Religiosity and attitudes towards professional mental health services: analysing religious coping as a mediator among Mexican origin Latinas/os in the southwest United States

In this study, we examined the relationship between religiosity and attitudes towards professional mental health services. We further examined whether internal religious coping and external religious coping mediated both relationships. Results indicated a significant association with religiosity and negative attitudes towards mental health services, as well as external religious coping and internal religious coping. Results also showed a nonsignificant association with both religious coping and negative attitudes towards mental health services. Finally, external religious coping mediated the relationship between religiosity and negative attitudes towards mental health services for men but not for women.     

Historical overview of child discipline in the United States: Implications for mental health clinicians and researchers

Discipline of children is a major topic of concern in our society. This paper places discipline in a historical perspective by briefly tracing disciplinary practices from the 1600s to the present day in the United States. Four primary trends are then delineated. These include the following: movement from strict discipline to lax discipline to mixed messages concerning discipline; determinants of discipline changing from Puritan religious beliefs to experts in fields such as psychology; the increasing role of legislative efforts focusing on children's rights; and the changing role of fathers in childrearing in general and discipline in particular. Viewed against such a historical account, implications for mental health professionals in shaping disciplinary practices are offered. These include generating data to provide needed answers and assuming an active role in setting policy.     

Family mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: Changes in parent-adolescent internalizing symptoms in the United States

The current paper examined the temporal linkage of internalizing symptoms among parent-adolescent dyads during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether COVID-19-related concerns were associated with parent-adolescent linkage of symptoms. Using a 5-week survey-based study, parent-adolescent dyads filled out weekly surveys measuring COVID-19 concerns and internalizing symptoms. Parent and adolescent depressive symptoms did not change over time; however, adolescents experienced decreases in anxiety. Parent-adolescent dyads exhibited linkage in depressive symptoms but not anxiety symptoms. However, linkage in anxiety symptoms varied by parent's COVID-related stress. Study findings provide insight into how COVID-19 disruptions impacted family well-being during adolescence.     

Changing roles for the school mental health professional

Draws on the experience of an innovative school mental health project, emphasizing early detection and prevention of school adjustment problems, to describe emergent, needed roles for school psychologists. The later include: systematic screening of primary graders and parent interviewing to further early detection; consultation with teachers and other school personnel; and recruitment, training, and supervision of nonprofessional help-agents. Such roles bring early effective services to many children, in ways that optimize their educational and personal development.     

Crisis intervention from the viewpoint of the mental health professional

Pastoral Psychology -     

Mental health consultation to law enforcement: Secret Service development of a Mental Health Liaison Program

The Mental Health Liaison Program developed and used by the Secret Service is presented as a model for comprehensive, multidimensional interactions between law enforcement and mental health systems, with particular focus on assessing and preventing violent behavior. The structure of the program pairs consultants—psychologists and psychiatrists—with Secret Service field offices to provide (a) consultation regarding risk assessment and case management of individuals who threaten or display inappropriate interest in the President or other protectees; (b) training for agents on risk assessment, mental illness, and mental health care issues; and (c) liaison activities between the Secret Service and the mental health community. Practical benefits to the Secret Service are discussed to encourage more systematic use of broad based psychological and psychiatric consultation to law enforcement, with a goal of enhanced intersystem communication and collaboration. The need for program evaluation and outcome research is discussed in the context of applying the model to improve other mental health and law enforcement systems interactions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contributions of American mental philosophers to psychology in the United States

Professors of mental philosophy who taught and wrote textbooks in colleges and universities in the United States before the Civil War contributed significantly to the development of the new psychology that replaced mental philosophy in the last quarter of the 19th century. Their contributions have been neglected in textbooks on the history of psychology, even those devoted to the history of psychology in the United States. These mental philosophers eased the transition to, and influenced the nature of, the new psychology in the United States by establishing a place in the curriculum for mental philosophy that the new psychology came to occupy; by identifying the topics for laboratory methods to address; by pursuing an empirical, inductive, scientific approach to the study of the mind; and by their tradition of functional analysis that came to characterize psychology in the United States.     

The prevalence of mental retardation: Cross-cultural considerations from Sweden and the United States

Recent reports from Sweden and other European countries have shown a sharp disparity between their incidence and prevalence figures on mild mental retardation and similar figures in the U.S. (Grunewald, 1979; Martin, Blodgett, Edwards, Geer, & Melcher, 1974; Robinson & Robinson, 1976).The purpose of this paper is to provide a model of intellectual performance that might explain such disparities and predict future levels of occurrence of mild mental retardation. Such explanations should have relevance for our views on the development of intellectual ability as well as, on a practical level, planning the allocation of treatment resources. Such planning clearly depends upon the number of children having the condition in question.Over the past few decades we have progressed substantially in our ability to describe mental retardation and to differentiate it from conditions that superficially resemble it; such as, autism, learning disabilities, schizophrenia, etc., (Baroff, 1974; Robinson & Robinson, 1976). Our ability to identify variables that relate to mild mental retardation also has developed substantially, but correlation does not necessarily lead to understanding. One of the large set of variables that often is associated with mild mental retardation in the U.S. is poverty. But “poverty” is too broad a variable to be explanatory. Such a dimension is a surrogate factor standing in the place of other variables, not yet understood, that control, in part, the actual process, by which the child develops the condition of mild mental retardation (Kirk & Gallagher, 1983). A series of papers has been presented by psychologists in Sweden that allow us to address this issue.The ability to observe two cultures, Sweden and the U.S., that have both substantial similarities and differences provides a natural comparison of the prevalence of mental retardation that would be impossible to achieve through experimental manipulation. Prevalence is used here as the total number of cases present in a population group during a specific interval of time (Kramer, 1975).     

Alcohol use: Views of people receiving in-patient care for mental health conditions

This study explored the perceptions of psychiatric in-patients concerning their use of alcohol in a context of community living. A total of 70 psychiatric in-patients at an Ethiopian hospital were the informants in this study (males = 73%; females = 27%, majority diagnosis schizophrenia = 63%). The patients completed a structured interview on possible reasons for and effects associated with alcohol use in psychiatric illness. These were thematically analysed. The patients cited positive features when using alcohol to include keeping one warm, acting as a digestive, controlling the side effects of psychotropic drugs, alleviating boredom or anxiety and improving one’s mood. They noted negative aspects of alcohol consumption as being the risk of bodily harm, absenteeism from work, familial neglect and a loss of control of one’s life. Some patients believed that the use of alcohol while they were under psychiatric care carried the risk of social exclusion and discrimination; yet they also believed that abstinence from alcohol would be difficult for them.     

Why the United States should adopt a single-payer system of health care finance

Although nothing could be less fashionable today than talk of comprehensive health care reform, the major problems of American health care have not gone away. Only a radical change in the way the U.S. finances health care--specifically, a single-payer system--will permit the achievement of universal coverage while keeping costs reasonably under control. Evidence from other countries, especially Canada, suggests the promise of this approach. In defending the single-payer approach, the author identifies several political and cultural factors that make it difficult for Americans to obtain a clear view of this option. Finally, the author argues that much discussion of rationing is vitiated by bracketing more systemic questions to which the issue of rationing is inextricably linked.     

The mental health of university students in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

There are increasing concerns globally about the mental health of students. In the UK, the actual incidence of mental disturbance is unknown, although university counselling services report increased referrals. This study assesses the levels of mental illness in undergraduate students to examine whether widening participation in education has resulted in increases as hypothesised by the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists. Patterns of disturbance across years are compared to identify where problems arise. Students (N=1197) completed the General Health Questionnaire-28 either on the first day at university or midway through the academic year for first, second and third year students. Rates of mental illness in students equalled those of the general population but only 5.1% were currently receiving treatment. Second year students reported the most significant increases in psychiatric symptoms. Factors contributing to the problem are discussed.     

Conceptualising mental health in the United Arab Emirates: the perspective of traditional healers

Substantial investments in health-care have ensured the widespread availability of allopathic medical services across the United Arab Emirates (UAE). However, in spite of this accessibility traditional healers (Mutawa) continue to play a significant, albeit, unofficial role in the UAE's health sector. Citizens routinely consult traditional healers for problems that might, from a western biomedical perspective, be considered psychiatric conditions. This qualitative study explores traditional healers' conceptualisations of mental health problems, discussing their perspectives on phenomenology, aetiology, intervention and outcome. Notably, traditional healers distinguished between biomedical illness and states they attributed to demonological or metaphysical causes. The Islamic spiritual narrative was central to discussions of aetiology, intervention and outcome. Greater integration of traditional healers within the UAE's mental health-care services would, in many cases, improve patient experience and outcomes.     

Liability of professional and volunteer mental health practitioners in the wake of disasters: a framework for further considerations

Qualified immunity from civil liability exists for acts of disaster mental health (DMH) practitioners responding to disasters or acts of terrorism. This article reviews current legal regimens dictating civil liability for potentially wrongful acts of DMH professionals and volunteers responding to disasters. Criteria are proposed to inform determinations of civil liability for DMH workers in disaster response, given current legal parameters and established tort law in relevant areas. Specific considerations are examined that potentially implicate direct liability of DMH professionals and volunteers, and vicarious liability of DMH supervisors for actions of volunteer subordinates. The relevance of pre-event DMH planning and operationalization of the plan post-event is linked to considerations of liability. This article concludes with recommendations to minimize liability exposure for DMH workers in response efforts.