Forgotten warriors: an evaluation of the emotional well-being of presently incarcerated Vietnam veterans

The emotional well-being of a group of incarcerated Vietnam veterans within the maximum security section of a state prison was assessed along with comparison groups of veterans and nonveterans. The Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL) (Zuckerman & Lubin, 1965), the Adjective Check List (ACL) (Gough & Heilbrun, 1983), and the Military Life Questionnaire (MLQ) (Panzarella, Mantell, & Bridenbaugh, 1978) were administered. Both the factors of incarceration and Vietnam experience proved significant on a number of MAACL, ACL, and MLQ measures, including depression, anxiety, hostility, and personal adjustment. The MLQ results also indicated that, compared to their nonincarcerated counterparts, the incarcerated veterans were more likely to be black, to have come from a less supportive family background, to have been assigned to an Army infantry combat unit, to have been injured in combat, and to have witnessed or been involved in the killing of enemy soldiers, prisoners, and civilians while in Vietnam. Many incarcerated veterans apparently began as poor prospects in terms of their social, economic, and interpersonal well-being. They went to Vietnam, bore the brunt of these experiences, and emerged as even poorer prospects, all the more at risk and prone to incarceration.     

Role of psychocultural factors in the adjustment of Soviet Jewish refugees: Applying Kleinian theory of mourning

The purpose of this paper is to show how failures of adjustment of Soviet refugees to America are to a great degree determined by their difficulties in mourning. The author argues that due to such difficulties, Soviet refugees may get fixated sometimes for long periods of time at different stages of the mourning process. Such fixations may be the causes for peculiar types of behavior, frequently exhibited by these refugees in America and attributed by various authors to their psychocultural characteristics. Melanie Klein's analysis of mourning and its relationship to manic depressive states is applied to understand the mourning process in this population. The author shows that difficulties in the mourning process experienced by Soviet refugees may be connected with the culturally acquired inhibitions of mourning. Such inhibitions are analyzed from a family, historical and cultural perspective.     

Serious misapplications of military research: dysfunction between conception and implementation

Researchers and technologists involved in the development of weapon systems can take their work to such extremes as to cause unplanned injury or death to others and lasting damage to the environment, reviewed here. In some cases innocent human casualties and ecological harm may actually be programmed and achieved. An analysis is proffered, attributing blame, and indicating efforts to correct the situation. The ethics involved are “complexified”, moral boundaries are exceeded, and humanity is transgressed as it develops solutions to the problem. The license to make mistakes becomes more limited with the passing of the years... Primo Levi, chemist¹ To use the term coined in 1994 by John L. Casti of the Santa Fe Institute.     

The great escape: World War II, neo-freudianism, and the origins of U.S. psychocultural analysis

Psychocultural analysis stands as a signal accomplishment of the 1930s U.S. assimilation of European refugee-intellectuals. Scholars in the U.S. had been moving toward a kind of psychocultural analysis well in advance of the Great Migration--the U.S. was not an intellectual vacuum or wasteland--nevertheless, it was through their interdisciplinary collaboration, fueled by the specter of war, that these international peers stimulated one of the most wide-ranging, dynamic, and productive exchanges of ideas of the century. Through the lens of Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom, this article explores psychoculturalism's emergence in the interstices between cultures, nations, ideas, and disciplines--between Europeans and Americans, psychoanalysts and social scientists.     

Post-traumatic psychocultural therapy (PTpsyCT): Integration of trauma and shattering social labels of the self

This article discusses the interaction between psychological Iraumatization and elhnocultural considerations in psychotherapy. Black veterans are highlighted to demonstrate the complexities of cultural and traumatic factors. The importance of recognizing the powerful and detrimental impact of stigmatizing social labels borne by certain groups of patients is discussed, as well as a specialized treatment model, post-traumatic psychocultural therapy, to help minority persons whose presenting complaints include suffering the aftereffects of psychological trauma. As the model integrates trauma and cultural issues, the veteran-therapist dynamics (particularly related to countertransference and cultural counterresistance), cultural stigma, and the therapist's achieving of transexperiential and transcultural competencies in therapy are emphasized.     

The military chaplain: a study in ambiguity

This article looks at the ambiguities in the role of the military chaplain from three points of view. The first considers the nature of the constituency within which the chaplain ministers, paying particular attention to the degree – or otherwise – of secularisation and the reasons for this. The second examines the role of the chaplain in relation to the two institutions which he or she serves (i.e. church and state) and the tensions that emerge as a result. These are articulated in terms of ‘an angle of eschatological tension’. The third is concerned with ‘the roles within the role’ – that is the variety of tasks that make up the role of chaplaincy and the degree to which these are compatible with each other. The significance of theology in the resolution of the ensuing issues is set against diminishing societal resources in terms of religious literacy.     

The growth of school psychology in the last decade

With reference to the first question, it seems that school psychology as a profession is growing much more rapidly than membership in Division 16 of APA would indicate. While the Division is growing, it is not growing in proportion to the number of practitioners in the field.

Factors that seem to be positively related to the rapid expansion of school psychological services are: financial support from the state level; training programs in the colleges and universities; special certification requirements and the designation of school psychology as a specific profession; and increasing demand for services in rural as well as the urban areas. The school psychologist, by virtue of his training and professional competence, is apparently meeting an important need in the educational system. The general tenor of the response to this survey is that the growth of school psychological services will continue.     

Legislative warriors: American psychiatrists,psychologists, and competing claims over psychotherapy in the 1950s

American psychiatrists and psychologists have long been close colleagues and fierce rivals. There is no better illustration of this polarized relationship than the chronic tug-of-war over psychotherapy. Both groups laid claim to psychotherapy-whatever it was and however it was practiced. Psychiatrists attempted to monopolize psychotherapy despite its ambiguous status as an essential component of the healing arts. After the war, psychologists pressed for a share on the basis of their qualifications and competence, but struggled to overcome the limitations imposed by medical envy. This story lays bare the crucial function of tools and techniques for defining the identity and the boundaries of a science-based profession.     

Maximizing internal and external validity in MMPI malingering research: a study of a military population

The authors investigated the effectiveness of various commonly used Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) indices of exaggeration and malingering in detecting suspected malingering in a military sample of 121 enlisted men. To maximize external validity, only men undergoing psychological evaluation were used as participants. Forty-one participants were identified as suspected malingerers through multiple criteria and were contrasted with schizophrenic-spectrum and clinic outpatient groups. To improve internal validity, the 41 suspected malingering participants were asked to retake the test without exaggerating. Results revealed that there were many false positives and fewer, but nonetheless many, false negatives with standard malingering indices. It appeared that the Gough Dissimulation scale (Gough, 1947) might hold the most promise as a measure of malingering, but other scales are also useful. Individual comparisons between different samples and implications for MMPI-2 (Butcher et al., 1989) are presented.     

The effects of sexual harassment on turnover in the military: time-dependent modeling

Sexual harassment has consistently negative consequences for working women, including changes in job attitudes (e.g., lower satisfaction) and behaviors (e.g., increased work withdrawal). Cross-sectional evidence suggests that harassment influences turnover intentions. However, few studies have used actual turnover; rather, they rely on proxies. With a sample of 11,521 military servicewomen with turnover data spanning approximately 4 years, the authors used the appropriate method for longitudinal turnover data--Cox's regression--to investigate the impact of harassment on actual turnover. Experiences of harassment led to increased turnover, even after controlling for job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and marital status. Among officers, harassment also affected turnover over and above rank. Given turnover's relevance to organizational bottom lines, these findings have important implications not only for individual women but also for organizations.     

Recent interview-based measures of competency to stand trial: a critical review augmented with research data

Forensic experts are frequently asked to conduct competency-to-stand trial evaluations and address the substantive prongs propounded in Dusky v. United States (1960). In understanding its application to competency evaluations, alternative conceptualizations of Dusky are critically examined. With Dusky providing the conceptual framework, three interview-based competency measures are reviewed: the Georgia Court Competency Test (GCCT), the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Criminal Adjudication (Mac-CAT-CA), and the Evaluation of Competency to Stand Trial-Revised (ECST-R). This review has a twin focus on reliability of each measure and its correspondence to Dusky prongs. The current review is augmented by new factor analytic data on the MacCAT-CA and ECST-R. The article concludes with specific recommendations for competency evaluations.     

The last moments of life: Learning to cope

A large portion of youthful death in this country is caused by the intentional self‐destructive behavior of individuals who experience helplessness, alienation, loneliness, who suffer from social neglect, and who react to the loss of significant others. Analysts of youthful suicide view such events as being associated with attempts to cope with stress and crisis. This article describes those social forces that shaped the acts of suicide and provides a partial explanation for suicidal behavior among young people. As a strategy employed by the victims to cope with problems in living, suicide is, the author suggests, a plausible response to stress prompted in part by a fatalistic attitude.     

Historiography of psychology in Spain: the last decade

History of psychology has been an extremely active field for many years in Spain. Both the great expansion of psychological studies and the inclusion of history as a compulsory subject in the psychology curriculum are crucial factors helping to understand the current state of affairs. The aim of this paper is to provide a survey of the work done in this area over the last decade, covering research, teaching, and institutional developments. The study includes consideration of aspects such as main research lines, major theoretical and methodological trends, teaching materials, relevant archives and exhibits, and significant websites.