Word: behavior
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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After excluding patients whose insomnia may have resulted from some other condition, such as depression, researchers divided the remaining 78 subjects into four groups. One group took the sleeping pill Restoril. The second group underwent cognitive-behavior therapy designed, among other things, to promote better sleep habits. The third group received both medication and behavior therapy, and the last group took a placebo, or sugar pill. Each of the groups was treated for eight weeks...
...surprisingly, the sleeping pills helped test subjects sleep longer right away. But the results were not really different, at least in the short term, from those provided by behavior therapy and the combined treatment. And when the researchers contacted their subjects two years later, only the behavior- therapy group had maintained its initial recovery. As soon as participants stopped taking sleeping pills, the sleepless nights returned...
...Intrigued? You should be. Any description of New York invariably lapses into superlatives, and it's not hard to see why. What can one say when in the face of a city that so unabashedly proclaims its own preeminence? The fact is, even though it's been on good behavior for the past couple of years, New York still breeds a culture of dizzying excess perfectly suited to those who'd like to lose the scarlet H for a few days in a blur of neon lights, rattling subways and the raunchiest late-night public access TV around...
...distinction can be made between suicidal behavior that reflects an overwhelming wish to die (and is therefore often successful), and behavior that is really an expression of a wish to live, but requiring help to do so. (It is ironic that sometimes one feels that the only way to get the help needed to live is to express and communicate a wish to die.) There may be times when suicide is seen as an appropriate death, but it is most often the result of an inability to consider and accept alternative options...
Whatever the motivation, all suicidal behavior must be taken seriously since self-destructive behavior can be carried out without a good knowledge of anatomy or pharmacology, and a cry for help can inadvertently turn into a terminal event. As I mentioned before, the knowledge that there is someone who cares and is responsive is often life saving, but it should be seen only as a first step--as a conduit to professional resources. Experienced clinicians can help the individual keep options open and better understand the underlying troubles and conflicts and the range of realistic choices that life...