Peter Todd

Psychoneuroimmunological study of HIV seropositive and negative subjects

University of New South Wales, Immunology/ St Vincent's Hospital

Sydney AIDS Project

Sydney, Australia

Psychosocial, Psychoneuroimmunology, HIV/AIDS, antibody status, immunity, morbidity, mortality. Funding for psychosocial and psychoneuroimmunological research, particularly longitudinal studies is difficult to obtain in Australia. Hence a proposed and designed longitudinal study of 1250 subjects was unable to be conducted, in spite of promising preliminary results reported at the 1986 Paris AIDS Conference and to the Australian College of Clinical Psychologists. I am now in private practice as a consultant.

Conceptualizing Psychoneuroimmonological Aspects of AIDS Research

University of California, Langley-Porter Psychiatric Institute

Biopsychosocial AIDS Project, University of California, San Francisco

San Francisco, United States of America

AIDS, Biopsychosocial, Psychoneuroimmunology, morbidity, mortality

Neuropsychiatric Institute

University of New South Wales, Psychiatry

Dementia Projects and Brain/Behaviour Research Studies

Sydney, Australia

Neuropsychology, evaluation of neurological disorders, cognitive dysfunction, psychophysical and brain behaviour relationships, psychosurgical procedures used to alleviate psychiatric conditions.Including intractable epilepsy and related disorders thought to involve such limbic system structures as the amygdala and frontal dyscontrol.

Doctor and patient in breast cancer diagnosis

University of New South Wales, Medicine/ Surgery

Australian Cancer Society

Sydney, Australia

cancer, psychological aspects, education programs

Determinants of behaviour and outcome in women with symptoms of breast cancer

University of New South Wales, Surgery

Department of Surgery

Sydney, Australia

Unconscious, ego-defences and affects, delay, biopsy, malignancy. Research funding to continue this project could not be obtained, in spite of the quality, peer-reviewed publications which resulted and are listed under journal articles. The study itself was essentially one providing construct validation for the psychoanalytic concepts of unconscious ego defences and affects, which predicted discrepancies between verbally reported and non-verbal expressions of negative emotions such as anxiety and anger in response to threat. Unconscious mental factors were hypothesised to be predictors of delayed presentation for diagnosis. However, prior to the implementation of this study, such factors had not been subject to rigorous operational analysis and measurement. This had constituted a significant methodological obstacle to the empirical study of unconscious processes as determinants of both behaviour and disease outcome. The highly significant data had important implications for surgeons concerned with patients' delay in presenting for diagnosis and cancer educators. Dr. C.J. Magarey was a surgeon with a particular interest in overcoming attitudes contributing to delay in the diagnosis of malignancy and mortality rates. As the research psychologist I was psychoanalytically oriented with a particular interest in psychosomatic aspects of such illnesses as cancer. The paper, "Ego Defences and Affects in Women with Breast Symptoms: A Preliminary Measurement Paradigm" in the British Journal of Medical Psychology, 1978, 50(2), 177-189, was considered by colleagues, for instance at Kings College Hospital, London and in the United States, to be innovative and of international salience because it represented one of the first successful attempts to quantify unconscious mental processes in testing predictions from psychoanalytic theory and implications for psychosomatic research.