Acta psychiatrica Belgica最新文献

The states of sleep in man (orthodox and paradoxical sleep) are the achievement of a long evolution which has successively integrated several mechanisms. The circadian clock (predictive homeostasis) a system responsible for saving energy utilisation, a mechanism which adapts the duration of sleep to the preceding duration of waking (reactive homeostasis) and finally the apparition of an ultradian pace maker in homeothermic mammals which will be responsible for dreaming in man.

The problem of the emergence of ethical conduct is considered in the perspective of the neo-darwinian scheme and thus of the survival value of actions complying to this definition. After a brief recall of basic ethological principles, the applications of the cultural character to certain behaviour patterns of primates is analysed and introduces the concept of value. The emergence of symbolic and reflexible language in the course of the evolution of the ancestors of Homo sapiens is discussed. The ethical order is defined as a code liable to qualify actions which were originally programmed. The consequences of this duality of codes governing a same action are discussed.

The development of quantitative techniques to analyse psychopathological states is reviewed from the XVIIIth Century till today. As far as back as the XIXth Century, Quetelet, Louis and Galton introduced and advocated the use of quantitative methods in medical and psychological sciences. The advent of psychometry dates back 1905, when Alfred Binet published his Intelligence Scale. The construction of instruments like Wechsler and MMPI scales in the forties starts using psychometry in psychiatry. At end of World War II, historical factors (selection and guidance of military recruits) in conjunction with technical advancements (beginning of psychopharmacology, multivariate statistics development and first computers arrival) favor the growth of quantitative psychopathology that further takes four great different courses: 1. Psychometry proper, 2. Symptom-quantifying assessment scales such as BPRS or Hamilton scales, 3. New nosological models constructed using quantified psychopathological data and mathematical procedures, 4. Diagnostic systems relying on operationalized criteria based on psychopathological quantification, such as DSM III.

The aim of this paper is to present the evolutionary considerations of McLean about the "Triune Brain". This author described by this term a hierarchy of three-brains-in-one, consisted by three evolutionary formations, radically different in structure and in chemistry. They are characterized as reptilian, paleomammalian, and neomammalian. Each of them plays an important role in the regulation of behavior, but there heterogeneity can induce schizophreniform ideas and feelings. Mc Lean speculations about Psychiatry emphasize genetic and biological factors in the genesis of mental disorders and lead to neglect the role of socio-cultural and familial factors.

The present paper discusses the respective benefits of a latent trait model and of factorial correspondence analysis in the research strategies of depression inventory construction. Results on the processing of the same list of depressive symptoms by both analyses are presented. The fact that, in questionnaires based on latent models, each answer brings an information closely dependent on its place in the hierarchical order is underlined. The latent trait strategy construction offers an accurate way to assess how patients recover from depression.

Through its rules and laws, every therapeutic institution provides patients with structuring. Due to relations of transference and counter-transference, therapists are faced with the concept of unconscious. Whereby the psycho-dynamic view and questioning it entails, institutional therapies raise to an increased respect for patients and a new dimension of pleasure.