Working in Indigenous Contexts: Self‐Reported Experiences of Non‐Indigenous Australian Psychologists

Despite assertions in the literature that psychologists adopt culturally inappropriate strategies for working with Indigenous clients, there is little empirical evidence about this. The aim of this study was to document the self‐reported experiences of non‐Indigenous psychologists working with Indigenous clients, the factors that they felt constrain these interactions, and the clinical, assessment and communication strategies they perceived as effective in Indigenous contexts. Structured interviews were held with 23 psychologists, 18 females and five males, with age groups ranging from 20–30 to 50+. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that participants experienced contradictions between the typical Western white psychologists' ways of interacting with clients, which they had been taught and the typical ways in which relationships are structured in Indigenous communities. The results suggest that the Western model of psychological training does not work very well in Indigenous contexts, and that psychologists working in Indigenous contexts have to work out their own methods on a trial‐and‐error basis. This points to the need for more systematic cultural competence training. However, there is a lack of research into the effectiveness of psychological intervention from the viewpoints of Indigenous clients themselves.     

Tele‐web Psychology in Rural South Australia: The Logistics of Setting Up a Remote University Clinic Staffed by Clinical Psychologists in Training

There is a significant shortage of clinical psychology services in rural and remote Australia. It is proposed that tele‐web psychology may provide one potential solution to this inequity in health provision. A tele‐web psychology project was developed through a partnership between a university and country health service setting in rural South Australia. Tele‐web psychology was conducted by Provisional Psychologists on their first clinical placement, with patients attending sessions in a community mental health team hub in a regional centre north of Adelaide. This article describes the logistics of setting up a collaborative tele‐web psychology service and makes recommendations on how to expedite the success of this type of venture.     

Comment on “The Self‐Care of Psychologists and Mental Health Professionals” (Dattilio, 2015)

Professor Frank Dattilio's article “The Self‐care of Psychologists and Mental Health Professionals” provides an overview of stress and related mental health problems among psychologists, and a proposition that psychologists are not vigilant in regard to self‐care. Dattilio offers a range of self‐care strategies and recommendations, and highlights self‐care practices within various psychology frameworks, and concludes with some “healthy tips” for managing stress. In my commentary I underscore Dattilio's message that self‐care is of critical importance in psychology practice, given the responsibility of caring for others inherent in the work psychologists undertake. However, I raise additional points of consideration and suggest an alternative approach to addressing the self‐care needs of the profession. My commentary makes the following points: (a) the need to distinguish between psychology trainees and practising qualified psychologists when addressing stress and self‐care requirements in the profession; (b) the importance of developing a culture of self‐care among psychologists by providing self‐care instruction during training; (c) the need to temper research findings on stress and mental health among psychologists by the methodological weakness of the studies in this area; (d) adhering to the recent call from colleagues to shift from a focus on pathology and punishment to a positive acceptance, mindfulness, and values‐based approach for encouraging self‐care among psychologists; (e) the use of a systematic framework for organising the presentation of self‐care strategies that makes them more accessible; and (f) an appeal to professional bodies to take their responsibility in promoting self‐care in the profession.     

A Qualitative Analysis of Home‐Based Counselors' Experiences in a Rural Setting

This qualitative study sought to understand the experiences of home‐based counselors working in a rural setting. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 12 counselors who were asked to describe their experiences in the areas of preparedness, professional development, challenges, and gender‐specific experiences. Fourteen coding categories emerged from the interviews, which led to the findings of 3 overarching themes: shared isolation, ethical ambiguity, and the high‐intensity nature of the job. Recommendations for home‐based counselors, agencies, and professional counseling associations are discussed.     

Continuity and Change in Role Definitions and Training Models of School Psychologists in Israel

Abstract

In accordance with one of the major challenges of psychology research and practice worldwide, school psychology in Israel has setas its aim the promotion of the emotional well-being of students. These aims are achieved through psychological evaluation and intervention, at the systemic and individual-student level. School psychology emerged in Israel in the 1930s, as a relatively narrow field, focused mainly on the placement of students in special education settings. Over the decades, major changes occurred in Israeli society, including waves of immigration, coping with security situations and additional socio-political challenges. In light of these transformations, the discipline grew and broadened, encompassing additional areas of professional practice. The training of school psychologists evolved in relation to these processes. From unsystematic training procedures, mostly embedded in child-clinical psychology and relying on on-the-job training, to a well-established system of graduate school programs producing dozens of school psychologists every year. Academic pre-service training is followed by a post-graduate internship in the public-school system. The developments in the field of school psychology brought about a host of challenges and dilemmas. These issues are discussed in relation to the broad aim of school psychology in Israel: the promotion of the emotional well-being of all students.     

Teaching foundational perspective‐taking skills to children with autism using the PEAK‐T curriculum: single‐reversal “I–You” deictic frames

We taught basic perspective‐taking tasks to 3 children with autism and evaluated their ability to derive mutually entailed single‐reversal deictic relations of those newly established perspective‐taking skills. Furthermore, we examined the possibility of transfers of perspective‐taking function to novel untrained stimuli. The methods were taken from the PEAK‐T training curriculum, and results yielded positive gains for all 3 children to learn basic perspective taking as well as for 2 of the 3 to derive untrained single‐reversal I relations following direct training of single‐reversal You relations. All participants demonstrated a transfer of stimulus function to untrained stimuli after the single‐reversal deictic relations had been mastered.     

Exploring the Effects of Creativity Training on Creative Performance and Creative Self‐Efficacy: Evidence from a Longitudinal Study

In organizations and educational institutions, creativity trainings are the preferred approach to enhancing individual creative abilities. However, three issues regarding these trainings still remain largely unsolved. First, the question of how long‐lasting creativity training effects are has not been sufficiently answered so far. Second, the question arises whether all participants benefit from such trainings equally in terms of their creative performance (CP). Third, an increasing number of studies have shown that creativity trainings may also be able to increase participants' creative self‐efficacy (CSE), that is, the confidence in one's own creativity. Other studies, however, did not find evidence for this effect. Therefore, this article aims to address these issues by analyzing data from three measurement waves. Results reveal that participants' CP increased during the training and decreased only slightly 4 weeks after the training. Additionally, we found an effect of diminishing training returns in that the higher a participant's CP before the training the lower the training effect was. In contrast to most prior literature, we found no support for an effect of creativity training on participants' CSE. We discuss these findings and offer implications for both theory and practice. Finally, we state this study's limitations and derive avenues for further research.     

Online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Training for Therapists: Outcomes,Acceptability, and Impact of Support

The objectives of the present study were to assess the effects of online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) training for therapists on measures of CBT knowledge, skills, confidence, and utilisation; to determine what differences might exist between a group supported by regular telephone contact and an independent group who undertook online training without additional support; and to determine the acceptability of CBT online training among rural and remote mental health professionals. Mental health practitioners were randomly allocated to a supported training group (six sessions of 15‐min support) or an independent group. They undertook a 12‐week online CBT training program. The two groups showed similar gains on an objective test of knowledge of CBT, and on self‐report measures of knowledge, skills, confidence levels, and utilisation of skills. However, the supported training group had a significantly higher program completion rate than the independent group. Participants evaluated the program favourably. The results suggest that online CBT training represents a promising and cost‐effective approach to training the mental health workforce, and may be particularly attractive for those who live in regional, rural, and remote communities. A challenge is to determine the most cost‐effective ways to enhance program completion rates and trainee skills.     

Antisocial behavior reduces the association between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms and alcohol use in a large population‐based sample of adolescents

The aim of this study was to investigate possible effects of antisocial behavior on reducing the association between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms (inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity) and alcohol use. Boys and girls were analyzed separately using a population‐based Swedish adolescent sample. A randomly selected cross‐sectional survey was performed in secondary and upper secondary schools in Västmanland County during 2010. Participants were a population of 2,439 15–16 year‐olds and 1,425 17–18 year‐olds (1,947 girls and 1,917 boys). Psychosocial adversity, antisocial behaviors, symptoms of ADHD and alcohol use were assessed by questionnaires. Except for girls' inattention, subdimensions of ADHD symptoms were not associated with alcohol use when variance due to antisocial behavior was accounted for. Among boys, instead of an indirect effect of antisocial behavior on the association between impulsivity and alcohol use, a moderating effect was found. Among girls, the inattention component of ADHD was independently associated with alcohol use even when adjusted for antisocial behavior. The reduced associations between symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and alcohol use for boys and girls after adjusting for antisocial behavior suggest a considerable overlap between hyperactivity, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior. The direct pathway between inattention and alcohol use among girls suggests that girls with inattention symptoms are at risk of alcohol use regardless of antisocial behavior. Special attention should be given to these girls. Accounting for antisocial behavior reduced the relation between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms and alcohol use, and antisocial behaviors should therefore be screened for when symptoms of ADHD are present.     

Systemic Reflecting Team Training: Perceptions and Experiences of South African Educational Psychologists

Abstract

There is limited research on the application of systemic family therapy in developing countries. This qualitative study explored the perceptions and experiences of 12 educational psychologists and a family therapy trainer, who have worked within a systemic reflecting team using Tom Andersen’s method of training and supervision. The semi-structured interview findings suggested positive perceptions of systemic intervention, despite various challenges experienced in its implementation within the South African context. The educational psychologists identified their reflecting team experiences as being beneficial for both their professional development and current practices. Future research which investigates the reflecting team process in action is recommended.     

A comparison of coping strategies in patients with fibromyalgia,chronic neuropathic pain,and pain‐free controls

Patients suffering from chronic pain may benefit from learning adaptive coping strategies. Consensus on efficient strategies for this group of patients is, however, lacking, and previous studies have shown inconsistent results. The present study has examined coping strategies in two distinctly different groups of chronic pain patients and a group of healthy controls. Thirty neuropathic pain (NP) patients, 28 fibromyalgia (FM) patients, and 26 pain‐free healthy controls completed the Coping Strategy Questionnaire (CSQ‐48/27) and rated their daily pain. The results showed that FM and NP patients did not cope differently with pain. The only difference between the groups was that FM patients felt more in control of their pain than NP patients. Both patient groups used more maladaptive/passive coping strategies, but surprisingly also more adaptive/active coping strategies than healthy controls. However, FM patients with high levels of passive strategies felt less in control than FM patients with low levels of passive strategies. This was not seen in NP patients. An important implication for clinical practice is therefore that passive coping strategies should be restructured into active ones, especially for FM patients. Otherwise, the same psychological treatment model can be applied to both groups since they use similar coping styles.     

Psychologists in Academic Health Centers: Reflections on Traditions and Innovations in Education,Science, and Practice

In 2007, the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Centers (APAHC), formerly known as Association of Medical School Psychologists (AMSP), held its first national conference since 1997. At the latter conference, the author of this article [Sheridan (1999) Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 6, 211–218] was asked to present some of the issues that would be important to health care psychologists in the next decade. These issues included the role of psychology in academic health centers, interventions psychologists offer, reimbursements for such treatments, education and training models, and research. This article examines those observations, offers new data, and explores the current challenges and opportunities for psychologists in academic health centers. The presentation also addresses aspirations of psychologists as well as resistances within the profession. Parts of this paper were delivered at the 3rd Conference of the Association of Academic Health Center Psychologists in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2007.     

Psychometric Properties and Responsiveness to Change of 15‐ and 28‐Item Versions of the SCORE: A Family Assessment Questionnaire

The SCORE (Systemic Clinical Outcome and Routine Evaluation) is a 40‐item questionnaire for completion by family members 12 years and older to assess outcome in systemic therapy. This study aimed to investigate psychometric properties of two short versions of the SCORE and their responsiveness to therapeutic change. Data were collected at 19 centers from 701 families at baseline and from 433 of these 3–5 months later. Results confirmed the three‐factor structure (strengths, difficulties, and communication) of the 15‐ and 28‐item versions of the SCORE. Both instruments had good internal consistency and test–retest reliability. They also showed construct and criterion validity, correlating with measures of parent, child, and family adjustment, and discriminating between clinical and nonclinical cases. Total and factor scales of the SCORE‐15 and ‐28 were responsive to change over 3–5 months of therapy. The SCORE‐15 and SCORE‐28 are brief psychometrically robust family assessment instruments which may be used to evaluate systemic therapy.     

A psychometric evaluation of the Icelandic version of the WHO‐5

The psychometric properties of the Icelandic version of the World Health Organization five wellbeing index (WHO‐5) were evaluated using two samples, a randomly selected sample (N = 3,896) from the Icelandic National Registry and a convenience sample of primary care patients (N = 126). The factor structure of the scale was tested with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The correlation between the WHO‐5 and other measures of depression and anxiety were calculated to assess the scale's convergent and divergent validity. The discriminant validity of the WHO‐5 was explored with a receiver operating analysis compared to the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. The CFA indicated that the factor structure of the WHO‐5 was one‐dimensional and factorial invariant between groups. The internal reliability of the WHO‐5 was adequate and the convergent, divergent and discriminant validity of the WHO‐5 was supported. It is concluded that the psychometric properties of the Icelandic version of the WHO‐5 are satisfactory.     

A Computational Model of the Self‐Teaching Hypothesis Based on the Dual‐Route Cascaded Model of Reading

The self‐teaching hypothesis describes how children progress toward skilled sight‐word reading. It proposes that children do this via phonological recoding with assistance from contextual cues, to identify the target pronunciation for a novel letter string, and in so doing create an opportunity to self‐teach new orthographic knowledge. We present a new computational implementation of self‐teaching within the dual‐route cascaded (DRC) model of reading aloud, and we explore how decoding and contextual cues can work together to enable accurate self‐teaching under a variety of circumstances. The new model (ST‐DRC) uses DRC’s sublexical route and the interactivity between the lexical and sublexical routes to simulate phonological recoding. Known spoken words are activated in response to novel printed words, triggering an opportunity for orthographic learning, which is the basis for skilled sight‐word reading. ST‐DRC also includes new computational mechanisms for simulating how contextual information aids word identification, and it demonstrates how partial decoding and ambiguous context interact to achieve irregular‐word learning. Beyond modeling orthographic learning and self‐teaching, ST‐DRC’s performance suggests new avenues for empirical research on how difficult word classes such as homographs and potentiophones are learned.     

Parental socioeconomic status and child intellectual functioning in a Norwegian sample

Socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood has been linked to cognitive function and future academic and occupational success in studies from several countries. However, previous Nordic studies have shown inconsistent results regarding the strength of this link. We therefore investigated the association between SES and cognitive functioning in a sample of 255 Norwegian children, including 151 typically developing children and 104 children with a psychiatric diagnosis. The third edition of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC‐III) to assess cognitive function was used. SES was defined from maternal and paternal education and family income of typically developing children and of a subsample of children with a psychiatric diagnosis. Multiple adjusted regression analyses were used to investigate the relation between SES and cognitive functioning. The analyses showed that SES explained a significant part of the variance of the full‐scale WISC‐III score and two WISC‐III indices (Verbal Comprehension and Freedom from Distractibility). Overall, the strength of the relations was weaker than expected from reports from other non‐Nordic countries. Parental education was the only significant individual predictor, suggesting that income was of minor importance as a predictor of cognitive functioning. Further studies should investigate how diverse political and socioeconomic contexts influence the relation between SES and cognitive functioning.