A Survey on Driving in Clients With Mental Health Disorders

Few studies have explored driving issues in adult mental health. In this pilot study, 48 drivers were compared to 24 participants who had ceased driving, on their clinical and driving characteristics. Driving-related services offered to them were also documented. Participants who had stopped driving were more likely to be in-patients on antipsychotic or several medications. A third of the participants reported negative effects of their illness and/or medications on driving. Psychiatrists and occupational therapists offered assessments and recommendations related to fitness to drive to 30% of their clients using complementary approaches. This survey indicates that few drivers with mental health disorders receive driving-related services. More evidence-based practice guidelines are needed.     

Edgar Allan Poe: A psychological profile

Edgar Allan Poe is often regarded as one of the most well-known American poets of the 19th century. He is best known for his dark, gruesome depictions of emotionally haunted characters. His most famous poem, The Raven, exemplifies this style. To understand what motivated this writing style, we must learn about the man behind the pen. Not surprisingly, Poe had a difficult upbringing, fraught with illness, loss, and poverty. This review will examine Poe’s personal life and discuss how early experiences and possible genetic predispositions may have contributed to his affect and behaviours as an adult.     

Counting black sheep: Contextualizing therapeutic relations

In this paper we draw on feminist and post-colonial theory to situate an account of a six-month therapy between a black, Asian woman therapist and a woman patient of mixed parentage, within contemporary Britain. We draw on this analysis to further the debates between psychotherapeutics and social theory, challenging each in three ways. First, in relation to the literature on culture, class, gender and sexuality in psychotherapy, we indicate how these enter into the therapeutic relation in distinct and intersecting ways, which, second, challenge the separation between inner and outer worlds frequently maintained within psychotherapy circles. Third, in terms of the correlative challenge psychotherapeutic perspectives pose for social theorists and activists, we highlight how the therapist's constructive and explicit use of her power and socio-cultural position was central to the progress of this client's therapy. Finally, we reflect on the broader questions around the theorizing of culture and gender within psychotherapy, including the available positions and representations of black therapists as well as black patients.     

Engendering authority in the group

In this paper I analyse ways of thinking about authority relations in groups. As a specific example of more general processes I discuss the gendering of power and authority within group processes. Using vignettes from an experiential women's group, I attempt to identify and evaluate available ways of conceiving power relationships between women in groups (sister-sister; mother-daughter; the masquerade, the androgyne, honorary man, the father of whatever sex, and the lesbian). From this the paper calls, first, for a move away from treating gender as the primary organizer of difference in order to address the diverse and intersecting forms of power relations operating within groups and, second, to broaden consideration of women's positions within dyadic and group processes beyond the current (conventionally de-sexualized) maternal metaphor. It is argued that attending in these ways to sexed/gendered relations within groups offers vital resources towards theorizing and exploring the group body, whereby the group is conceived of as composed of embodied minds structured not only around gender but also by relations of class, ‘race’ and sexuality. This approach therefore envisages group psychotherapies as providing psychic surfaces between familial and broader cultural relations in which transformative group relations can be prefigured.     

Is academic buoyancy anything more than adaptive coping?

Abstract

Academic buoyancy refers to a positive, constructive, and adaptive response to the types of challenges and setbacks experienced in a typical and everyday academic setting. In this project we examined whether academic buoyancy explained any additional variance in test anxiety over and above that explained by coping. Two hundred and ninety-eight students in their final two years of compulsory schooling completed self-report measures of academic buoyancy, coping, and test anxiety. Results suggested that buoyancy was inversely related to test anxiety and unrelated to coping. With the exception of test-irrelevant thoughts, test anxiety was positively related to avoidance coping and social support. Test-irrelevant thoughts were inversely related to task focus, unrelated to social support, and positively related to avoidance. A hierarchical regression analysis showed that academic buoyancy explained a significant additional proportion of variance in test anxiety when the variance for coping had already been accounted for. These findings suggest that academic buoyancy can be considered as a distinct construct from that of adaptive coping.     

BRIEF REPORT: LATENCY FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF ELOPEMENT

Elopement is a potentially dangerous problem behavior prevalent among individuals with developmental disabilities. However, functional analysis of elopement presents unique challenges including potential confounds because of the need for participant retrieval during functional analysis sessions. In the current study, we implemented a latency functional analysis with an eight‐year‐old child with an intellectual disability, in which the dependent measure was latency to elopement. Following the latency functional analysis, a functional communication intervention was developed and its effectiveness in decreasing elopement was evaluated using an ABAB design. Findings suggest that a functional analysis of latency may be a suitable methodology to identify the operant function of elopement. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Childhood Cruelty to Animals: Psychiatric and Demographic Correlates

This retrospective study compared frequencies of aggressive behaviors and abuse histories noted during a psychiatric intake assessment for children where animal cruelty was endorsed and a control sample of youth for whom animal cruelty was not endorsed to determine if rates of concerning behaviors differed significantly. Relative to the control group, the cruelty group was significantly more likely to have had problems with peers, perpetrated bullying, experienced sexual abuse, and have a history of sexually acting out. Recommendations for childhood animal cruelty screening in mental health settings are discussed.