Psychological trauma: What clergy need to know

This article addresses the need for clergy to be better informed regarding the assessment and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and provides a quick reference guide to assist clergy in the recognition of PTSD with guidelines for interventions. In a society that is marked by unprecedented levels of violence and a growing shortage of mental health services, clergy are increasingly confronted with situations involving psychological trauma that require expert crisis intervention skills. This article provides specific, concrete guidelines for clergy confronted with situations that require knowledge about PTSD.     

Rational emotive behavior therapy research: What we know and what we need to know

Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) has achieved positive results in quantitative reviews of treatment outcome studies. In part because of methodological limitations of these studies, however, the generalizability of their favorable results to routine clinical practice is unknown. Also unknown are the clinical significance of outcomes achieved by REBT, the contribution made by its distinctive and specialized procedures, and the types of patients for whom REBT is particularly useful. Recommendations are provided for refining our knowledge of the effectiveness of REBT.     

Family demographics of clinically referred children: What we know and what we need to know

Published empirical studies were reviewed to establish family demographics of clinically referred children and adolescents. Data on parental marital status were collected from studies of referred and nonreferred children and adolescents in six empirical journals. Data on family socioeconomic status (SES) and child race or ethnicity were also collected. Based on 86 studies that presented parental marital status, 56.4% of clinically referred children and adolescents live with both their biological mother and biological father. Family SES data were difficult to summarize because of the different methods of presenting this information. When considering race and ethnicity, 86% of the children and adolescents in the clinical samples were Caucasian American. Of the studies that were originally reviewed, 80.4% did not include parental marital status and 36. 7% did not include SES, race, or ethnicity of the participants. There were no significant differences between journals in the rates of inclusion of family demographic data. In addition to revealing family demographic information about children and adolescents who participate in clinical research, these data highlight the lack of consistency in the presentation of family demographic data in published research. Suggestions are provided to help researchers colled and present meaningful family demographic data in clinical and nonclinical research with children and adolescents.This study was completed with support from the Division of Sponsored Research at the University of South Florida and preparation of this article was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grant R29 49601-02 to the first author. We express our gratitude to Georgetta Bosco and Tracy Burbine for their diligent data collection in the library.     

Working with the institutionalized aged and their families: Considerations for clergy

The institutionalization of an aged parent presents unique challenges and strains to the family system. It also provides opportunities for limited intervention and support by empathic clergy. It is often difficult for middle-aged children to understand some of the strong and often sudden emotions they experience regarding their institutionalized parents, particularly as these feelings become confused with their own sense of having reached middle age. Again, opportunities present themselves for clergy to be sensitive to these confusing feelings.     

Elephant psychology: What we know and what we would like to know

Although elephants are well-known and one of the most popular species among people, their behavior and cognitive abilities have not been studied very extensively. But recently, more and more researchers are becoming interested in studying their cognition, particularly their general intelligence, including causal reasoning and mirror self recognition, memory, and numerical cognition. Although genetically elephants are more closely related to the small-brained aardvarks and manatees than to primates, they hold enormous potential in their cognitive skills. Also, studying their cognition is important from the point of view of animal welfare in captivity.     

family responsibilities discrimination: what employment counselors need to know

Family responsibilities discrimination—bias against workers based on their responsibilities to care for family members—is rapidly becoming a 21st‐century workplace concern. Employers who harass, pass over for promotion, or terminate workers because such workers care for children, spouses, elderly parents, or family members with disabilities have been sued with more frequency and have been incurring increasing litigation costs. Recently, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took an important step toward ending this discrimination by issuing enforcement guidance that addresses family responsibilities discrimination and caregivers' rights and responsibilities. This article addresses the guidance and its importance for employment counselors.     

What we know and what to do

This paper discusses an important puzzle about the semantics of indicative conditionals and deontic necessity modals (should, ought, etc.): the Miner Puzzle (Parfit, ms; Kolodny and MacFarlane, J Philos 107:115–143, 2010). Rejecting modus ponens for the indicative conditional, as others have proposed, seems to solve a version of the puzzle, but is actually orthogonal to the puzzle itself. In fact, I prove that the puzzle arises for a variety of sophisticated analyses of the truth-conditions of indicative conditionals. A comprehensive solution requires rethinking the relationship between relevant information (what we know) and practical rankings of possibilities and actions (what to do). I argue that (i) relevant information determines whether considerations of value may be treated as reasons for actions that realize them and against actions that don’t, (ii) incorporating this normative fact requires a revision of the standard ordering semantics for weak (but not for strong) deontic necessity modals, and (iii) an off-the-shelf semantics for weak deontic necessity modals, due to von Fintel and Iatridou, which distinguishes “basic” and “higher-order” ordering sources, and interprets weak deontic necessity modals relative to both, is well-suited to this task. The prominence of normative considerations in our proposal suggests a more general methodological lesson: formal semantic analysis of natural language modals expressing normative concepts demands that close attention be paid to the nature of the underlying normative phenomena.     

What policymakers need and must demand from research regarding the employment rate of persons with disabilities

Enabling persons with disabilities to prepare for and engage in gainful employment has become a priority concern in U.S. society. As a result, federal and state policymakers are adopting employment-related initiatives designed to enhance the employment rate of persons with disabilities. Policymakers need credible evidence in order to assess and reform these initiatives. This recognized need, however, begs the question of what constitutes 'credible evidence.' Of particular concern in the disability policy arena is the debate over the types of conclusion about employment rates that can and cannot be drawn from analyses of national survey data sets. This article connects standard research methodology concepts with the complexities of evaluating disability policy to help stakeholders appreciate the issues involved in this debate. This appreciation can help policymakers (1) recognize unwarranted cause-and-effect conclusions based solely on existing national survey data and (2) demand better data and stronger research designs to complement the potential over-reliance on correlational studies using problematic survey data to estimate policy impacts. To this end, the article concludes with a practical framework with a checklist for assessing the adequacy of research regarding the employment rate of persons with disabilities.     

Building a research base for community services for children and families: What we know and what we need to learn

We examine the knowledge base for community-based mental health services for youth and their families. A brief historical perspective on the development of community services is presented, and the fundamental components of a comprehensive child mental health service system are described. Outcome studies for service components as well as the service system as a whole are summarized. Research related to the context of treatment, i.e., service setting, cost, is presented. The authors conclude that a research base for child and family services is emerging, but there is still a paucity of well designed studies that address the complexities of a community-based system as well as the critical outcome questions that need to be addressed. Finally, promising service system developments are described and recommendations for future research are presented.     

Job applicants and preemployment agreements: what employment counselors need to know

U.S. society is becoming increasingly litigious. Nowhere is this more evident than in the employment process, where preemployment agreements for job applicants are becoming more common. Preemployment agreements require applicants to accept certain terms or provisions before they are offered a position. In this article, the authors describe types of preemployment contracts and legal issues associated with them and present attorney‐selected sample cases to assist employment counselors to better prepare their clients for addressing this legal phenomenon.     

What every professional who works with adolescents needs to know about firesetters

The number of adolescent firesetters has been growing each year, along with the psychological and financial damage they create. It is therefore essential that mental health professionals who work with adolescents be aware of the characteristics of firesetters. This study describes the individual and environmental factors that relate to the etiology and levels of firesetting. Specifically, it discusses different types of firesetters and their aggressive tendencies, internalizing problems, family dynamics, and sociability. Further, it explores the treatment of adolescent firesetters.