Search

The Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Pathway initiative has been in operation now for over a year and a number of different projects are working across the country to support its implementation. These projects involve health and probation working in partnership to enhance the case management of offenders who present in a way that is consistent with a personality disorder diagnosis. In other words, agencies are working together as never before to share expertise, to collaborate and co-produce risk assessments and sentence plans and to support offenders more effectively, particularly at times of transition. So what is the impact? This paper uses real life case examples to report some of the innovative practice developments that have come about during the first year of one such project (in Yorkshire/Humberside). It also uses qualitative data from focus groups with offender managers to explore the impact of working differently. The paper will highlight some of the helpful and challenging aspects for offender managers of working in partnership with a different organisation and organisational culture and will look at how the formulation-led, psychologically informed influence from health has affected both their personal and professional life. The paper will go on to discuss what we consider to be some of the challenges for the project in the coming months and years, and how the project intends to adapt to meet them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there are many ways to produce a cultural formulation that facilitates a culturally sensitive diagnosis and treatment for asylum seekers and refugees in mental health care, it is essential to gain trust and 'recognize' the patient. One way to achieve this recognition is through a cultural interview, in which cultural references of the health care provider and the patient are exchanged. This paper presents an example of such a process with a Somali migrant to the Netherlands, whose passivity and inactivity puzzled the psychiatrist. Gaining his trust and recognizing his cultural roots as a member of a Somali ethnic group revealed more about his motives, concepts and attitude. This example suggests the importance of cultural identity as a way to explore the meanings of the illness and the interrelationship between the patient and health care provider. The cultural identity of the patient is a basis on which meanings can be exchanged in an ongoing way and starting points for effective treatment can be found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports an analysis using the conversation analytical (CA) approach of the use of laughter within a corpus of cognitive therapy sessions. The results relating to eight first encounter sessions reveal that a client’s laughter may accompany disagreement as well as agreement with the therapist. In both cases, the therapist does not reciprocate the client’s laughter and replies by investigating the client in question’s condition, and this approach to the client’s laughter produces significant results in therapeutic work. This article focuses on the asymmetry that characterizes the roles of the psychotherapist and the client in psychotherapy sessions and, in particular, on the part that laughter plays in this type of scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Where patients receive therapy as a group, there are good theoretical reasons to believe that variation in the outcome will be smaller for patients treated in the same group than for patients treated in different groups. Similarly, where different therapists treat different groups of patients, outcome for patients treated by the same therapist may differ less than outcome for patients treated by different therapists. Clinical trials evaluating such therapies need to consider this potential lack of independence. As with cluster-randomized trials, this has implications for the precision of treatment effects estimates and statistical power. There are nevertheless differences between clustering due to the organization of treatment and that due to randomization. In cluster-randomized trials the distribution of cluster sizes in each treatment arm should be similar as a consequence of randomization unless there is differential loss to follow-up. With clustering due to therapy group or therapist, cluster size may differ systematically between treatment arms, due to size of therapy groups or differing health professional caseload. Intra-cluster correlation may also differ between treatment arms. The implications of differential cluster size and intracluster correlation for design and analysis will be illustrated by data from two trials, the first comparing nurse practitioner care with general practitioner care, and the second comparing a group therapy with individual treatment as usual. The special case where a group therapy or therapist is compared with an unclustered treatment is examined in detail using a simulation study. The implications of differential clustering effects for sample size and power are addressed. It is argued that the design and analysis of this type of trial should take account of possible heterogeneity in cluster size and intracluster correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on controversies in psychiatric services in Hong Kong, China and the complexes of the social workers involved in that profession. The controversies of psychotherapy still prevail in the psychiatric services. First, there is the controversy of whether psychotherapy is effective or not for people with mental illness. Studies have shown that various types of psychotherapy can reduce the number of consultations and the medication dosage, change the psychological diagnosis, shorten the time in psychiatric and medical treatment and increase patients' satisfaction. Second, there is always a problem in defining psychotherapy. The controversies are concerned with topics ranging from helping, casework-oriented activities to psychoanalytical description. The findings showed that the controversies over defining and perceiving psychotherapy were complicated by social workers inferiority and superiority complexes. Some tended to have specialized definition and others had general definition of psychotherapy.

Presents a portrayal of Viktor Frankl different from the traditional view of the Austrian psychotherapist. Frankl's participation in the Nazi-sponsored Goering Institute from 1936 to 1937; Questionable brain experiments conducted by Frankl on Jews; Experience in a concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland; Claims about Frankl's role in the development of logotherapy.