Word: symptom
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...exhaustive follow-up studies required to assess the possible limitations of behavioral therapy are just beginning. Psychiatrists wonder how thorough and long-lasting any behavioral treatment-reinforcement or otherwise-can be. To them, "sick" or unusual behavior is a sign of underlying psychosis; no matter how many external symptoms are extinguished, they fear that the deeper problem will keep rising to the surface. Reinforcement experts answer that they have yet to see such "symptom substitution" in their patients...
...MUST be said, in the administration's defense, that Harvard officials had a lot of things to do during April besides catering to the press. But the lack of professionalism which attended Harvard's treatment of reporters during the strike was just a symptom of a deeper and growing alienation and distrust between Harvard officials and reporters...
Panic was their principal symptom. It is not hard to see why. In the wolf-pack society of the cattle and mining towns where most of the man-killers hung their Stetsons, the gunfighter was top dog and therefore fair game for every pup that put metal on his leg. Inevitably, the hot shots became permanently over-adrenalized. In addition to a brace of hog-legs, anxious brawlers carried as many as four "stingy guns" concealed in their clothing. Even the great Wyatt Earp grew so tense, one story goes, that his bowels refused to move properly for a year...
...frequent symptom is Abnormal Tabulology, which is any unusual arrangement of the desk, such as Phonophilia (installing a panoply of telephones, pushbuttons, flashing lights and loudspeakers) or Papyrophobia (the "clean desk" syndrome, indulged in because "every piece of paper is a reminder of the work the papyrophobe cannot do"). Other signs of the syndrome include Cachinatory Inertia, "the habit of telling jokes instead of getting on with business," as well as Side-Issue Specialization, a commonplace substitute for competence characterized by the motto: "Look after the molehills and the mountains will look after themselves...
...crime wave is the most frightening symptom of breakdown and change, but it is only part of the capital's trauma. Washington is now 67% Negro-by far the highest ratio of any major U.S. city-and the slums have expanded as blacks arrived and whites departed for the suburbs. The flight of middle-class residents and their tax revenues has placed increased demands on municipal services for the poor and made them that much less adequate. Hardest hit is the public-school system, which some real estate agents now frankly warn home buyers to avoid...