Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology: Clerical Errors Corrected but Inferences Unchanged

The Yu et al. (1997) study on correlates of mean score on the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) contained some clerical errors that are corrected here. The findings and associated inferences are basically the same after making these corrections as they were before. Academically stronger clinical psychology programs have graduates who tend to score higher on the EPPP. An additional analysis using only professional schools revealed that programs approved by the American Psychological Association and those that are not freestanding tend to produce graduates with higher scores.     

Comparative decline of professional school graduates' performance on the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology

The discrepancy between traditional (Boulder Model) and professional school (Vail Model) clinical psychology graduate programs on the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) was greater using 1997-2005 data than in an earlier study using 1988-1995 data. The relative decline of the performance of professional school graduates on the EPPP was attributed in part to the increase of 31.1% in number of listed professional schools over the last decade, in particular, because those schools have lower academic standards. It is recommended that professional programs accept fewer students and have more rigorous quality control mechanisms for the students who have been accepted. It is further recommended that no new professional schools be started and that marginal programs be phased out.     

Evidence-Based Practice in Psychology: An Ethical Framework for Graduate Education,Clinical Training,and Maintaining Professional Competence

Evidence-based practice is often acknowledged as the future state of psychology, yet those graduate students who will soon be applying such practices tend to hold several misconceptions about the major components within this framework. This review highlights implications for graduate education, clinical training, and professional competence in light of the movement toward evidence-based practice in psychology. These implications are discussed in relation to the close parallel between the major components of the evidence-based framework and the current Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. The evidence-based framework is discussed as an ideology that promotes lifelong learning and best prepares graduate students for ethical clinical practice throughout their careers as psychologists.     

Professional Ethical Issues and the Development of Professional Ethical Standards in Counseling and Clinical Psychology in China

This article aims to summarize the current ethical issues in the field of clinical and counseling psychology and the process of developing professional ethical standards in China. First, through a review of the history of counseling and psychotherapy in China, general background information is provided. Important ethical issues are then discussed based on the results from several empirical studies. Finally, the process of developing the new edition of the Chinese Psychological Society Code of Ethics for Clinical and Counseling Psychology, the main contents as well as the considerations taken into account in the development of this code are presented.     

Rorschach Scores and Schizophrenia: An Evaluation of Weiner's Signs in Clinical Practice

An article by Fried in this Journal has raised some questions, not only of substance in regard to sex differences in fantasy, but also of procedure and of professional standards for “replication” of research.     

Clinical Psychology Students’ Experiences of a Pilot Objective Structured Clinical Examination

There is a need to improve methods used to assess students’ clinical skills in postgraduate clinical psychology training, but research into the use of new competency‐based assessments are sparse. The current study examines the potential application of the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) to clinical psychology training. Commonly used in medical training, the OSCE requires students to demonstrate clinical skills across a number of standardised stations with trained actors playing the part of patients. A pilot OSCE was conducted with nine students from a psychology doctoral program. Participants completed a brief student feedback questionnaire and attended a focus group after the OSCE. They also completed the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory before and after the OSCE. The results showed that students viewed the OSCE as a valid, realistic, and fair assessment method. They reported high levels of anxiety during the OSCE but noted that the OSCE was a positive learning experience. These results suggest that OSCEs should be considered in clinical psychology training programs for the assessment of clinical competence. Further evaluations of the validity and reliability of the clinical psychology OSCE using a larger sample size are required. Other limitations and implications of the study are discussed.     

Translating Research for Professional Development and Effective Clinical Practice With Older Adults

This paper offers a commentary on the articles in the special series on cognitive behavior therapy with older adults (Carmin, 2012-this issue), noting the commonalities found across discussions of diagnostic interviewing and cognitive-behavioral assessment and treatment for late-life insomnia, depression and suicide risk, PTSD, and OCD. These case studies demonstrate best practices in the application of cognitive-behavioral strategies for assessment and intervention with a diverse range of older adults. Clinicians can improve the effectiveness of their work with aging clients by expanding their skills in assessment and managing interprofessional relationships in integrated health-care settings. Reflected by the papers in this series, ongoing professional development and research attention are both essential as clinicians from the mental health disciplines increase provision of CBT with older adults. Treatments for specific disorders and problems will also benefit from the growing literature on successful aging, and the application of positive psychology in our future collaborations with older adults and their care partners.     

Electrical Stimulation, Endorphins, and the Practice of Clinical Psychology

Recent studies have demonstrated an alternative to drug treatment for patients presenting with anxiety disorders. This new technique involves electrical stimulation of the peripheral nervous system to induce chemical changes in the brain that can support and promote healing. This method was developed in part from studies of ancient Chinese acupuncture, but it is noninvasive and does not require needles, and it does not depend on prescientific rituals or metaphysical theories. Endorphins, natural neuropeptides active in basal brain structures, act upon anxiolytic receptors. Solid evidence from fMRI and neurochemical studies show that a simple office procedure involving electrical stimulation can stimulate the expression of endorphins in the brain. Patients have demonstrated symptom relief from this simple adjunctive treatment with a concomitant reduction in dependency on psychotropic medications.     

An Examination of Violence Risk Communication in Practice Using a Structured Professional Judgment Framework

The increased use of violence risk assessment tools in professional practice has sparked the development of best-practice guidelines for communicating about violence risk. The present study examined 166 pre-sentence reports, authored by clinicians and probation officers, to determine the extent to which they are consistent with those guidelines. We examined the frequency with which reports contained information about five topics: the presence of risk factors; the relevance of risk factors; scenarios of future violence; recommended management strategies; and summary risk judgments. Analyses revealed that the topics addressed most frequently in reports were the presence of risk factors and recommended management strategies, but none of the five topics was addressed consistently, completely, or clearly in reports. This was especially the case for probation reports. The findings highlight the need to improve practice through better implementation of guidelines for risk communication. Also needed is research on the extent to which information in risk communications is comprehended, accepted, and used by various stakeholder groups. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Professional Training in Applied Psychology: Towards a Signature Pedagogy for Forensic Psychology Training

Forensic Psychology is a recognised and important sub‐specialty of the Psychology discipline. However, after an expansion in the number of training places that were offered when programmes were first developed, recent years have seen these diminish in response to changes in university policies, resulting from reformulated Federal government funding models. In this article, we argue that it is important for the future of specialist areas of professional psychology to not only articulate the core skills and competencies that are associated with specialist practice but also to develop unique and distinctive approaches to teaching and learning signature pedagogies. Based on the premise that forensic psychological practice is, indeed, a distinctive activity that requires different skills and, importantly, different ways of thinking about the work from other areas of professional psychology, it is suggested that professional training in this area should aim to develop a signature pedagogy which combines methods of teaching and learning that have been developed in legal training programmes with principles of problem‐based learning.     

School Psychology: Training Individuals for One of the Best Kept Secrets in Professional Psychology

Abstract

School psychology training at the doctoral level is discussed. Given the increasing diversity in the schools as well as the varied education and mental health needs of the population, school psychology training is necessarily broad, involving traditional skills such as assessment, intervention, consultation, and counseling, all of which are taught within a context of a changing school population with changing needs. Because there is compulsory education, school psychologists’ interface with a broad cross-section of individual children, their parents, and their teachers. Moreover, school psychological practice is not limited to schools, as doctoral school psychologists are health service providers; many of these individuals work in other settings for which they are trained to provide services. The complexities and challenges of training school psychologists within this broad agenda effectively across domains are discussed.     

The Effects of Guided Notes on Pre-lecture Quiz Scores in Introductory Psychology

Guided notes covering lectures have been shown to improve note quality and increase scores on quizzes covering lecture material. We sought to determine whether guided notes would also be beneficial in helping students prepare for quizzes covering assigned readings. We evaluated the efficacy of guided notes for reading assignments on undergraduates’ scores on quizzes covering reading material during one semester of an Introductory Psychology course. Guided notes produced statistically significant improvements in quiz scores and note accuracy. Together with previous literature, our results suggest that guided notes may be an effective component of college courses.     

Policy and Financing of the Professional Psychology Workforce

The federal government has played a significant role in the financing the education of healthcare professionals since the introduction of Medicare in 1965. However, professional psychology's limited ability to argue the critical nature of its services to the welfare of the nation, and its lack of national workforce information and policy, has hindered its inclusion in Medicare's Graduate Medical Education (GME) program. This paper discusses the evolution and current status of healthcare workforce policy in the United States, and the implications for psychology and the training of future professionals. Also described are recent efforts by the American Psychological Association (APA) and a few psychologists to include professional psychology in the GME program. The importance of organized psychology's sustained involvement in national health policy is emphasized.