Duties When an Anonymous Student Health Survey Finds a Hot Spot of Suicidality

Abstract

Public health agencies regularly survey randomly selected anonymous students to track drug use, sexual activities, and other risk behaviors. Students are unidentifiable, but a recent project that included school-level analysis discovered a school with alarmingly prevalent student suicidality. Given confidentiality protocols typical of surveillance, the surveyors were uncertain whether and how to intervene. We searched literature for duties to warn at-risk groups discovered during public health surveillance, but we found no directly applicable guidance or cases. Reasoning by analogy, we conclude that surveyors should contact the school’s leaders to call attention to its outlier status, but public warning is unwarranted. However, such an ad hoc decision to issue a warning, even if only to school leaders, raises significant practical, legal and ethical issues. National public health and education associations should produce guidance that clarifies ethical and legal duties owed to schools and students involved in population health-risk surveillance.     

The Talking Platypus Phenomenon: Competency Ratings as a Function of Sex and Professional Status

Ratings of vocational competence, marriageability, and interpersonal success were made by male and female subjects of a stimulus person described in a one-page, single-spaced biography. The sex and status of the stimulus person in the biography were manipulated such that for each biography half the subjects were led to believe it was about a male, half were led to believe it was about a female, half were led to believe that the individual was an attorney, and half were led to believe that the individual was a paralegal worker. The results indicated that both men and women perceived the female attorney as being the most vocationally competent. It was proposed that the increased ratings of vocational competency for the female attorney were a function of her performance being perceived as having occurred within a context replete with the types of constraints that usually obviate the degree of success she achieved. It was also suggested that the finding concerning vocational competence exemplifies the talking platypus phenomenon; that is, when an individual achieves a level of success not anticipated, his/her achievement tends to be magnified rather than diminished. After all, it matters little what the platypus says, the wonder is that it can say anything at all.     

What Celebrity Case Studies Can Teach about Clinical Formulation of Mental Health Conditions

Abstract

A key challenge in the ‘making of the psychologist’ is how to teach clinical case formulation, which goes beyond just listing the symptoms that make the ‘diagnosis’. One approach which has been both effective and popular among students entails employing case studies of individuals who are celebrities with known mental health conditions and then exploring not only their presenting problems and symptoms, but also a detailed analysis of biopsychosocial predisposing concerns, precipitating events, perpetuating circumstances, and protective factors. Nine cases deemed to be particularly suitable for such psychobiographical instruction are reviewed to illustrate the learning points about case formulation. The cases were chosen because they provide a breadth of presenting symptoms and the individuals under consideration are ones who for the most part have been self-disclosing about their conditions, which makes the clinical material accessible for study; a number have been leaders in the fight against mental illness stigma. The use of celebrity case accounts serves to develop talents in case formulation and appreciation for the complexity of people and the developmental influences in identity formation. Further pedagogic benefits are heightened awareness of mental health stigma issues and the personal and societal barriers individuals face in seeking needed help.