Incompetence to refuse treatment: a necessary condition for civil commitment.

The recent U.S. District Court decision in A.E. and R.R. v. Mitchell held that psychiatric patients who are civilly committed under the Utah statute have no constitutional right to refuse treatment for the mental illness that led to their commitment. This unique law incorporates a judicial determination of competency to refuse treatment at the time of the commitment hearing and thus circumvents the objection to involuntary treatment raised in Rogers v. Okin. A number of psychiatrists have urged the use of this determination of competency, and recently the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held it to be the sine qua non for the state's use of parens patriae power in compelling committed patients to accept neuroleptic medication.

Side effects of light therapy in seasonal affective disorder.

The authors report the frequency of side effects of light therapy in 105 patients with seasonal affective disorder treated with three intensities of light. Common symptoms to emerge during treatment were headache (19%), eyestrain (17%), and feeling "wired" (14%). There was no relationship between side effects and intensity of light used.

Treatment of seasonal affective disorder with morning light.

Three subjects afflicted with seasonal affective disorder (winter depression) were treated with 2-hour morning light exposures. Within 2 to 5 days, all responded, and remission of their symptoms was sustained during the 2-month treatment period.

Light visor treatment for seasonal affective disorder: a multicenter study.

The effectiveness of light therapy in seasonal affective disorder (SAD) was evaluated in 105 subjects across five centers. Three intensities of light (60 lux, 600 lux, and 3500 lux) were used in a 2-week randomized, parallel design. There was no significant difference in antidepressant efficacy of the three intensities of light. All three intensities produced a similar frequency of antidepressant response to each other and to that reported in previous studies. There were site differences in the severity of depression during light treatment, but diagnosis and medication status did not affect antidepressant response. These findings suggest that light therapy has an antidepressant action by a nonspecific effect or that light is biologically active in the treatment of SAD across a wide range of intensities.

[Antigenicity and allergenicity of acarians. Study of 7 varieties in a population of 33 allergic patients]. / Antigénicité et allergénicité des acariens. Etude de 7 variétés sur une population de 33 patients allergiques.

A population of 33 patients who were known to be sensitive to mites were studied by the authors to establish whether 7 types of mites were responsible. A complementary and comparative study by the same Immunology laboratory compared the RAST and TDBH values as an addition to the skin test responses. The role of storage mites seemed to be sufficiently clear to advise increase in systematic research. The discovery of possibly frequent presence of Pyroglyphus africanus was a discovery that justifies other epidemiological and ethnic investigations.

Paraphilias in U.S. pornography titles: "pornography made me do it" (Ted Bundy).

In 1986, the U.S. Commission on pornography reviewed 3,050 separate magazine and book titles sold in "adults only" pornographic outlets randomly selected in Washington, DC; Baltimore, MD; Miami, FL; Philadelphia, PA; New York, NY; and Boston, MA. Of these, 746 titles could be assigned to a DSM III-R paraphilia category (513 titles if the category partialism is excluded). Incest was listed as a category separately from pedophilia. Thus, 16.8 percent of the titles could be assigned to a paraphilia category (24.4% of all titles, if partialism is included as a category). Paraphilia distribution is discussed. Sadomasochism was by far the most common paraphilia (49.9%) while incest titles comprised 21.4 percent of the perversions. The frequency distribution for the U.S. material is compared with titles reviewed by the Victoria (Australia) State Classification of Publications Board and previously reported by the author.

Psychological and psychiatric aspects of a coerced-internalized false confession.

This paper provides an insight into the mechanism of a coerced-internalized type of false confession. The case involved an American airman who confessed to the murder of a close friend after "failing" four polygraph tests. Psychological and psychiatric reports were prepared at the request of the defence and the findings were presented at a military hearing. The airman's confession was ruled involuntary, leading to a dismissal of the charges. The authors discuss the case with reference to the relevant literature on false confession and pseudomemories.