In-depth continuing education for clergy in mental health: Ten years of a large scale program

This paper describes an interdenominational continuing education program for parish clergy in the mental health dimension of pastoral work. The program is in its eleventh year and has reached a significant proportion of the clergy, representing a wide range of religious, ethnic, and socio-economic groups, within a large urban community. The format utilizes case-oriented, small group discussion focused on the clergy's own pastoral work. It emphasizes preventive educational activities along with the development of basic counseling and mental health skills. Ongoing evaluation indicates that the program constitutes an effective, economical, and flexible tool for continuing education with clergy.Dr. Wasman is Assistant Professor of Psychology, Dr. Corradi is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, and Dr. Clemens is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, 44106. This work has been supported in part by the National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH11929 and by grants from the Cleveland Foundation, The Grant Foundation, Inc., and The Cuyahoga County Board of Mental Health and Retardation. The authors wish to thank Dr. Milton Matz, the current Director of the Pastoral Psychology Service-Institute, Case Western Reserve University, for his advice and cooperation in preparing this article.     

Theology and pastoral counseling: A client's viewpoint

Although in recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the correlation of theology and pastoral care and counseling, most writings have only given the pastor's perspective. Presented here is a theological poem written some two years after depression began to plague Rachel Hansen. She describes not only her view of the pastor and the counseling process, but also the impact of the counseling on her theology and faith.Dr. Stone is Professor of Pastoral Care and Pastoral Psychology at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas 76129.     

An Overview of Primary Care Family Psychology

This paper describes the application of family psychology to the primary care setting—in service, education and training, and scholarship. Primary care family psychology integrates family systems with biopsychosocial theory, yielding an approach that is uniquely suited to the generalist demands of primary care. This approach attends especially to the effects of relationships on health and healthcare, using the family as a potential resource to the patient just as the healthcare team is a resource to the clinician. Training opportunities in primary care family psychology are growing. The University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry fellowship is described as an example, with core primary care family psychology training in four different clinical sites: Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Obstetrics/Gynecology. Susan H. McDaniel is Professor of Psychiatry & Family Medicine, Director of Family Programs & the Wynne Center for Family Research in Psychiatry, and Associate Chair of Family Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, New York. Dr McDaniel also directs the Primary Care Family Psychology Fellowship. Picter LeRoux is Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Pediatrics, and Director of the Family Therapy Training Program in Psychiatry, University of Rochester School Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, New York. Dr. LeRoux also heads the Pediatric Track of the Primary Care Family Psychology Fellowship.     

A framework for assessing program institutionalization

This article presents a framework for assessing the institutionalization of programmatic innovations in nonprofit community agencies and in schools. Institutionalization is the attainment of long-term viability and integration of innovations in organizations. Institutionalization is often characterized as the final stage in an innovation diffusion process. The framework was derived from a qualitative study of ten health promotion programs that were innovations in their host organizations. The framework is a two dimensional matrix: one dimension consists of organizational subsystems; the other consists of levels of institutionalization termed passages, routines, and niche saturation. The cells of the matrix are the basis for assessing program institutionalization. Robert M. Goodman is a research assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health. Currently, Dr. Goodman directs a four-year intervention study on the dissemination of tobacco prevention curricular funded by the National Cancer Institute. Allan Steckler is an associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health. Dr. Steckler is also the principal investigator of the National Cancer Institute tobacco prevention study.     

Opposing Trends of Religious Attendance and Religiosity in Predicting Elders’ Functional Recovery after an Acute Myocardial Infarction

This study examined the role of religion and spirituality in older adults’ functional recovery following an AMI. Participants were interviewed within 2 weeks of the AMI about their religious beliefs. Functional recovery was evaluated using the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) at one month and seven months. We found that those who reported attending religious services more frequently had better functional recovery. In contrast, those who considered themselves more spiritual had worse functional recovery. These findings remained after controlling for age, gender, co-morbidity (Charlson Co-Morbidity Scale), depression (CES-D), social support (MOS Social Support Survey), and grip strength in Linear Mixed Models. The implications of the findings are discussed.Dr. Levy is an Associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public health at Yale University. Her research focuses on the influence of psychosocial factors on aging health. She received the Margaret M. Baltes Early Career Award in Behavioral and Social Gerontology from the Gerontological Society of America, the Springer Award for Early Career Achievement on Adult Development and Aging from the American Psychological Association, and a Career Award from the National Institute on Aging. She was also awarded a Brookdale National Fellowship for Leadership in Aging. Kathryn Remmes Martin received her Bachelor’s Degree from the College of the Holy Cross and her Master’s Degree (MPH) in Chronic Disease Epidemiology from Yale University. She is currently a doctoral student in the Health Behavior and Health Education Department at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, School of Public Health.     

Persistence in seminary and in ministry

A follow-up study of 672 seminary students from 14 seminaries who took the Theological School Inventory in 1962 and 574 from 10 seminaries who took it in 1973 investigated factors involved in persistence in seminary and in ministry. Among those found were definiteness of decision, interest in parish ministry, a supportive spouse, unambivalent resolution of the authority problem, good role models in father and ministers. Motivations included redemptive outreach, pastoral care, Christian insight and scholarship, the encouragement of other people and a sense of effectiveness in ministry.Dr. Cardwell is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Counseling at Christian Theological Seminary, 1000 W. 42nd St., Indianapolis, Indiana 46208. This study was the basis for her Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, June, 1978. TSI data for the 1973 subjects were made available by Richard A. Hunt, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, and Director of Ministry Inventories, P.O. Box 8265, Dallas, Texas 75205. TSI data for the 1962 subjects were coded and made available by Edgar W. Mills. Ph.D., presently visiting Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas, San Antonio, formerly Director, Ministry Studies Board. Special credit is due the 16 seminaries who cooperated by furnishing follow-up data.     

The Editor's Dilemma

Dr. Burnham agreed to be interviewed regarding his views on Christian education from his perspective of 15 years of living in Africa and his current dealings with health issues in Africa. He is an expert on onchocerciasis or “river blindness” and has worked with the World Health Organization. In addition to being a physician, he has a Ph.D. in tropical disease epidemiology and a Masters in Clinical Tropical Medicine.     

Making Sense of Suffering and Death: How Health Care Providers’ Construct Meanings in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Biomedical technology has progressed at a pace that has created a new set of patient care dilemmas. Health care providers in intensive care units where life-sustaining therapies are both initiated and withdrawn encounter clinical scenarios that raise new existential, theological, and moral questions. We hypothesized that there might be broad patterns in how such staff understand these questions and make sense and meaning from their work. Such meaning making might be the key to working with the critically ill and dying while helping to create and sustain a meaningful context for personal living. This article presents themes evident in an in depth analysis of open-text responses to a spiritual and religious questionnaire survey completed by staff in one neonatal intensive care unit. The data reveal the central roles of perceived infant suffering and death in these providers’ work experience and details how they understand the ultimate meaning of the suffering and death. We investigate patterns in how different providers articulate their individual attributes and motivations for working in intensive care. We found a surprising range of religious, spiritual, existential, and other meaning-making systems that underpin how staffs understand their work and how, certain of them, even define their purpose in life as caring for critically ill infants and their families.Wendy Cadge received her Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Bowdoin College and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy Research at Harvard University. Her research examines a range of topics related to religion in contemporary American life including religious pluralism, religion & immigration, religion & sexuality, and religion & the arts. Her first book is titled, Heartwood: the First Generation of Theravada Buddhism in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Dr. Cadge’s current research focuses on the history, presence, and significance of religion and spirituality in American hospitals. Elizabeth A. Catlin is a senior faculty neonatologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Catlin completed general pediatric training at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, followed by subspecialty training in neonatal–perinatal medicine at Brown University School of Medicine, Providence, Rhode Island. Dr. Catlin served as Chief of Neonatology at MGH from 1992 to 2004. She completed a Kenneth B. Schwartz Foundation fellowship in Clinical Pastoral Education in 1999. Dr. Catlin has a long-standing interest in spiritual distress, tragic decision-making, suffering, bereavement, and religious components of patient care in neonatal intensive care. Correspondence to Elizabeth A. Catlin, ecatlin@partners.org.     

The church's response to the severely emotionally distressed

The clergy and church are deeply involved in aiding persons who have emotional problems. Many of those seeking help manifest psychotic symptoms. This paper addresses the issue of how organized religion can better understand and minister to the needs of those suffering severe emotional distress. Programs and models at national and local levels are discussed, with an emphasis upon the latter. Local level models include mental health promoting aspects of local church functions, pastoral counseling programs of the local church, the Wholistic Health Center (WHC), Community Organization for Personal Enrichment (COPE), Christian Action Ministry (CAM), and Mennonite Mental Health Services. Clinical vignettes illustrate the functioning of these models.This work was, in part, done at and supported by the Harvard University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.     

Models of health and wholeness

A church-clinic model of the neighborhood health center, developed initially in a low-income area, has now been established over the past three years in middle- and upper-income areas. The church-clinics, called Wholistic Health Centers, are primary care medical clinics located in church buildings that utilize an interdisciplinary team in the planning for patient treatment and health education. The project integrates primary medical care with pastoral counseling services. Evaluation of the two clinics in middle-to-upper-income areas indicates that the patients are middle to upper class, well educated, and are not medically disenfranchised; their presenting problems are only slightly more often medical (58%) than psychosocial (42%).This work was conducted in part when Dr. Holinger was at the Institute for Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Research and Training, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois.He is also the author ofWholistic Health.The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Rev. Granger E. Westberg, D.D., Clinical Professor, and Edward A. Lichter, Professor and Chairman, Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, University of Illinois at the Medical Center, Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, in the preparation of this report.     

Abortion and Health Care Chaplaincy in Australia

This paper summarizes the results gained from quantitative and qualitative research involving 327 Australian health care chaplains with regard to their involvement in abortion issues within the health care context. The findings indicate that approximately 20% of surveyed chaplains had provided some form of pastoral intervention to patients and/or their families dealing with issues of abortion and that approximately 10% of chaplains had assisted clinical staff with issues concerning abortion. There was found to be no-statistically significant difference with regard to the number of catholic chaplains compared with protestant chaplains or staff chaplains compared with volunteer chaplains involved in abortion issues. Analysis using the WHO Pastoral Intervention codings highlighted a variety of issues encountered by chaplains and the non-judgmental pastoral care used by chaplains when assisting those dealing with abortion. Some implications of this study with respect to patient and clinical staff support are suggested. Dr. Lindsay Carey, M.App.Sc., Ph.D.: National Research Fellow, Australian Health & Welfare Chaplains Association & Faculty Associate, Palliative Care, School of Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Christopher Newell, AM, Ph.D.: Associate Professor, School of Medicine, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.     

Interprofessional Education: Preparing Psychologists for Success in Integrated Primary Care

Rapidly occurring changes in the healthcare arena mean time is of the essence for psychology to formalize a strategic plan for training in primary care settings. The current article articulates factors affecting models of integrated care in Academic Health Centers (AHCs) and describes ways to identify and utilize resources at AHCs to develop interprofessional educational and clinical integrated care opportunities. The paper asserts that interprofessional educational experiences between psychology and other healthcare providers are vital to insure professionals value one another’s disciplines in health care reform endeavors, most notably the patient-centered initiatives. The paper highlights ways to create shared values and common goals between primary care providers and psychologists, which are needed for trainee internalization of integrated care precepts. A developmental perspective to training from pre-doctoral, internship and postdoctoral levels for psychologists in integrated care is described. Lastly, a call to action is given for the field to develop more opportunities for psychology trainees to receive education and training within practica, internships and postdoctoral fellowships in primary care settings to address the reality that most patients seek their mental health treatment in primary care settings.     

Early education as community intervention: Assisting an ethnic minority to be ready for school

An early education program designed for an ethnic minority of Native Hawaiians implemented at the community rather than the individual child level of intervention is described. The program development effort is theory driven and provides an opportunity to investigate the application of neo-Vygotskian theory to an applied community educational problem. Though not specifically derived from the work of O'Donnell, Tharp, and Wilson (1993), the project reported here shares a common intellectual heritage. This paper demonstrates the parallels between the early education program developed for Hawaiian children and the applicability of the theory presented in the work of O'Donnell et al. Portions of this research were supported by Grant #40212121 and Grant #MCJ495051 from the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health and Resource Management, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded to the Center of Development of Early Education, Kamehameha School, Honolulu, Hawaii 96817, and to the Early Intervention Research Institute, Center for Persons with Disabilities, Utah State University, respectively.     

A rational-emotive group intervention for preventing and coping with stress among safety officers

A stress management and prevention workshop for nonclinical industrial workers using rational-emotive principles with 18 months followup is reported. Twenty-two senior safety officers participated in an intervention program of five weekly meetings aimed at improving cognitive skills and assertiveness mainly by decreasing irrational thought processes. We hypothesized an increase in assertiveness, and a decrease in irrational beliefs, and emotional and cognitive stress symptoms (manifested in somatic complaints and cognitive weariness). Assertiveness improved and somatic complaints and irrationality decreased in the short term. Eighteen months later, cognitive weariness was also reduced. The other improvements were still evident, but not to the same extent as short-term effects. Although the workshop improved rationality, further practice would be needed in the behavioral aspect of stress prevention to achieve long-term improvements in assertiveness.Talma Kushnir, Ph.D., is a social and medical psychologist at the Occupational Health and Rehabilitation Institute, Raanana, Israel, and teaches psychology and health promotion at the Tel-Aviv University Medical School.Ruth Malkinson, Ph.D., fellow and RET trainer and supervisor of the Institute for RET, and teaches at the School of Social Work and Medical School at Tel-Aviv University, Israel. Both authors contributed equally to this studyThis study was supported by the Committee for Preventive Action and Research in Occupational Health, The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Jerusalem, Israel.The authors thank Estie Weisberg for her administrative assistance in organizing the workshops.     

Roles for the Black pastor in preventive medicine

In recent years, a new role for Black pastors has emerged. As agents of health-related social and behavioral change, Black ministers have taken active roles in preventive medicine at the tertiary, secondary, and primary levels of prevention, succeeding despite resistance by some physicians. The literature detailing these new health-related pastoral roles is reviewed, with special reference to the place of the Black Church in health care and to the place of the Black pastor in the Black experience. It is concluded that Black ministers are ideal people to take part in planning, promoting, and delivering preventive health care in the Black community.The author wishes to acknowledge Dr. John W. Hatch of the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, who supervised the preparation of an annotated bibliography upon which this paper is based.     

Relations between hyperactive and aggressive behavior and peer relations at three elementary grade levels

Sociometrics and teacher ratings of hyperactivity and aggression were obtained on 390 boys in grades 1– 6 to explore the relative contributions of hyperactivity and aggression to children's social adjustment. Both hyperactivity and aggression were correlated with negative sociometric nominations at all grade levels; however, only hyperactivity showed consistent inverse correlations with positive sociometric nominations. In multiple regression analyses, hyperactivity contributed incremental variance to the prediction of problematic sociometric status at all grade levels, while aggression did so only at grades 3– 4. An examination of the core symptoms of hyperactivity revealed that motor hyperactivity, in the absence of impulsivity and inattention, did not predict negative sociometric status at any grade level. Subgroups of boys categorized as hyperactive only, aggressive only, hyperactive/aggressive, and nonhyperactive/nonaggressive controls were compared on teacher ratings and sociometrics. Hyperactive/aggressive boys had higher hyperactivity and aggression ratings than boys in either of the single- problem groups; all three behavior problem groups had more negative social status than controls. Developmental changes in children's normative expectations for social behavior were discussed as possible mechanisms mediating the age- related differences in relations among aggression, hyperactivity, and peer relations.This research is based on a dissertation submitted by the first author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in clinical psychology at The Pennsylvania State University. The investigation was supported in part by an NIMH postdoctoral training grant No. MH-15151 made to the first author during a fellowship in the Division of Behavioral Pediatrics of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and a Faculty Scholars in Mental Health of Children award made by The William T. Grant Foundation to the second author.Appreciation is expressed to the fellowing individuals for their assistance in data collecting and scoring: Rosanna D'Alession, John D'Orazio, Chris Doran, Linda Goldstein, Joel Kasper, Lisa Kovacs, Heidi Linz, Kathryn McPherson, Grant Miller, Sue Skalaban, Helene Streitfield. The additional organizational and administrative assistance of Linda Goldstein and Kathryn McPherson is gratefully acknowledged. Finally, we are especially thankful for the cooperation and support of the faculty and students at Linntown Elementary School in the Lewisburg Area School District, the Bellwood-Antis Elementary Schools in the Bellwood-Antis School District, and Lincoln Elementary School in the Tyrone Area School District.     

Jeri altneu sechzer (1926-2011)

Presents an obituary for Jeri Altneu Sechzer. Jeri studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where her mentor was the renowned physiological psychologist Elliot Stellar. She received her doctorate in 1962 with a specialty in physiological psychology. That same year she was elected to Sigma Xi, the scientific research society, and received the Creative Talent Award from the American Institute of Research for her doctoral dissertation. She completed a U.S. Public Health Service Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, after which she accepted a position at Baylor University College, followed by a position at the New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center. She completed her career as a visiting professor in the Psychology Department at Pace University. Jeri's husband of 56 years, Philip, died in 2004. As a result of her experience looking after him during the long illness that preceded his death, she became interested in the psychological impact of the stresses that caregivers face. She was planning to organize a conference on this subject when she suffered her final illness, leading to her death on October 29, 2011, just before her 85th birthday. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Issues That Have Made a Difference

This article originally appeared as Chapter 14 in Dr. Callen's book Enriching Mind and Spirit: A History of Higher Education in the Church of God, published in 2007 by Anderson University Press. It appears here by special permission of the author. In this chapter, Dr. Callen presents a summary of several issues that have been faced by higher education institutions in the Church of God movement. In this discussion of issues confronted by these Church of God institutions, we glimpse the unique features of these institutions and the similarity of some issues faced by all Christian institutions of higher education.