Putting Values into Practice: Public Policy and the Future of Mental Health Consumer-run Organizations

The purpose of the paper is to reflect on value dilemmas in mental health consumer-run organizations and to discuss implications for research, policy, and practice. We review the roots of consumer-run organizations in the self-help movement and the psychiatric survivor liberation movement, focusing on the distinctive values espoused by consumer-run organizations. We also discuss evidence-based and value-based approaches to mental health policy formulation and mental health reform, noting the particular importance of value-based approaches and the role that consumer-run organizations can play in mental health reform. Based on our experiences conducting a participatory action research study of four mental health consumer-run organizations, we identify and examine several value dilemmas, discuss the lessons that we learned about these value dilemmas, and note their implications for future directions in research, policy, and practice.     

Mental health help-seeking intentions and organizational climate among military members

The psychological effects of war include anxiety, depression, alcohol misuse and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Military members that displayed symptoms of mental illness were thought to lack the strength and courage necessary to be soldiers. As a result, many military members who suffered from these symptoms would not seek help for mental health care. This paper investigates the mental health help-seeking intentions of military members using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the role of leadership support climate and coworker support climate. This paper contributes to the literature in three ways. First, this paper applies a rigorously tested theoretical framework to the study of mental health help-seeking intentions in military members. Second, this paper incorporated the constructs of leadership support climate and coworker support climate into mental health help-seeking literature. Third, this paper introduces the concepts of leadership support climate and organizational support climate into the study of the theory of planned behavior. This study found that the personal attitudes of military members towards mental health help-seeking are positively related to their mental health help-seeking intentions. The study also found that mental health help-seeking attitudes mediated the relationship between leadership support climate and mental health help-seeking intentions. These results underscore the important role of leaders in setting a supportive organizational climate and influencing military members to seek help for mental health problems.     

FREEDOM OF THE HEART

Philosophical accounts of freedom typically fail to capture an important kind of freedom—freedom to change what one cares about—that is central to our understanding of what it is to be a person. This paper articulates this kind of freedom more clearly, distinguishing it from freedom of action and freedom of the will, and gives an account of how it is possible. Central to this account is an understanding of the role of emotions in determining what we value, thus motivating a rethinking of the importance of emotions in the mental lives of persons.     

An adaptive network model covering metacognition to control adaptation for multiple mental models

Learning processes can be described by adaptive mental (or neural) network models. If metacognition is used to regulate learning, the adaptation of the mental network becomes itself adaptive as well: second-order adaptation. In this paper, a second-order adaptive mental network model is introduced for metacognitive regulation of learning processes. The focus is on the role of multiple internal mental models, in particular, the case of visualisation to support learning of numerical or symbolic skills. The second-order adaptive network model is illustrated by a case scenario for the role of visualisation to support learning multiplication at the primary school.     

Consultation to the court in infant/toddler custody cases

This paper describes a special component of an infant mental health program wherein infants are referred by the Department of Social Services for assessment and treatment. The infants in these cases are frequently in foster care and under court supervision for abuse and neglect. This paper describes the special role of the infant mental health specialist in establishing a working alliance with the family and in providing consultation to the Department of Social Services and the court. Note is made of the role of the infant mental health specialist within the legal system.     

Religion and mental health among blacks

The positive role of religion in the mental health of black Americans is a much neglected theme in the literature. This paper considers religion as one of the important retained black cultural traits, which continues to play a vital role in the mental health and survival strategies of black Americans. The paper examines Grier and Cobbs's appraisal of the religion-mental health connection in black communities and identifies different ways for mental health practitioners to think about religious phenomena and the primal partnership between religion and mental health. The paper concludes with a challenge to keep awareness of the religion-mental health partnership together in the treatment of black Americans.This paper was originally presented at a two-day conference on Some Dynamics and Psychotherapeutic Methods in Rendering Treatment to Blacks, March 15 and 16, 1980, in Oakland, California. This particular paper discussed religion as one of the important retained black cultural trains.     

视觉表象生成系统及其影响因素

视觉表象是在记忆基础上产生的类似知觉的信息表征, 也是人们在日常生活中不可或缺的心理活动之一。本综述介绍了该领域中比较有影响力的表象计算理论模型, 并进一步归纳了视觉表象生成系统的成分及其对应的神经基础。分析结果强调了初级视觉皮层作为“视觉缓冲器”是生成表象的主要机能结构, 以“视觉缓冲器”为基础的表象生成系统的机能受多重因素影响。本综述有助于对视觉表象生成系统形成全面的认识, 促进视觉表象实质的进一步研究。     

Role Functionalism and Epiphenomenalism

The type-type reductive identity of the mental to the physical was once the dominant position in the mental causation debate. In time this consensus was overturned, largely due to its inability to handle the problem of multiple realizability. In its place a nonreductive position emerged which often included an adherence to functionalism. Functionalism construes mental properties as functional states of an organism, which in turn have specific physical realizers. This nonreductive form of functionalism, henceforth called role functionalism, has faced a number of criticisms itself. Chief among these is the concern that the realizer of the functional role is causally sufficient, so the role property does not make a contribution of its own. In this paper I argue that there is a way for unreduced functional properties to play a role after all. This is done by conceiving of functional properties as higher level functional properties of a macro system which determine that its realizers will play the roles that they play.     

Self-Esteem and Its Relationship to Mental Health and Quality of Life in Adults with Cystic Fibrosis

Research from the general population indicates an important role for self-esteem in mental health, but limited research in this area exists in the cystic fibrosis (CF) literature. This study aimed to explore the predictive value of self-esteem and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in mental health symptoms in adults with CF. Seventy-four participants, recruited online, completed the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation-Outcome Measure 34 (CORE-OM), Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale and Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire-Revised (CFQ-R). Comparably high levels of self-esteem were found, but HRQoL was lower than previous research. Thirty percent of participants scored within the clinical range for mental health difficulty. Hierarchical regression, controlling for gender, explored the value of four CFQ-R subscales (physical, social, emotional and role functioning) and self-esteem in predicting CORE-OM total score. Gender accounted for 8.2 % of the variance in mental health scores while the five independent variables accounted for a further 73.0 % of variance. Of the five variables, CFQ-R emotional functioning and self-esteem were significant predictors of mental health symptoms. Results are discussed in relation to clinical implications and potential uses for internet technologies to promote socialisation.     

Cultural variations in the understanding and treatment of psychiatric disorders: India and England

Although much has been made of the nation of cultural specificity of mental illness, this paper argues that mental illness is a universal human experience. However, the types of disorders, the incidence and the severity of disorders may vary markedly across cultures. To understand mental illness and identify it across cultures, it is necessary to examine the problem against the backdrop of the dominant value systems which prevail in any culture at a given point in time. There are salient value systems to which most cultures subscribe, which in turn influence our understanding, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and consequently the allocation of resources and the provision of care within the community. The different valueorientations between Western and Eastern cultures have a strong bearing on the problems of diagnosis and on the treatment of mental disorders, which in many instances are the outgrowth of the available resources and the acceptance of traditional arrangements unique to each culture.     

A brief history of the psychology course in American high schools.

Psychology has been a part of the high school curriculum for the past 170 years in a variety of forms, in classes labeled mental and moral philosophy mental hygiene, personal adjustment, child development, human relations, and psychology. This abbreviated and selective account traces that history, including the considerable role played by the American Psychological Association. This history focuses on the social and educational contexts that led to changes in the nature of high school psychology classes and concludes with comments about the value of precollege psychology classes.     

Education and Mental Health: New Directions for Interaction

Traditionally, mental health workers (psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers) provide diagnostic evaluations and individual or group psychotherapeutic or casework treatment. With the advent of the community mental health movement, a new role model, that of “mental health consultant,” has emerged. This paper outlines the functions of the “mental health consultant” in the Job Corps program as a way of highlighting the functions of the mental health professional working in this new way. Educational, training, and work programs may be enriched by mental health consultation, and the new directions for interaction between education and mental health are described in this paper.     

Mental models and problem solving: Three challenges to a theory of restructuring and insight

The Gestalt psychologists' view of restructuring and the associated phenomenon of insight is discussed and related to findings in modern cognitive psychology. In line with Ohlsson (1984b) it is assumed that search in semantic memory is an indispensable part of restructuring. However, in contrast to Ohlsson's (1984b) information processing theory of restructuring and insight the present paper focuses on the role of mental models. It is asserted that the Gestalt approach to problem solving is compatible with the idea that a mental model is manipulated. The paper discusses three assumptions of restructuring and insight, all of which are related to mental models: (a) restructuring involves manipulating a mental model; (b) the experience of insight is based on "seeing" something in a mental model; (c) restructuring aims at realizing structural balance in a mental model. To assess the validity of these three assumptions is seen as a challenge to future research on human problem solving.     

Can People Creative in Imagery Interpret Ambiguous Figures Faster than People Less Creative in Imagery?

The purpose of the research study was to investigate whether people creative in imagery are better than people non‐creative in imagery at interpreting ambiguous figures. Creativity, in the imagery paradigm, is said to involve two processes: combinational play and discovery. Discovery plays a major role in creativity as it is the process of discerning, judging or interpreting the value of a mental construction. Furthermore, creative people have been said to be insightful thus supporting the proposition advanced here that people creative in imagery are faster at interpreting and finding alternative interpretations for ambiguous figures than people less creative in imagery. This study reports both latencies and discoveries in perception and mental imagery as measured on a figure combination task. The data support the conclusion that people creative in imagery are more capable in reinterpreting ambiguous figures and that they are quicker in their discoveries than people less creative in imagery. The analysis to the questions of how the subjects arrived at their discoveries may also illustrate the Gestalt literature on insight as a rapid pattern recognition.     

Informed consent in mental health treatment: A sociological perspective

The rise in the mental health movement coincides with a decline in prestige and importance of criminal law. While this may, in part, reflect the greater effectiveness of mental health treatment in dealing with overlapping problems, it also reflects certain problems that criminal law has with the individualistic values of modern society and the value-attractiveness of the mental health professions' commitment to helping the individual. However, many of the same value problems inherent in criminal punishment also apply to some aspects of mental health treatment, especially the paternalism of the doctor-patient relationship and involuntary treatment. Informed consent can be seen as a response to these value conflicts as well as part of the general extension of citizenship rights to the less privileged members of the society. This paper analyzes some of the conflicts inherent in the application of informed consent to mental health treatment from the above perspective.     

Participatory Action Research

Abstract

Traditionally, mental health research has been conducted exclusively by professionals with little input and participation from individuals with mental illness themselves. Participatory action research (PAR) provides a more dynamic method of research, giving individuals the opportunity to become activists and advocates by influencing the direction of mental health research. This paper outlines important differences between PAR methodology and traditional research, with an emphasis on the differing roles of persons with mental illness in the two models. PAR is consistent with the recovery movement in several ways: both approaches value self-definition, empowerment, and experiential knowledge. As an example, this paper describes one project that incorporates principles of the participatory action research paradigm.