Intracerebral Mechanism for Internal Verbalization in Collage Work

Abstract

Previously, we reported that therapeutic factors of collage work are 1) visualization effects, 2) taking-in effects and 3) verbalization effects. It was assumed that when a subject of collage work therapy is asked to describe thinking and feeling images about 15 years after the therapy, the subject reencounters the previous thinking and feeling images via clipped pictures or photos as a stimulating vehicle, and has a dialogue with the own constructed work. This was termed as internal verbalization. In the present report, an electroencephalographic study was made to clarify the mechanism of internal verbalization in collage work. The subjects consisted of a young group (mean age of 21.1 years) and a middle-old group (mean age of 59.6 years). Each group was classified into Group I of improved with more than 4 factors of POMS and Group II of not-improved (improved with less than 3 factors). For each subject 1) psychological tests and 2) EEG were conducted. The latter test included 8 tasks. In the psychological tests, Group I of the young group showed improvements in 2 factors of POMS ([T-A] and [C]), [A] of TEG and anxiety-mood disorder of GHQ30, whereas Group II of the young group did not exhibit any improvement and worsening. On the other hand, in the psychological tests, Group I of the middle-old group exhibited improvements in 5 factors of POMS ; [T-A], [D], [A-H], [F] and [C] and general morbidity of GHQ 30, whereas Group II showed neither of improvement and worsening. Regarding the number of POMS factors improved, both the young group and the middle-old one showed that the image of young age and that of works were significantly different in Group I (p < 0.05) and Group II (p < 0.01). When the mean amplitude ratio of a -wave (O2/O1) in the right and left occipital lobe was compared, the image thinking type dominant in the right hemisphere was significantly more distinct in Group I than Group II. Also, it seemed that the group improved in POMS factors was more likely to present image thinking type than the not-improved group. On the other hand, the cerebral activities of middle-old group were found to be the verbal type to all 8 tasks and those were dominant in the left hemisphere. These findings suggest that various psychological approaches should be designed for collage work therapy taking consideration of the differences in cerebral activities between the young group and the middle-old one.