Cultural Issues in Psychopharmacology: Integrating Medication Treatment with Lakota Sioux Traditions

Psychologists may soon be entering into the practice of pharmacologic treatment of mental illness. Although there has been some investigation of biologic differences in drug response among various ethnic and racial groups, very little attention has been paid to the nonbiologic differences. Cultural definitions of health, healing, and illness and specific cultural practices are likely to have a significant impact on various aspects of treatment, compliance, and interaction effects. This article addresses the issue of culture and the impact of cultural practices on the use of psychotropic medications with the Lakota (Sioux) people of the Northern Plains. Specific examples of traditional Lakota ceremonies and their potential interactions with psychotropic medications are presented with recommendations to prescribers for handling these situations in a culturally responsive manner. Emphasis is placed on creating collaborative relationships between prescribers and traditional spiritual healers in the care of Native American clients. Recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Behaviorism and mentalism: Is there a third alternative?

Behaviorism and mentalism are commonly considered to be mutually exclusive and conjunctively exhaustive options for the psychological explanation of behavior. Behaviorism and mentalism do differ in their characterization of inner causes of behavior. However, I argue that they are not mutually exclusive on the grounds that they share important foundational assumptions, two of which are the notion of an innerouter split and the notion of control. I go on to argue that mentalism and behaviorism are not conjunctively exhaustive either, on the grounds that dropping these common foundational assumptions results in a distinctively different framework for the explanation of behavior. This third alternative, which is briefly described, is a version of non-individualism.     

The word without the tachistoscope

In experiments with an unlimited viewing time, we were able to isolate specific stimulus factors that lead to the word-superiority effect. We discovered that advantages of words over nonwords, and words over single letters, are caused by different factors. The word-nonword effect was found in a variety of circumstances, such as with small type, low contrast, or a simultaneously present mask. The advantage of words over single letters occurs only when the stimuli are embedded in a mask making it difficult to find a single letter. In addition, we obtained a word-detection effect without a brief exposure: Subjects were more accurate detecting the presence of words than nonwords. However, this effect only occurred when subjects were required to discriminate letters from nonletters. Thus, the word-superiority (word-nonword difference) and word-detection effects both involve letter discrimination and can be explained by similar mechanisms.     

Training Genetic Counselors to provide teratogen counseling

Provision of teratogen counseling requires acquisition of knowledge and skills from several disciplines. Traditionally, training in teratogen counseling has occurred on the job. We describe a formal, didactic and experiential curriculum for teratogen counseling as an integral part of the Graduate Program in Genetic Counseling leading to the master of science degree at Northwestern University. All students complete a 5-week rotation with the Coordinator of the Illinois Teratogen Information Service (TIS). This provides them with an opportunity to evaluate a spectrum of teratogen exposures, to interpret teratogen studies in a manner useful for patients, and to develop skills in assessing and addressing psychosocial issues associated with fetal exposure to potential teratogens. Students also learn first hand about how a TIS functions and when and how to refer to TIS specialists. The goal of the program is to provide genetic counseling students with the opportunity to gain experience in accessing and interpreting teratology research and in communicating teratogen information to patients and health professionals in a sensitive, effective manner.     

Evidence for the persistence of visual guidance information

An earlier study from our laboratory provided initial support for the hypothesis that information facilitating visual guidance persists in the absence of retinal stimulation. The present study supports and extends this hypothesis with three experiments in which visually occluded subjects positioned a point of light at the location of a previously viewed target and also walked in the direction of a previously viewed path. In both tasks, performance was possible following occlusion, and in all cases, performance slowly and significantly decreased with longer durations of occlusion. This decay in performance was gradual and had a “half-life” of greater than 15 sec. Absolute performance was correlated across tasks. The effect of occlusion on absolute error in the localization performance was relatively stable within individuals over a 3-week period. The biological utility of guidance information persistence is discussed along with implications for space constancy, illusions of motion, and problems of disorientation.     

Why Parents Matter!: The Conceptual Basis for a Community-Based HIV Prevention Program for the Parents of African American Youth

The Parents Matter! Program (PMP) is a community-based family intervention designed to promote positive parenting and effective parent-child communication about sexuality and sexual risk reduction. Its ultimate goal is to reduce sexual risk behavior among adolescents. PMP offers parents instruction and guidance in general parenting skills related to decreased sexual risk behavior among youth (e.g., relationship building, monitoring) and sexual communication skills necessary for parents to effectively convey their values and expectations about sexual behavior—as well as critical HIV, STD, and pregnancy prevention messages—to their children. We briefly review the literature concerning parental influences on adolescent sexual risk behavior and present the conceptual model and theoretical foundation upon which PMP is based.     

Patient and Partner Quality of Life and Psychosocial Adjustment Following Radical Prostatectomy

We prospectively examined differences in quality of life and psychosocial adjustment in 80 prostate cancer patients and their partners (n = 65) beginning before radical prostatectomy and proceeding across the first year postsurgery. Both members of the couple experienced significant changes associated with the patient's cancer, however their experiences differed in some regards. Patients experienced reprieve from emotional distress and negative affect immediately following surgery despite worsened physical functioning. Partner quality of life and psychosocial adjustment scores were generally more constant from presurgery to postsurgery, with improvements noted 1 year later. For both patients and partners, cancer-specific stress symptoms declined progressively over the year. We also obtained partial support for the effectiveness of a single-session communication intervention on patient social/family wellbeing and partner general stress. Findings have implications for patient and partner adjustment following radical prostatectomy, and attest to the importance of incorporating partner evaluations into psychosocial oncology research.     

Are We There Yet? An Assessment of Fit Between Stereotypes of Minority Managers and the Successful‐Manager Prototype

Caucasian managers from the hospitality industry used a managerial attribute inventory to rate 1 of 5 target groups: successful manager, Caucasian American manager, African American manager, Asian American manager, or Hispanic American manager. The results revealed higher correspondence between ratings of Caucasian and Asian American managers and the successful-manager prototype than between prototype characteristics and the reported stereotypes of African American and Hispanic American managers. Comparisons between male and female respondents were made also. Their reported perceptions were found to be similar.     

Promoting narrative competence through adult–child joint pretense: Lessons from the Scandinavian educational practice of playworld

This paper examines the effects of the playworld educational practice on the development of narrative competence in 5- to 7-year-old children. The playworld educational practice is derived from play pedagogy and the theory of narrative learning, both developed and implemented in Scandinavia. The playworld practice consists of joint adult–child pretense based in a work of children's literature, discussion, free play, and visual art production. When compared to children under a control intervention (conventional school practices without pretend play), children who participated in the playworld practice show significant improvements in narrative length, coherence, and comprehension, although not in linguistic complexity. These findings provide further evidence concerning the role of pretense in the narrative development of young children.     

The effects of preference assessment type on problem behavior

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities who engage in problem behavior maintained by access to tangibles may exhibit more problem behavior during certain preference assessments. We compared three common preference assessments to determine which resulted in fewer problem behaviors. The paired stimulus and multiple‐stimulus without replacement assessments produced higher rates of problem behavior than the free operant (FO) assessment, suggesting that the FO assessment may be the most appropriate assessment for individuals who engage in problem behavior maintained by access to tangibles.