The Association for Human Development: a revitalized APGA

The American Personnel and Guidance Association faces a time of challenge as it moves increasingly to a world of change and innovation. Unfortunately, the divisional structure and emphasis of the Association as presently conceived builds for divisiveness, and little organizational unity is evident. However, all members in APGA are concerned with human development, maximizing individual potential, and helping individuals profit from developmental tasks involved in living. The Association for Human Development is suggested as a new name for APGA. Conceptual models for the divisions of the Association are suggested which imply the unity of the developmental process.     

A political action role for APGA

APGA needs to consider what its appropriate political role will be. In this article the author suggests that APGA adopt the role of declaring its professional position when professional concerns will be influenced by political decisions. The mechanism he describes for implementing such a role allows each member of APGA to participate in the political actions of the organization.     

The three R's of group: resistance, rebellion, and refusal

I describe three constellations of group life and group process: resistance, rebellion, and refusal. In resistance, an individual or group remains antagonistic to conscious but not unconscious thinking, the latter manifested in derivatives, including symbol and symptom formation, transference-countertransference, and enactment. Rebellion functions on the level of conscious thinking, manifested in challenge, defiance, and the possibility of sociopolitical action. The basic premises and values of the group and/or leader are at the center of the controversy, to be addressed on that level. Refusal establishes a mental boundary between what is considered appropriate and inappropriate. Unconscious as well as conscious processes of feeling, thinking, and meaning making are refused entry, left undeveloped, rejected, or obstructed. Working with refusal requires appreciating how and why the mind and its thinking operations are being suspended. The theoretical framework is applied to a case example.     

Recent Court Decisions: A Quiz For APGA Members

Counselors must keep up with changing laws and court rulings. This article presents a short quiz for APGA members to test their current legal knowledge.     

Behavioral correlates of selected MMPI-2 clinical, content, and restructured clinical scales

In this study, we evaluated the validity of the Restructured Clinical (RC; Tellegen et al., 2003) scales by identifying and comparing behavioral correlates of selected RC scales (RCd, RC2, RC4), their original Clinical scale counterparts (Scale 2, Scale 4), and conceptually related Content scales (DEP, ASP, CYN) in an outpatient clinical sample (N = 150). The results of this study indicate that RC4 is a stronger predictor of several antisocial behaviors than Clinical Scale 4 or the Content Scales ASP and CYN. In contrast, RC2 demonstrated significantly lower correlations with several behaviors conceptually related to depression than its Clinical scale counterpart or DEP. DEP was highly correlated with RCd (r = .91, p < .0001), suggesting that the 2 scales may be measuring similar constructs. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate relatively few differences among the scales selected in their ability to predict extratest behaviors.