with influencing Wordsworth's much debated move toward a more High Church position in his later poems.1 Faber also worked as tutor to the Harrison family in Ambleside in 1840 and was a deacon there in 1842. In 1843 he followed one of his mentors, Keble, in making the idealistic decision to give up hopes of Oxford preferment in favor of working as a minister to a country parish, Elton. In the event, he remained there for only a short time before conversion. Faber's Oxford years corresponded neatly to the period when Tractarianism was shaped as...

The efficacy of creative arts therapies to enhance emotional expression, spirituality, and psychological well-being of newly diagnosed Stage I and Stage II breast cancer patients: A preliminary study

Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer among women in the United States. The psychological impact of the disease may include adjustment disorders, depression, and anxiety and may generate feelings of fear, anger, guilt, and emotional repression. The purpose of this pilot study was to explore the efficacy of a complementary creative arts therapy intervention to enhance emotional expression, spirituality, and psychological well-being in newly diagnosed breast cancer patients. Thirty-nine women with Stage I and Stage II breast cancer were randomly assigned to an experimental group who received individual creative arts therapy interventions or a control group of delayed treatment. A series of analyses of covariance were used to analyze the results, which indicated the intervention was not effective in enhancing the emotional approach coping style of emotional expression or level of spirituality of subjects in this sample. However, participation in the creative arts therapy intervention enhanced psychological well-being by decreasing negative emotional states and enhancing positive ones of experimental group subjects. Recommendations for future research are discussed.

Coping with emotions and abuse history in women with chronic pelvic pain

Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate whether past abuse and the tendency to repress or suppress unwanted thoughts and emotions contribute to the experience of pain in patients with chronic pelvic pain (CPP). Methods A group of CPP patients without endometriosis and a group with endometriosis were compared with a pain-free control group. Participants completed measures of pain, emotional repression, suppression of unwanted thoughts and emotions, and past abuse history. Results Both CPP groups were more likely to be emotional suppressors when compared with the control group and reported significantly higher levels of thought suppression and abuse. Endometriosis patients were also more likely to be repressors of emotions when compared with controls. Suppression but not repression was related to higher levels of abuse and pain. Conclusion Suppression of unwanted thoughts and emotions and past abuse distinguishes CPP patients from healthy controls. Assisting patients to express distressing emotions may impact on pain levels.

Shakespeare's Visual Theatre: Staging the Personified Characters by Frederick Kiefer (review)

MLRy 100.3, 2005 765 with Marlowe's Machiavel, revenger, weak king surrounded by turmoil, irresistible warrior, magician, balcony scene, ete. Knutson's account thereby comprises a par? tial checklist of Marlowe's influence on his contemporaries, especially Shakespeare. David Bevington in 'Staging the A- and B-Texts of Doctor Faustus' also emphasizes commercial considerations, ones that led to the B-text's later, more elaborate pro? duction. Insightfully inferringthe staging requirements for each version, Bevington increases our understanding of B's spectacular effects,vaudevillian comedy, and militant Protestantism. In 'Tamburlaine the Great in Performance' David Fuller supplies an account of productions directed by Tyrone Guthrie (1951), Peter Hall (1976-77), and Terry Hands (1992-93). This essay reveals the variety of performance options that have been realized and also comments thoughtfully on performance possibilities. Fuller's essay is essential for Mario we performance study. The second section concerns genre, starting with Maurice Charney's argument that Hero and Leander supplied a model for Venus and Adonis. Charney's engaging appreciation provides, like Bevington's, a definitive overview of a familiar issue. Since there is no smoking gun, it really can be said to demonstrate how Marlowe's would have worked on Shakespeare's if it in fact did. Rick Bowers, 'Hysterics, High Camp, and Dido, Queene ofCarthage', finds Marlowe using pastiche, hyperbole, and Aeneas's hysterical grief to empty the classical tradition of its power, all for the liberating fun of it. Sara Munson Deats's 'Marlowe's Interrogative Drama' concerns genre less than a seminal Marlovian dialogical sensibility that founded the celebrated multiconsciousness of early modern drama. While the terms of some illustrative 'rabbit-duck' readings seem cramped, Deats places them in a rich context of rhetorical scholarship and theory,offeringpromising insights. The thesis deserves a book. The third section involves cultural contexts. Reworking material from her book on treason and drama, Karen Cunningham,'" For sake thyking and do but joinwithme": Marlowe and Treason', reveals the connections between the discourse oftreason in the Babington plot trials and in Marlowe's plays. That discourse contributes to emerging notions of nationhood and patriotism, and in the trials it accuses nomadism, per? sonal alliances, and subversive fantasies. Challenging this inflection, the plays present friendship as a disruptive but positive political force. GeorgiaE. Brown's 'Tampering with the Records: Engendering the Political Community and Marlowe's Appropriation ofthe Past in Edward IF explores another area where Marlowe's work challenges developing notions of Englishness: the writing of history. Where Holinshed offersa model of English character based on the repression of emotions, Edward II with its Ovidian rhetoric demonstrates that erotic desire and private experience are essential and legitimate, if disruptive, forces of English history. Finally, Randall Nakayama's ' "I know she is a courtesan by her attire": Clothing and Identity in The Jew ofMalta' is both learned and sophisticated. It takes up Edward II as well, showing how cloth? ing signifies and how it exercises power over wearer and observer, a power registered by statute. But what the wearer intends may diverge widely from what the observer perceives. University of Nevada Charles Whitney Shakespeare's Visual Theatre: Staging the Personified Characters. By Frederick Kiefer. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. 2003. xiv + 358pp. ?50; $70. ISBN 0-521-82725-6. Frederick Kiefer's book is a lavishly illustrated and interesting account of how Shake? speare's personified characters would have been staged, based on pictorial traditions. In the introduction Kiefer argues that in Renaissance England 'the everyday objects 766 Reviews that people wore, handled, and used in their homes [. . .] reveal a delight in the vi? sual' (p. 6). Kiefer sees the theatre as the culminating site of this phenomenon, 'the intersection of a culture that, while investing the word with supreme (religious) im? portance, simultaneously finds both pleasure and edification in what the eyes behold' (p. 9). Kiefer looks specifically at 'literal abstractions' in Shakespeare's plays, 'figures that achieve a theatrical effectchieflythrough visual formand whose meaning involves symbolic interpretation', with a threefold purpose: to 'reconstruct the appearance of the personifications', to 'explain the symbolism of costumes and props', and to 'assess the significance ofsuch symbolic characters forthe plays in...

Repressive coping before and after diagnosis of breast cancer.

The aim was to investigate to which extent emotional repression is a premorbid coping tendency of cancer patients and/or a coping response to the threat posed by a cancer diagnosis. The results of one previous study of breast cancer patients suggest the latter possibility, and our aim was to replicate and extend these findings. Of 646 women referred to mammographic examination for breast cancer, 71 women were diagnosed with primary breast cancer. Repressive coping, defined as having high scores on defensiveness (Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale) and low scores on anxiety (Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale), was measured (1) before, (2) 4 weeks after, and (3) 12 weeks after diagnosis. The women were not aware of their disease status before the examination, and there were no significant differences between groups in their perceived risk of having breast cancer. Four weeks after diagnosis, increased repression (p < 0.01) was found in the group of women diagnosed with breast cancer but not in women without cancer, with women with a breast cancer diagnosis being 1.5 times more likely to be repressive than women with cancer. There were no group differences in defensiveness, anxiety, or repression before diagnosis and 12 weeks after diagnosis. When controlling for repressive coping prior to diagnosis, age, and other demographic factors with a multiple, logistic regression, only cancer diagnosis (odds ratio: 2.39; p< 0.05) and having biological children (odds ratio: 2.83; p< 0.02) emerged as significant predictors of repressive coping 4 weeks after diagnosis. Before diagnosis, only higher age predicted later diagnosis of breast cancer. Previously found higher repression in cancer patients vs. controls could be a response to the threat associated with cancer diagnosis and may not necessarily reflect premorbid differences.

Emotional repression—premorbid trait or coping response to a diagnosis of breast cancer?

Emotional repression—premorbid trait or coping response to a diagnosis of breast cancer?