Prevalence,Prediction, and Prevention of Psychologist Misconduct

Studies of psychologist misconduct generally focus on unethical sexual behaviours. In contrast, the following study reports on all complaints by the public against psychologists reported to the New South Wales Psychologists Registration Board over a 4‐year period. There were 248 independent notifications of misconduct about 224 registered psychologists, out of a total sample of 9,489 registered psychologists. The most frequent type of misconduct reported was in relation to poor communication standards (35.5%). Other complaints were in relation to professional incompetency (16.5%), poor report writing (14.1%), poor business practices (12.5%), boundary violations (9.7%), poor character (5.6%), registration status (3.2%), impairment (1.6%), and the inappropriate use of specialist titles (1.2%). Males were 2.5 times more likely to have a misconduct complaint made about them than females. Senior highly qualified psychologists attracted a greater number of complaints, but these were generally of a less serious nature. Over a 30‐year career, about 20 out of every 100 psychologists can expect to receive a complaint from the public, and two will receive a serious misconduct complaint that might lead to deregistration. Strategies for preventing malpractice arising from these results include regular peer consultation, developing quality practise standards, and maintaining professional boundaries.     

“Part of me feels like there must be something missing”: a phenomenological exploration of practising psychotherapy as a clinical psychologist

The experience of practising psychotherapy as a clinical psychologist was explored through a small number of in-depth interviews. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, three main themes were identified: “Feeling there’s something missing”, “Being able to get in there emotionally” and “Needing somewhere to go for support”. This study suggests that training for psychotherapy work can be experienced as piecemeal and fragmented, contributing to professional self-doubt, with clinical psychologists seeking more structured, cohesive training in this area. It also suggests that engagement in personal therapy can contribute to greater emotional capacity as a psychotherapy practitioner, although clinical psychologists can fear engaging in something that is unfamiliar. In addition, the psychologists highlighted the felt necessity of safe and satisfying supervision for resilient practice.     

Jewish Courts in Medieval England

Basing their conclusions on Latin documents, historians have painted the Jewish courts of medieval England as limited and haphazard affairs, their jurisdiction limited mostly to family law. They have also assumed that rabbinic courts ceased their activity in England after 1242. Hebrew rabbinic sources from the same period—some of which have never been published—provide more detailed information. These sources describe several professional courts staffed by learned scholars and adjudicating a range of legal issues. These courts existed throughout the thirteenth century—until the Expulsion of 1290—and included some of the leading rabbis in medieval England: Benjamin of Cambridge, Moses of London, and Moses’s son Elijah Menahem. The London court of Rabbi Elijah Menahem in particular possessed significant powers and utilized Elijah’s royal connections to enforce its rulings. Besides correcting the scholarly perception of rabbinic courts in medieval England, this article demonstrates how crucially important rabbinic texts and responsa are for historians as a source alongside other types of medieval documentation.     

Sharʿī norms and German Schools: Court Challenges to Participation in Swimming Lessons,School Trips and Sex Education

ABSTRACT

This article examines the treatment by German courts, from the early 1970s to 2016, of requests made by Muslims to be exempted from school activities for religious reasons. Based on a qualitative reading of 72 court rulings, the article demonstrates a shift in the courts’ decision-making, from initially tolerating Muslim requests for exemption to firmly denying them. Arguments from the court rulings are substantiated by an analysis of the public discourse on Muslims in German schools. The results suggest that the transformation of court attitudes corresponded with the rise of broader concerns about multiculturalism and manifestations of Islam in the public sphere, the liberalization of gender norms, and increasing secularism within German society. The article further demonstrates that, contrary to public perception, requests for exemptions from school activities were not a distinctly Muslim phenomenon. Christian families have challenged school activities in a similar way.     

ASSESSING CONTENT VALIDITY: STANDARDS SET BY THE COURT1

Thirty-one court cases were reviewed in order to determine the standards set by the court in their assessment of the content validity of paper-and-pencil tests. The findings indicate that the courts have not acted upon a uniform set of standards. In some instances, tests are judged solely on the basis of their “face validity;” in others, extensive evidence is required. The discussion centered on the failure of the courts to consistently apply professionally developed selection guidelines. The implications for practitioners and psychologists were discussed.     

The utility of psychological testing in assessing emotional damages in personal injury litigation

Psychological testing and assessment instruments frequently play a small but important role when psychologists assist the courts as emotional damage experts in personal injury matters. However, examiners frequently, if sometimes inadvertently, mislead the court with test interpretations that are based on clinical rather than forensic populations and that fail to appreciate the lack of robustness of clinical measures in this forensic context. Whereas published computerized interpretations repeatedly remind experts that personality test results should only be used as a method to generate hypotheses about the examinee that are to be subjected to further investigation and consideration, experts all too often inform the courts of test interpretations as if the test results were measures of clinical constructs rather than plaintiffs' self-reports of symptoms.     

Advocacy,brainwashing theories,and new religious movements

Advocacy by scholars in the field of new religious movements emerged during the ‘cult wars,’ which in the U.S. had their peak between 1970 and 1990 and continued in Europe and Japan in subsequent decades. Advocacy focused on the question of whether the ‘cults’ used a persuasion technique known as brainwashing. The idea of brainwashing was born during the Cold War, and originally applied to Communist techniques of indoctrination, but was lately first extended to religion and subsequently used as a tool to distinguish between legitimate and non-legitimate religions, labeling the latter as ‘cults.’ Prominent psychologists and sociologists were involved in these battles, with most scholars of new religious movements appearing in court in order to criticize the brainwashing theories advocated by psychologist Margaret T. Singer and a handful of anti-cult academics. After the Fishman decision of 1990, which seriously hit the anti-cult camp, advocacy in this field did not disappear but became somewhat less partisan.     

Taking a Historical Turn: Possible Points of Connection Between Social Pyschology and History

The article confronts methodological differences between (and among) social psychologists and historians about how far the social psychologist should be interested only in contemporary or very recent history and how far general conclusions can be drawn about human behaviour across time and space. The article suggests that social psychology need not be present-centric and might take different forms of a ??historical turn??. In turn, it is suggested, historians can benefit from approaches developed by social psychologists. Seven possible points of connection with the discipline of history are put forward in the hope of fostering future collaborations. These are: the nature of modernity; collective memory and the uses of the past; political discourse and ideologies; partisanship; the public sphere; stereotypes; and languages and images. Indeed, just as they can encourage closer collaboration between historians and social psychologists, these themes might also open a wider inter-disciplinary discussion with anthropologists, sociologists, literary scholars, art historians and scholars of political discourse.     

From victimhood to empowerment: Muslim women's narratives in the Shari'a courts of Jerusalem and Taibe

This study features the voices of women who sued their husbands in the Shari'a courts, revealing the empowerment that resulted from learning their legal rights. The stories of some two hundred Palestinian Muslim women who appealed to the Shari'a courts in Jerusalem and Taibe during the years 2000–2003 formed the basis of this study. The women came to the courts to claim material support (nafaqa) from their husbands and to demand child support (hadane). Four major reasons why these women sued their husbands in court emerged from their stories, revealing familial, social, economic and even political circumstances that impinged on their lives.     

Ethical issues in personality assessment in forensic psychology.

In this article we address several ethical issues of concern for psychologists who are engaged in personality assessment in forensic settings such as for courts or attorneys. The ethical issues reviewed include the role of the psychologist as an expert witness, matters of competence, informed consent, confidentiality, multiple relationships, and special issues related to billing. Emphasis is placed on how psychologists can provide useful information to the courts in a manner consistent with the American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, the Committee on Ethical Guidelines for Forensic Psychologist's Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologists, and the APA's Guidelines for Child Custody Evaluations in Divorce Proceedings. The practical recommendations made in this article are consistent with the APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.     

Sabina Spielrein's Siegfried and other myths: facts versus fictions

Sabina Spielrein's life events became known to posterity through a private correspondence with Freud and Jung, and through her diaries. Based on a misinterpretation of the documents, a myth, a fiction, was created about an alleged sexual affair with Jung and a case of misconduct during treatment. Another myth was that her relationship with Jung was a cause of the historic break-up between Freud and Jung. The biographical facts described by the author in a number of publications show that her treatment ended when she left the hospital to become Jung's student in the medical school, a situation with its own ethical rules. Furthermore, the alleged “scandal” was no public matter: it turned out to be no more than a personal quarrel. Before, during, and after that turbulent episode, Spielrein and Jung maintained a long and tender friendship and correspondence that included sharing creative ideas that enriched psychoanalysis. In these exchanges, a special role was played by the myth of Siegfried and other themes in Wagner's operas.     

Predicting the present: expert testimony and civil commitment

This article uses the Supreme Court's decision in Daubert as an opportunity to address a chronic concern regarding the disparity between mental health law as officially enunciated and the practical application of that law. After Daubert, admissibility of expert evidence under the federal rules requires a qualified expert, a reliable basis for the testimony, and relevance to the legal issue. Ongoing psychological research pursues empirical data that expands the scope of psychological expertise and clarifies its limits. This article addresses the requirement of relevance by examining the logical relationship between the psychologist's actuarial and clinical expertise and the legal issues addressed by the court in civil commitment proceedings. Ideally, Daubert might stimulate a process of cooperative analysis in which psychologists and lawyers clarify the proper roles of psychological experts and of the courts with which those experts interact. This article begins that project by clarifying the legal determination required in civil commitment proceedings and by explicating the relationship between the responsibilities of experts and those of courts.     

Psychologists'' and teachers'' reactions to mental health and behavioral school consultation

School psychologists and elementary school teachers were shown videotapes of a psychologist consulting with a teacher, with the psychologist using either behavioral or mental health consultation techniques. Problem situations and teacher-consultee verbalizations did not differ across the two sets of videotapes. Afterwards, subjects judged the effectiveness of of the consultation and the personal attributes of the consulting parties. In general, teachers preferred behavioral consultation, while psychologists rated the mental health consultation as more effective. Implications of these findings for consultation reaearch and practice are discussed.     

Interfaces of social psychology with situated and embodied cognition

The recent rise of interest in situated and embodied cognition has a strong interdisciplinary flavor, with contributions from robotics, cognitive anthropology, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology, among other disciplines. However, social psychology has been almost completely unrepresented. Social psychologists investigate the ways people perceive, interact with, and influence each other, and this field therefore offers an ideal standpoint for the investigation of many of the most central aspects and themes of the situated cognition approach—because the relevant ‘situation’ in which cognition takes place is, almost always, a social situation defined by an individual’s group memberships, personal relationships, and social and communicative goals. This paper briefly reviews social psychological research and theory related to five major themes of situated and embodied cognition. The themes are: cognition is for action; cognition is situated (radically affected by situations, and makes use of situations as resources); artifacts and situations effectively extend cognitive processes out beyond the individual; cognition is embodied; and situated cognition affects and interacts with symbolically based thought.     

Personal Therapy and Self-Care in the Making of Psychologists

Abstract

Psychologists are skilled in assessing, researching, and treating patients’ distress, but frequently experience difficulty in applying these talents to themselves. The authors offer 13 research-supported and theoretically neutral self-care strategies catered to psychologists and those in training: valuing the person of the psychologist, refocusing on the rewards, recognizing the hazards, minding the body, nurturing relationships, setting boundaries, restructuring cognitions, sustaining healthy escapes, maintaining mindfulness, creating a flourishing environment, cultivating spirituality and mission, fostering creativity and growth, and profiting from personal therapy. The latter deserves special emphasis in the making of health care psychologists. These strategies are recommended both during training and throughout the career span. Recommendations are offered for enhancing and publicizing systems of self-care throughout the profession.     

Law, liability, and the school psychologist: Malpractice and liability

A variety of court decisions and laws relevant to malpractice and liability of school psychologists are presented. Terms are defined and examples of faulty psychological testing, defamation, withholding information, and inferred incompetence are provided. Suggestions regarding litigation and legal defenses are made and issues related to professional liability insurance are discussed.     

Leadership Perspectives on Integrating Psychologists into Specialty Care Clinics: An Evolving Paradigm

Integration of health psychologists into specialty care is a shift in the tertiary care construct that addresses all aspects of a patient’s presentation, including psychiatric/social history, psychological well-being, and behavioral contributions to the disease process, assuring both optimal health outcomes and cost-effectiveness in a financially challenging healthcare environment. In this paper, we discuss leadership perspectives (physician and psychologists) on the factors involved in integrating a health psychologist into a busy tertiary care environment. Ultimately, we hope that this information provides a primer on how to frame a proposal for an integrated health psychologist emphasizing the elements important to senior medical leadership and administration. First, we briefly discuss the current payer framework, providing support for integration emphasizing costs and other metrics. Second, we introduce organizational structure models and strategies for integration. Lastly, we will discuss the unique skillset psychologists possess, and additional skills necessary, to be effective in the changing landscape of healthcare. We think this information is important both for leaders attempting to integrate a health psychologist into specialty care and for the early career health psychologist embarking on his/her first senior staff position.     

Apolitical courts? Rape sentencing in Montana

This analysis examines dockets of the state courts of Montana for the years 1987-1989 in rape cases to determine whether sentencing decisions are significantly related to three political variables: the percentage of women in county executive office as a measure of a relevant judicial constituency, the extent to which the county in which a court is located is Democratic, and whether the judge who enters a decision was appointed or elected. The analysis suggests that two legally relevant facts—the crime rate and multiple charges against a defendant—are significantly related to outcome. Political factors do not appear to influence state court sentencing decisions in rape cases since: (1) sentencing decisions in rape cases are not ‘major’, publicized issues; (2) the selection of state court judges (appointed and elected) is nonpartisan; and (3) interest groups were not involved in rape sentencing cases.     

College Freshmens’ Orientation to Experts’ Personal Characteristics After Failure and the Customary Description of Others in Terms of Dispositions1

A laboratory experiment examined a cognitive response (static thinking) to the stressful experience of a shortcoming. Psychology freshmen performed a memory task that was manipulated in terms of its psychological relevance and difficulty. Additionally, experienced press to succeed was quantified in terms of the specificity of participants’ professional goal in the area of psychology. A control condition performed no task. Dependent measures were personal characteristics ascribed to professional psychologists. The results indicated a strong general tendency to use dispositions to describe others. But in accordance with theoretical predictions by Wicklund (1986a, 1986b), the orientation to traits and external qualities of professional psychologists (i. e., experts) after failure on a psychologically relevant task was correlated with the level of specificity of participants’ professional goal in the area of psychology. These findings suggest that the general orientation to dispositions when describing others is replaced by the process of static thinking after the stressful experience of personal incompetence and when the persons to be described are experts.