Chuck Warnath: Visionary Gadfly of Professional Counseling

Charles F. “Chuck” Warnath, professor emeritus and former university counseling center director, was interviewed about his personal life, early training with Donald Super, counseling center experiences, convictions about professional counseling, dedication to issues of equality, and current struggles with the progressive effects of retinitis pigmentosa.     

On the difficulty of distinguishing “good” and “poor” perceivers: A social relations analysis of empathic accuracy data

Two studies were conducted to explore the reasons why replicable individual‐difference correlates of empathic accuracy have proved so difficult to find. In Study 1, we examined sources of variance in empathic accuracy data using the Social Relations Model (Kenny, 1988, 1994; Kenny & Albright, 1987; Malloy & Kenny, 1986). The results revealed substantial perceiver variance only in the type of research design in which a relatively large set of individual perceivers inferred the thoughts and feelings of the same set of target persons. In Study 2, we found evidence that even in this apparently optimal type of research design, the significant individual‐difference correlates of empathic accuracy were fewer and subject to more unexpected qualifications than the results of Davis and Kraus's (1997) meta‐analysis would suggest. So far, the “best candidate” predictor of empathic accuracy appears to be verbal intelligence, but it remains to be seen whether it and two other recently proposed predictors of interpersonal accuracy will survive the test of replicability.     

City Behavior and Precautionary Measures

In a between-subjects design, a Precautionary Measures Scale was developed to assess the extent to which 121 participants would endorse 19 precautionary behaviors if visiting a small town, a small city, or a metropolis. Results indicated high internal consistency for the scale, and a significant main effect for location. The effect for gender approached significance. Participants in the metropolis condition had significantly higher scores than did those in the small-town condition, and women tended to have significantly higher precautionary scale scores than did men. Further, participants classified as feminine on the Bem (1981) Sex-Role Inventory tended to have significantly higher scores across locations that did those classified as masculine.     

THE MEASUREMENT AND FURTHER CONCEPTUALIZATION OF TEACHER COMMUNICATION CONCERN

This study reported the development of a set of scales to measure the self, task, and impact dimensions of teacher communication concern. Three stages of instrument development were described: item construction, testing of the hypothesized factor structure, and reliability and validity information. The result was a 15-item instrument with three subscales. In an effort to refine the conceptualization of teacher communication concern, a secondary purpose of the study was to examine the relationship of teacher communication concern to two variables: anxiety about teaching and attitude toward teaching as a career. Results were that teacher communication concern was not related to anxiety about teaching, but was positively related to attitude about teaching.     

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR! THE SURRENDER OF GENDER

Close examination of Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905a) reveals an ambiguity in Freud's language as he simultaneously tries to escape 19th‐century psychiatric paradigms concerning sexuality and perversion while also retaining a normative approach to adult sexuality that created new categories of pathology. The result is an ambivalent legacy that has both hampered and helped contemporary clinicians as they deal with a diverse array of presentations of gender and sexual orientation in today's world.     

Is there an optimal factor structure of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale in patients with first‐episode psychosis?

The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) is the most widely used scale to assess a variety of symptoms in patients with schizophrenia and other psychoses. The factor structure of the PANSS has been examined with confirmatory factor analyses in several studies, but not in a well‐defined first‐episode psychosis sample. The aim of this paper is to examine the statistical fit of five different PANSS models in a first‐episode, non‐affective psychosis sample. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed on PANSS data (n = 588). A main criterion for best fit was defined as the Expected Cross Validation Index (ECVI). No tested model revealed an optimally satisfactory model fit index. The Wallwork/Fortgang five‐factor model demonstrated the most optimal psychometric properties. The corresponding subscales of all evaluated five‐factor models were strongly intercorrelated. The Wallwork/Fortgang five‐factor model was found to be statistically and clinically ideal among patients with first‐episode psychosis. Therefore, we recommend this model in forthcoming studies among patients with first‐episode psychosis. However, to prevent the loss of clinically valuable information on an item level, we do not recommend removing any items from the original form. Our study also implies that the specific choice of model will not have a substantial effect on outcome results in studies on the course and outcome in first‐episode psychosis.     

The Moderator Roles of Coping Style and Identity Disclosure in the Relationship Between Perceived Sexual Stigma and Psychological Distress

The current study examined whether the association between perceived sexual stigma and psychological distress is influenced by individuals' level of identity disclosure and their typical coping strategies. Regression analyses were conducted with data from a survey of 79 gay men and lesbians. Results revealed a 3‐way interaction between participants' perceived level of stigma, the extent of their identity disclosure, and their utilization of avoidant coping strategies in predicting their endorsement of depressive symptoms. Findings also revealed an interaction between participants' perceived level of stigma, the extent of their identity disclosure, and their utilization of problem‐solving coping strategies in predicting their endorsement of depressive symptoms. The implications are discussed with regard to various models of minority stress.     

BEYOND PERSONALITY TRAITS: A STUDY OF PERSONALITY STATES AND SITUATIONAL CONTINGENCIES IN CUSTOMER SERVICE JOBS

Although the interactionist approach has been applied to understanding situational influences on the expression of personality at work, examination of within‐person variation in personality trait expression in the workplace is lacking. Using experience sampling methodology, this study examined the moment‐to‐moment influences of situational characteristics on personality states (i.e., situational contingencies) during social interactions on 56 customer service employees over 10 days at work. At the within‐individual level, state Conscientiousness was associated with the immediacy of the task, and state Extraversion and Agreeableness were associated with the friendliness of the other party in the interaction. At the between‐individual level, self‐monitoring did not moderate the associations between situational characteristics and personality states but predicted the mean level of state Conscientiousness at work over and above trait Conscientiousness. Contrary to expectations, the relationship between state Extraversion and friendliness was weaker in customized service jobs than in noncustomized ones.     

Submission, inhibition and sexuality: Masochistic character and psychic change in Austen's Mansfi eld Park

Mansfield Park is Austen's most controversial novel. 'Squarely taking on such issues as class, gender, sexuality, religion, education, theatricality, and colonialism, Mansfield Park now appears to occupy a more critical place in Austen's canon and in literary and cultural history generally than that perennial favorite, Pride and prejudice' (Johnson, 1998, p. xiii). Austen's heroine, Fanny Price has generated heated controversy because of the provocative contradictions in her character, which this paper argues tally with the psychoanalytic understanding of moral masochism within the masochistic character. As a child neglected at home and then sent to a frightening new environment, in which she was lowest and last, Fanny Price needed the love and protection even of those who mistreated her. She needed to control and influence them with submission and the inhibition of her aggressive impulses and through a vigilant scrupulousness. Austen created a plot in which she also dramatized the seeds of change that lie within the submissive character, within the repressed and inhibited psychosexual desire linked to the father which can drive the reemergence of wishes for love and satisfaction in situations of relative safety.