The purpose of the present study was to investigate the sleep of people diagnosed as suffering from chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Dkorder (PTSD). The sleep of seven chronic post-traumatic patients with no known physical injuries was compared with that of seven matched control subjects. The post-traumatic patients had poorer sleep: decreased sleep efficiency, increase in number of awakenings, and decreased SWS, as well as longer REM latency. It was also found that their complaints correlated with relevant sleep-monitored measures. The findings add further support for the inclusion of sleep difficulties in the definition of the Post-Traumatic S t r w Dirorder.

Eleven latency-age (6 1/2 to 12 1/2) boys and girls who attempted or threatened suicide were investigated by means of the following information: intensive interviews, therapeutic meetings, direct observation in school, meetings with teachers, and survey of school records. The families of the children were also interviewed. In spite of the many differences between the children's personalities and backgrounds, some common dynamic features seemed to emerge: (a) There was a suicidal parent in the family, in most cases the mother; (b) Most of the families of these children were engaged in a major crisis, not necessarily centered around the suicidal child; (c) The children experienced demands by the parents to assume responsibilities which the children perceived as being beyond their capability; (d) There was a lack of satisfying relationships with adults; (e) Most children perceived death in a paradoxical way, believing that death was a need satisfying state yet fearing death; (f) The children showed strong positive strivings to say alive and were able to experience joy and happiness in spite of feelings of desperation and depression. A model based on the above multifaceted forces is presented. These forces consist of attractiveness of life, repulsiveness of life, attractiveness of death, and repulsiveness of death. Some of diagnostic and predictive uses of this model are elaborated.

Based on the assumption that the mental aspect of REM sleep is an extreme state of divergent thinking, it was hypothesized that the psychological effect of REM deprivation varies on a dimension of creativity versus rote learning. On the creativity pole, REM deprivation has a damaging effect, while on the rote learning pole, it has a beneficial effect. The subjects (.Ss) were 12 male undergraduate students. Each spent 3 nights in the laboratory. Ss served us their own controls, with 5 days separating the REM deprivation and the non‐REM deprivation nights. Before going to bed, each of the Ss was given 4 tasks, on which testing took place the fallowing morning. Comparable tasks, in a balanced design, were used on the REM deprivation and on the non‐REM deprivation nights, The tasks given were: (a) serial memory, (b) “clustering” memory, (c) word fluency, and (d) Guilford's Utility Test. Results showed a significant decrement in creativity (the Guilford's Utility Test), and a significant increment in role memory (the serial memory task), due to REM deprivation. No significant differences were found for the other 2 tasks used, which were somewhere in‐between the two extreme poles of creativity and role learning. These results might explain earlier, contradictory findings in this area. These results lend further support to the general assumption that REM sleep is used by the organism for internal information processing. However, an additional assumption has to be. made, that this processing is divergent and not convergent.

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To examine correlations among chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), control-related beliefs, and sleep difficulties 7 PTSD casualities and 7 non-PTSD matched subjects were compared in their laboratory sleep patterns as well as in their beliefs about personal control over external and internal events in general and over sleep-related events in particular. Analyses indicated that PTSD casualties had poorer sleep and reported more doubts regarding their ability to control external and internal events than control subjects. Further, we found a significant association between perceived control and sleep difficulties. Results were discussed in terms of Horowitz's conception of intrapsychic processes related to PTSD.