Internet Addiction: Diagnosis and Treatment Considerations

Internet addiction is a new and often unrecognized clinical disorder that can cause relational, occupational, and social problems. Pathological gambling is compared to problematic internet use because of overlapping diagnostic criteria. As computers are used with great frequency, detection and diagnosis of internet addiction is often difficult. Symptoms of a possible problem may be masked by legitimate use of the internet. Clinicians may overlook asking questions about computer use. To help clinicians identify internet addiction in practice, this paper provides an overview of the problem and the various subtypes that have been identified. The paper reviews conceptualizations of internet addiction, various forms that the disorder takes, and treatment considerations for working with this emergent client population.     

The emergence of sociology from political economy in the United States: 1890 to 1940

Professional sociology in the U.S. began as a field area within economics, but gradually emerged as a separate discipline. Using new data on joint meetings and the separation of departments, I track interdisciplinary relations through three phases: sponsorship (1890–1905), collaboration (1905–1940), and disengagement (post‐1940). In the early years, sociology was mostly a branch of economics departments. With the formation of the American Sociological Society, relations with economics began to be more characterized by professionally autonomous collaboration. The 1920s saw a large wave of sociology departments separating from economics. Still, joint annual meetings (including joint presidential addresses) remained the norm until 1940. Paradigmatic conflict between institutional and neoclassical economists was the major force that sustained the economics–sociology collaboration. As institutionalism faded from the scene in the late 1930s, so went interdisciplinary contact. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Framing and Editing Interpersonal Arguments

Since argument frames precede most other arguing processes, argument editing among them, one’s frames may well predict one’s preferred editorial standards. This experiment assesses people’s arguing frames, gives them arguments to edit, and tests whether the frames actually do predict editorial preferences. Modest relationships between argument frames and argument editing appear. Other connections among frames, editing, and additional individual differences variables are more substantial. Particularly notable are the informative influences of psychological reactance. A new theoretical contribution is offered, connecting argument frame research to Erving Goffman’s frame analysis.     

Expert image analysts show enhanced visual processing in change detection

Expertise facilitates change detection performance, but the neural underpinnings of these benefits are unknown. Expert image analysts showed larger change-related ERP effects between about 100–200 msec after stimulus onset than did novices, which correlated with both accuracy and years of analysis experience. These results demonstrate that years of visual experience can induce fundamental changes in early visual processing which are related to change detection abilities.     

Gaining Institutional Permission: Researching Precarious Legal Status in Canada

There is limited research into the situations of people living with precarious status in Canada, which includes people whose legal status is in-process, undocumented, or unauthorized, many of whom entered the country with a temporary resident visa, through family sponsorship arrangements, or as refugee claimants. In 2005, a community-university alliance sought to carry out a research study of the lived experiences of people living with precarious status. In this paper, we describe our negotiation of the ethics review process at a Canadian university and the ethical, legal, and methodological issues that emerged. Although being able to guarantee our participants complete confidentiality was essential to the viability of the project due to their vulnerability to detention or deportation, we discovered that the Canadian legal framework limited us to being able to offer them confidentiality “to the fullest extent possible by law.” One way to overcome this conflict would have been through the construction of a Wigmore defence, in which we would document that the research would not be possible without assurance of our participants’ confidentiality. Such a defence would be tested in court if our research records were subpoenaed by immigration enforcement authorities. Rather than take the risk that this defence would not be successful and would result in our participants being deported, we altered the research methods from using multiple interviews to establish trust (which would have required that we store participants’ contact information) to meeting participants only once to discuss their experiences of living with precarious legal status in Canada. Our encounter with the ‘myth of confidentiality’ raised questions about the policing of knowledge production.     

Special Topics in the Journal of Counseling & Development,Volumes 66–80

The authors review previous examinations of the American Counseling Association's (ACA) Journal of Counseling & Development (JCD), consider various editors' policies that shaped the Journal, and update L. W. Harmon and H. E. Harker's (1989) analysis of special interest topics featured in JCD. Studying the flagship professional journal of ACA provides insight into the evolution and development of the profession of counseling.     

Using selection,optimization, and compensation to reduce job/family stressors: effective when it matters

Previous research has demonstrated that the use of general behaviors specified by a life-management strategy entitled Selection, Optimization, and Compensation (SOC) reduces, if only to a small extent, the perceived amounts of the main antecedents (i.e., job/family stressors) of work-family conflict. The results of the current study demonstrate that several variables that impact the amount of resources demanded of, or resources available to, an individual (e.g., supervisor support) moderate the relationship between SOC behaviors and job/family stressors. Specifically, SOC strategies are more effective than previously thought at reducing job/family stressors for precisely those individuals in the most demanding situations.     

Task control and cognitive abilities of self and spouse in collaboration in middle-aged and older couples

Collaborative problem solving may be used by older couples to optimize cognitive functioning, with some suggestion that older couples exhibit greater collaborative expertise. The study explored age differences in 2 aspects of collaborative expertise: spouses' knowledge of their own and their spouse's cognitive abilities and the ability to fit task control to these cognitive abilities. The participants were 300 middle-aged and older couples who completed a hypothetical errand task. The interactions were coded for control asserted by husbands and wives. Fluid intelligence was assessed, and spouses rated their own and their spouse's cognitive abilities. The results revealed no age differences in couple expertise, either in the ability to predict their own and their spouse's cognitive abilities or in the ability to fit task control to abilities. However, gender differences were found. Women fit task control to their own and their spouse's cognitive abilities; men only fit task control to their spouse's cognitive abilities. For women only, the fit between control and abilities was associated with better performance. The results indicate no age differences in couple expertise but point to gender as a factor in optimal collaboration.     

Heterogeneity of borderline personality disorder: do the number of criteria met make a difference?

Many studies have compared the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with and without borderline personality disorder (BPD), but there is limited knowledge on differences within the population of borderline patients. One potential index of heterogeneity is disorder severity. In the present report from the Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project, we examined whether the severity of borderline personality disorder, as measured by the number of criteria present, is associated with co-morbidity of Axis I and Axis II diagnoses, as well as demographic factors and psychosocial functioning. Two thousand three hundred psychiatric outpatients were interviewed with the Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality (SIDP-IV). Approximately ten percent (n = 237) of the patients were diagnosed with BPD, and they were divided into four groups based on the number of DSM-IV criteria met, 5 (n = 89), 6 (n = 70), 7 (n = 46), and 8 or 9 (n = 32). There were greater rates of drug use disorders and comorbid Axis II disorders, as well as a greater number of suicidal gestures, in patients meeting seven or more BPD criteria. There were no significant differences between the groups in the number and specific rates of other co-morbid Axis I disorders, other measures of psychosocial functioning, or demographic correlates. Sub-typing of borderline patients by the number of criteria met provides a limited explanation for heterogeneity within BPD patients.