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The use of telecommunication technologies in the field of psychology is increasingly widespread. This paper is intended to discuss the authors' perspectives and experiences as current and former telepsychology trainees (ranging from current students to 3 years post-graduate) at a graduate telepsychology clinic in a rural setting. Telepsychology trainees delivered individual and group treatments via videoconference and telephone to clients living in a predominantly rural and historically underserved region of Texas, and they also conducted telepsychology-related research during and after their clinical training. This experience helped trainees understand their clients' perspectives of telepsychology in an experiential way and was viewed by many trainees as useful for enriching their empathy for telepsychology clients. [Extracted from the article]

Dependency associated with depression involves at least two forms of social behavior: (a) needs for nurturance/protection and close attachment, and an inability to function independently and (b) being (de)valued, fear of disapproval, and social status. In many studies, measures of dependency combine these two dimensions. This paper argues that this has led to confusion on the salient dimensions related to depression. It is suggested that behaviors currently regarded as dependent, and linked to depression, are better understood as forms of involuntary subordination that involve judgments of personal inferiority, and submissive-appeasement behavior. This paper presents preliminary evidence that social status, and its associated features of negative self-other comparisons and submissive behavior, may be particularly relevant to depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adequacy of current paper-and-pencil measures of ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) was analyzed by reviewing the subject selection procedures in 24 published articles with the restriction that the procedures involve some form of self-report. The sample characteristics and selection procedures of these studies were reviewed in detail. We conclude that the recommendations and conclusions of these studies should not be accepted due to limited generalizability. Paper-and-pencil measures are excellent initial selection devices, but cannot stand alone in selecting ophidiophobics from the general population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present report deals with the validity of the Shipley-Hartford Retreat Scale as a brief paper-and-pencil measure of current intellectual functioning. Although the Shipley-Hartford scale was devised primarily as a scale to reflect intellectual deficit, and its subsequent evaluation has indicated limited utility as a measure of deterioration, several investigators have been interested in its usefulness as a measure of functioning intelligence. This paper presents a table that summarizes some relationships between various brief measures of intelligence and the Wechsler Bellevue Scales.

Objective A qualitative study among female Veterans from recent conflicts was conducted to explore the women's experiences and potential suicide risk factors according to the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide, including burdensomeness, failed belongingness, and acquired ability. Methods The presented paper is an extension of published work by Brenner et al. (2008) regarding mostly male combat Veterans. The methodology employed was qualitative descriptive with hermeneutic hues (Sandelowski, 2000). Interviews were conducted with 19 women, aged 24-52 years, all of whom had been deployed to combat zones in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Results Transcripts were reviewed and themes emerged regarding women being a minority within their environment and deployment-related stressors. These experiences seemed to influence participants' views of the world and ways of coping. Conclusions Among the interviewed female Veterans, preliminary support was provided for Joiner's concepts. Therapeutic strategies for applying themes to clinical practice (e.g., peer support, family therapy, interventions aimed at increasing distress tolerance) are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acceptance and mindfulness methods that emphasise the acceptance rather than control of symptoms are becoming more central to behavioural and cognitive therapies. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is the most developed of these methods; recent applications of ACT to psychosis suggest it to be a promising therapeutic approach. However, investigation of the mechanisms of therapy within this domain is difficult because there are no acceptance-based measures available specifically for psychotic symptoms. This paper describes the preliminary evaluation of a self-report instrument designed to assess acceptance-based attitudes and actions in relation to auditory and command hallucinations. Following initial scale development, a 56-item version of the Voices Acceptance and Action Scale (VAAS) was administered to 43 participants with command hallucinations as part of their baseline assessment in a larger trial. Measures of symptoms, quality of life, and depression were also administered. The scale was examined for reliability using corrected item total statistics. Based on this method, 31 items were retained. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability for the 31-item VAAS were acceptable. Subsequent examination of construct validity showed the VAAS to correlate significantly in the expected directions with depression, quality of life, and coping with command hallucinations. It also discriminated compliance from non-compliance with harmful command hallucinations. Although these results are preliminary and subject to a number of limitations, the VAAS shows promise as a useful aid in the assessment of the psychological impact of voices. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the psychological construct mindfulness has received a great deal of attention. The majority of research has focused on clinical studies to evaluate the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions. This line of research has led to promising data suggesting mindfulness-based interventions are effective for treatment of both psychological and physical symptoms. However, an equally important direction for future research is to investigate questions concerning mechanisms of action underlying mindfulness-based interventions. This theoretical paper proposes a model of mindfulness, in an effort to elucidate potential mechanisms to explain how mindfulness affects positive change. Potential implications and future directions for the empirical study of mechanisms involved in mindfulness are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the special issue on recent conceptual, practical, and research developments relevant to men and therapy. The paper reviews the considerable shifts that have emerged in our understanding and measurement of masculinity as it pertains to men's health and therapy. In addition, this introduction outlines the primary focus of each article in this special issue and describes the general guidelines offered to the contributors. Collectively, these special-issue articles describe promising paradigms, provide useful examples, and stress the need for further research on men, masculinity, and the therapeutic process. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 61: 627–631, 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To develop greater coherence, psychology must develop its macro and integrative approaches to the mind. In this illuminating paper, Henriques (this issue) outlines the kind of thinking that is needed. He skillfully illuminates the levels of emergence of mind from the material world and argues that the recursive self-regulative abilities of self-awareness set us apart from other animals. The interaction between an evolved mind, adapted to pursue strategic goals, while also being phenotypically shaped by both environment and our recently evolved cognitive competencies, is a core focus of psychology. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special series of articles on the Consensus Conference and Combined-Integrated (C-I) model of doctoral training in professional psychology consists of 13 articles in two successive volumes of the Journal of Clinical Psychology. Six articles are presented in Part 1 (Vol. 60, Issue 9), which collectively describe the “nature and scope” of the C-I model (e.g., historic and definitional issues; the potential advantages of this model; implications for the profession). In Part 2 of this special series (Vol. 60, Issue 10), articles 7 through 12 address the broader implications and potential applications of the C-I model within a range of professional and societal contexts (e.g., for interprofessional collaboration; the health care field; development of a global curriculum; the unified psychology movement; issues of assessment and professional identity; and higher education); article 13 provides a summary of the series as well as a discussion of future directions. As an overview, this paper provides the abstract for each of the articles in Part 1, and describes the various topics of the articles in Part 2. Taken together, the articles in this special series are designed to provide a coherent account of how and why the C-I model is timely and relevant, and therefore warrants serious consideration by the larger education and training community in professional psychology. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between eating disorders and problems in interpersonal functioning. Questionnaire that measure eating problems, interpersonal adjustment, and general neuroticism were completed by several groups of women: anorexic patients, persons whose interests or occupations involved a concern about bodily shape or condition (dancers, models, and athletes), and members of the general public. A substantial and significant relationship was found between eating symptomatology and interpersonal functioning in all groups. However, this association survived only in the anorexic patient group when general neuroticism was partialled out. We take this to imply that psychosocial difficulties are unlikely to play a strong role in the initial development of eating problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After nearly two decades of intensive investigation, adult borderline disorders have achieved wide currency, including a substantial psychological literature. The literature on the diagnostic psychological assessment of borderline children is, in contrast, quite sparse. This paper examines manifestations of childhood borderline conditions on the Rorschach, discusses them in light of current theoretical conceptualizations of adult borderline psychopathology, and explores the relationship between child and adult borderline disorders and the genesis of these conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a model for forensic family evaluations (FFE) that arise from issues of child custody and maltreatment. FFEs are comprehensive assessments that utilize a variety of data collection methods. The FFE has three basic stages: beginning the evaluation, collecting data, and presenting the evaluation findings. In each stage there are a number of professional and administrative stations. Each stage of the FFE presents unique challenges: maintaining internal and external independence, managing issues of convergent validity, and monitoring written and verbal output. Each of these stages, stations, and challenges is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents normative data collected on an unselected sample of 9-year old children, for the Missouri Children's Behavior Checklist (MCBC). The checklist can be used in rather large-scale research and evaluation programs because its cost of administration is quite minimal. The norms and validity data presented in this paper can serve as a preliminary guide in the use of the MCBC to identify children who are likely to be in need of professional attention, although they suffer some inadequacies. The first and most serious problem is the disproportionate number of children from professional families in the normative sample.

This article presents information on the application of role playing, as a research technique, in a test of Sarbin's self role congruency theory. The present study attempts to provide further confirmation of Sarbin's congruency theory, in this case within a setting analogous to psychotherapy. It was believed that by using Ss who were playing the roles of therapist and clients it would be possible to obtain information relevant to the effects of self-role congruency and incongruency in the psychotherapeutic interaction. A secondary purpose of the study was to provide data on the validity of pencil and paper tests that purport to measure role-playing aptitude. Forty nine male Ss from various undergraduate classes volunteered to role play either a therapist or a client in a half-hour role-playing session designed to simulate psychotherapy.

This article presents information on text of Allport's letters from Jenny which was reanalyzed by computer. Permission was obtained from the American Psychological Association to convert the text of the letters to a computer file. When the file had been created, the frequencies of all words used were determined by counting on the computer. Note that all computer results reported in this paper were obtained independently through the use of both Fortran and Snobol computer programs, so that one may be reasonably certain of their accuracy. For those interested in details of the computations, it should be remarked that running times with Snobal were immense.

The article focuses on the increase of personality response consistency by prior response. Prior research has shown that item response consistency is increased by prior item response. That is, if an item is responded to repeatedly by the same person, his first and second responses are less likely to be the same than later pairs of sequentially adjacent responses. Previous research described above, thus suggests the general hypothesis that personality response consistency will be increased by prior response. In this paper, change in each of the following will be examined relative to the general hypothesis: scale reliability, scale score, and pattern of scale score.

This paper reports two experiments testing the hypotheses that the rate and degree of verbal conditioning are inversely related to the personality variables of rigidity and extraversion, these predictions being based on theoretical formulations by psychologists, R.B. Cattell and H.J. Eysenck, respectively. The most striking finding was that the conditioning procedures did not induce reliable, i.e. repeatable, changes in performance. This result which precluded an adequate test of the hypotheses under investigation is in marked contrast to previous studies using this and other methods of conditioning, and requires explanation.

The article informs that self-report techniques have been utilized to measure personality attributes since R.S. Woodworth's "Personality Inventory." The traditional self-report methodology requires the S to respond to a series of statements by indicating whether they are true or false when applied to himself, and his responses are scored by a key developed after an item analysis of the responses given by variously defined criterion groups. The technique for assessing self descriptions with which this paper is concerned lies somewhere between the above two methods of self-report, and consists of having subjects complete three sentence stems by selecting adjectives to describe their feelings, their study or work habits, and their social reaction pattern.

This article discusses context effects in judgment as a function of experience. Since many of the classical phenomena of psychophysics have been found in all areas of judgment, there is every reason to assume their existence in the processes of clinical judgment and to hope that their further investigation here will lead to the refinement and improvement of clinical prediction. This paper is concerned with those shifts or distortions in judgment which can be produced by altering the context within which the stimulus appears.

The purpose of this paper is to focus attention on the problems of report writing and to attempt to increase interest in the experimental study of clinical reports. With these objectives, the approaches to the improvement of clinical writing which have already been used will be reviewed. In the conduct of his diagnostic duties the clinical psychologist invests a substantial portion of his time in the preparation of psychological reports. Whether such investment of time, and indeed whether the time spent in diagnostic testing is justified, depends upon the effectiveness with which the psychologist is able to communicate his findings.

The article discusses individual bias in psychological reports. There has been considerable study of the relationship between the examiner and subject during conventional test administration and of the influence of the examiner upon the subject's responses in a variety of testing situations. Individual differences in examiners' processing data secured from the use of projective techniques have also been studied and reports are beginning to appear about the influence of the personality of the examiner on his reports about subjects. The present paper is a report of a study designed to examine the systematic variation in the content of psychologists' reports and their individual biases. The subjects were three graduate students in psychology who were serving their internship-training year at Duke Hospital a few years ago.

This article discusses frustration, anger and hostility states. The purpose of this paper is to propose a classification system descriptive of a group of pathological states characterized by acute or chronic frustration-anger-tension-aggression reactions. In contrast with the anxiety-tension states which have been well described in the literature, relatively little attention has been given to behavior reactions characterized by anger. These anger reactions range from infantile rage reactions responding to restriction of movement, through childhood temper tantrums to adult rage reactions of homicidal degree.

This article focuses on quantification on the Eight Card Redrawing Test (8CRT). The 8CRT is an attempt to answer this problem of quantification. The 8CRT consists of eight interrelated drawings, each a development of the immediately preceding one. Transparent paper is used so that the subject sees the immediately preceding figure as he draws over it. In this way change can be observed on a continuum. Group administration is just as effective as is an individual administration and does not decrease the projective nature of the test.

This article focuses on an alternate form of the Series Completion test. The Series Completion test, requires that the subject form abstractions from visually presented problems and use these abstractions to complete a series. Since practice effect on this test may play a role in repeated testing, as, for example, in follow up studies of electro-convulsive. shock or prefrontal lobotomy in which several testings may be given-an alternate form has been developed, by use of which it is hoped to tap the same abilities now measured by Series Completion I. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of the alternate form, Series Completion II, and to present tentative norms for the evaluation of results.

The article presents a comparative evaluation of the Wechsler-Bellevue mental deterioration index for various adult groups. In recent articles the value of the Wechsler Mental Deterioration Index (MDI) in screening patients with brain damage from normal patients has been considered. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the MDI further as a tool for differential diagnosis; that is, to determine whether a significant loss in this index is related solely to deterioration such as is found in subjects who have had organic brain injury or damage. The MDI's for the following seven groups of subjects were compared: brain injured, applicants for vocational counseling with psychoneurotic diagnoses, and with other than psychoneurotic diagnoses, mental hygiene clinic patients diagnosed as anxiety tension state, mental hygiene and hospital patients diagnosed as schizophrenic, and two groups of normals.

This article focuses on a proposed system for scoring Thermatic Apperception Test (TAT). This paper is an attempt to outline a similar type of objective scoring to be used as a frame of reference for interpreting the TAT. This system is based on first, scaling each story for a certain type of predominant mood, chief worry, press, and ending; second, computing frequency of each of the scales; third, interpreting the meaning of the frequencies; and finally, over-all qualitative interpretation. A problem peculiar to TAT scoring and interpretation has been the distinction between manifest content and what is symbolic implication, or latent content.

The preparation of psychotherapy supervisors to provide supervision services is examined briefly in this paper. The persistent paradox of psychotherapy supervision training-that the supervisor role is considered highly important in graduate and internship programs, but graduate and post-graduate training in how to be a supervisor is very limited-is discussed. The need to resolve this paradox in psychology training is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the study, a microcomputer was programmed to administer and score the Crown-Crisp Experential Index for a study of the psychological state of 59 newly delivered mothers. This publication reports the findings of a separate paper-and-pencil questionnaire assessment of the patients' attitudes to the computer itself. The 59 patients were almost unanimous in finding the computer acceptable and easy to use; only 1 subject minded using it. None found the instructions difficult to understand, and only 1 had difficulty in reading them. Only 2 would object to using the computer again.

This article presents information on the standardized tests of individual abilities. The purpose of this paper was to outline a simple and well known statistical procedure that is appropriate for identifying consistent differences on a series of subtests and to present several reasons why identifying these differences may have important consequences for evaluators. The McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (1972) is an individual test of mental and motor abilities for children aged 2.5 to 8 years. A potentially more serious effect of the consistent McCarthy sex differences is that they may combine with other small and insignificant between-group differences. These combined effects may produce significant differences on the separate scales even with small samples.

This article analyzes the responses of business executives and mental hospital patients on the ideological survey. This study investigates ideological composition in institutionalized psychiatric patients characterized by vocational inadaptability and general existential failure. Empirical experience indicate that inadaptable people tend to subscribe to defensive ideologies rationalizing their failures. In particular, the Rand-Branden position postulates an ideological syndrome characteristic of "The Disabled Man" as cited in an earlier paper describing the rationale of construction of "The Ideological Survey."

The article informs that this paper describes an objective technique for the routine clerical determination of degree of psychopathology to be inferred from MMPI profiles independent of the type of pathology reflected. The procedures employed in this study utilized the intuitive judgments off expert MMPI clinicians as the basis for deriving a clerical method to approximate clinicians' ratings. In order to quantify the concept "degree of psychopathology", two skilled MMPI clinicians Q-sorted 125 male and 125 female profiles on this dimension. Since inter-judge reliability was .85 for each sample, the judgments were pooled and scores on each MMPI scale were correlated with this composite sort.

The article discusses a method of weighting attitude scale items from subject responses. The most widely used technique for studying attitudes is the "rating scale" method. The scale usually consists of a group of statements which have been assigned differential weights. The subject indicates which statements he endorses and his final score may be the mean, median, or sum of weights for the endorsed statements. The purpose of this paper is to present a method of weighting attitude scale items from the responses of subjects. An attitude scale of 45 statements was constructed and administered to 586 students who were all freshmen at the University of South Carolina. Each statement was weighted according to a system based on the number of times it was endorsed by members of this group.

The article discusses the comparative sensitivity of the qualitative and quantitative Porteus maze scores to drug effects. In a series of papers, summarized in the most recent test manual, S.D. Porteus has shown that quantitative scores on the Maze Test decline under the administration of chlorpromazine. No data are presented with regard to drug effects on the qualitative scores. Qualitative scores represent a weighted coding of ongoing expressive movement exhibited in the course of completing the mazes. As qualitative maze scores are related to maze difficulty, repetition of the mazes should result in a decline of qualitative scores with a corresponding decline in range of variation. Any factor increasing the number of qualitative errors should also increase the possible range of variation. Individual differences in drug response should also increase the range of variation. It was therefore postulated that variance changes should be more sensitive to drug effects than mean changes.

This paper studies the relation of the psychasthenic and hypomanic scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory to uncertainty in psychophysical judgment. The following predictions were made: (a) Individuals with a psychasthenic profile on the MMPI will give significantly more doubtful judgments than individuals with a hypomanic profile in a psychophysical weight discrimination experiment; and (b) individuals having a dull profile on the MMPI will give a number of doubtful judgments intermediate to the psychasthenic and hypomanic groups. Both predictions were verified.

The article presents information on the coefficient of profile similarity. Since the second paper on this statistical quantity was published, several psychologists have asked the author to rationalize a procedure which permits the use of all the segments, including segments of zero slope. This note attempts to do just that. Whenever zero slope segments occur in the reference or compared profiles it will be given either a positive or a negative slope. The determination of the appropriate sign is made by reference to some chance operation. The implicit assumption here is that when zero slope segments occur, a very large sample of segments taken from the same individual or group would yield equal -relative frequencies for positive and negative slopes.

The article focuses on the prediction of homicide with Rorschach test. In recent years there has been much concern with the possibility of predicting behavior through the use of psychological tests. For example, attempts have been made to predict suicidal behavior by use of projective techniques, objective inventories and personal history data. In particular, recent years have witnessed a search for methodologically sound ways to use projective tests to predict behavior. The present paper reports an attempt to apply the statistical technique of multiple discriminant analysis to the prediction of homicidal behavior by use of the Rorschach.

The article presents an account of the book "Assessment of Human Motives," edited by Gardner Lindzey. The book summarizes the 1957 conference held at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, consisting of nine important papers by eminent psychologists.

The article presents an account of the book "Ego Psychology and the Psychoses," by Paul Federn. The book is an interesting collection of theoretical papers by Paul Federn edited and with an introduction by Edoardo Weiss. Federn's ego psychology implies the necessity of evaluating ego strengths and weaknesses and the various ways in which ego libido manifests itself.

The article presents an account of the book "Direct Analysis," by John N. Rosen. The book is a series of papers written by a psychiatrist to illustrate the application of psychoanalysis to psychotics by the direct analysis and interpretation of psychotic unconscious contents. Selected cases are presented with discussion by the author and other psychiatrists.