Meanwhile, analysts believe the company's downscale Old Navy unit still has more work to do, though Merrill Lynch's Mark Friedman said consumer reaction toward a line of vintage 60s-era hippie t-shirts has been strong.

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For partners and spouses, "it is vital that they learn to create a buffer between the person's reaction to stress and their own experience, " says Robert Lawrence Friedman, president of Stress Solutions, a Forest Hills, N.

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