Recent advances in the assessment and treatment of insomnia.

Persistent insomnia has multiple potential causes such as medical, pharmacological, life-style, personality, and behavioral factors. Although many poor sleepers use hypnotic medications, a wide array of cognitive-behavioral interventions are available that target somatic and cognitive arousal, dysfunctional thoughts, and learned maladaptive sleep habits. Outcome research conducted over the past decade reveals that the single treatments of stimulus control and sleep restriction produced the best results, reducing self-reported target complaints by 50-60%.

Effects of parent training on infant sleeping patterns, parents' stress, and perceived parental competence.

First-time parent couples from childbirth classes were randomly assigned to a four-session training group (n = 29) or a control group (n = 31). Members of the training group were taught behavioral strategies to promote healthy, self-sufficient sleep patterns in their infants, whereas the control group received the same amount of personal contact without the behavioral training. Six sleep variables were derived from a daily infant sleep diary completed by parents at two time points.

Countercontrol treatment of sleep-maintenance insomnia in relation to age.

We administered countercontrol behavioral therapy for sleep-maintenance insomnia to 34 insomniacs--ranging in age from 35 to 78 years--in small groups. Twenty-two subjects received immediate and 12 received delayed treatment. Three self-report measures of sleep disruption were collected on daily sleep diaries at baseline, termination of treatment, 1-month follow-up, and 12-month follow-up.

MMPI differences among mild and severe insomniacs and good sleepers.

Past research has attempted to delineate personality differences between insomniacs and good sleepers but has failed to control for type of insomnia or severity of the disorder. The purpose of this study was to compare MMPI scores of mild and severe sleep onset insomniacs with a control group of noninsomniacs . Results demonstrated that sleep onset insomniacs, regardless of degree of severity, differed significantly from noninsomniacs ; and that mild and severe insomniacs differed from each other on only one MMPI scale.