Psychiatric Diagnosis as a Function of Assessor Profession and Sex

Diagnostic impressions formed by 26 clinicians after intake interviews with 200 randomly assigned outpatients at a community mental health center were analyzed by assessor discipline and sex and by patient sex and age level. Professional status was positively related to diagnostic severity among male assessors—nurses, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists made increasingly higher proportions of psychotic diagnoses. Female therapists were less likely than their male counterparts to render psychotic diagnoses. This finding was most robust for doctoral interviewers, especially psychologists, and for patients who were female or under 30. Results are discussed in relation to the need for a model of the diagnostic process that allows for the role of practitioner attributes. Previous largely negative findings may have had their source in the failure of contrived analogue procedures to evoke emotions in the rater comparable in intensity to those aroused in the real-life encounter.     

The Impact of an Intensive Consciousness-Raising Curriculum on Adolescent Women

The impact of a consciousness-raising module offered in 50-minute class periods over 20 consecutive school days to junior and senior high school women was evaluated. Experimental and control groups were constituted randomly from a pool of volunteers. Subjects completed the attitudes toward women scale, the personal orientation inventory, and the Tennessee self-concept scale before and after the consciousness-raising experience. Results indicated that women who participated became more liberal in their beliefs about women's rights and roles and also showed increases along several dimensions of self-actualization. However, such gains did not radiate to self-concept.     

Raising Consciousness About Women's Groups: Process and Outcome Research

Although therapy is a misnomer for consciousness-raising ( CR ) groups, some criterion for "therapeutic" or desirable outcome is necessary for evaluating clinical and social psychological change in the CR format. Quantitative and non-quantitative process and outcome findings are reviewed, and implications for theory, research and practice are discussed. Women in CR groups give testimony to their global effectiveness in fostering personal development as well as political awareness. Empirical findings likewise support the notion of the CR group as a potentiator of pro-feminist attitudes. However, those data are equivocal with regard to the formulation that any such liberalization of sociopolitical beliefs promotes personal growth and self-esteem.