Interdisciplinary research and interprofessional collaborative care in a memory clinic for rural and northern residents of western Canada: Unique training ground for clinical psychology graduate students

Abstract: In Canada, interprofessional education (IPE) and interdisciplinary health research initiatives are beginning to transform the academic health sciences, including graduate training programs for clinical psychologists. In response to mandates and directives from national health policy and research funding bodies, academic training programs are re‐structuring course offerings, practicum training experiences, and research activities to better prepare students for their future roles within interdisciplinary research groups and collaborative patient‐centred clinical teams. As an example of this transformative movement in IPE, described herein are the recent training initiatives in the Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology at the University of Saskatchewan, and the role of clinical neuropsychology in an innovative interprofessional rural and remote memory clinic.     

Treating the Child or Syndrome: Does Context Matter for Treatment Decisions for Antisocially Behaving Youth?

Using a between-subject 3 × 3 design of an experimentally manipulated realistic case vignette of Black, White, and Hispanic youth in a survey mailed to 1540 experienced psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, the authors examined if clinicians alter their judgments about treatment for antisocially behaving youth based on the symptom’s social context (e.g., life circumstances) and the youth’s race or ethnicity, even among youth who are otherwise identical in terms of behavioral symptoms. Vignettes describe behaviors meeting DSM-IV criteria for conduct disorder, but contain contextual information suggesting either internal dysfunction (ID) or a normal response to a difficult environment [i.e., environmental-reaction (ER)]. Comparison was symptom-only (SO). Judgments of effectiveness of 14 treatments for youth exhibiting antisocial behavior were examined. Frequencies and median scores of perceived effectiveness level (1–9, Likert) were compared in bivariate analyses, stratifying context and youth’s race or ethnicity. The context of the behavior was associated significantly with differences in effectiveness judgments in 13 of 14 treatments. Within ID and ER contexts, clinicians judged three different treatments as effective (median ≥ 7 of 9). In the SO condition, clinicians were less selective, judging six as effective. In the ID context, psychiatric medications, systems oriented family therapy, and residential care were judged more effective for White than for Black or Hispanic youth. Evidence-based practice research may be hampered by inattention to the social context of behavioral symptoms. Context may activate implicit racial assumptions about treatment effectiveness. Implications are for clinical training to improve service delivery, and future clinical research.     

Do corporations have minds of their own?

Corporations have often been taken to be the paradigm of an organization whose agency is autonomous from that of the successive waves of people who occupy the pattern of roles that define its structure, which licenses saying that the corporation has attitudes, interests, goals, and beliefs which are not those of the role occupants. In this essay, I sketch a deflationary account of agency-discourse about corporations. I identify institutional roles with a special type of status function, a status role, in which the collectively accepted function is expressed in part through its occupier’s intentional expression of her agency in that role (where the occupier is part of the group whose collective acceptance underwrites her having the relevant function in social transactions). I identify institutions as systems of status roles and show how this is compatible with seeing the agency of institutions generally, even over time periods in which there is complete change in role occupiers, as a matter of the contributions only of individual agents. I explain how the reduction of the institution to its members is compatible with its potentially having had a completely different membership. I show in the case of the corporation in particular that, once we see its origins and function, the surface features of legal discourse about corporate agency are misleading and are compatible with a deflationary account of corporate agency. I show in connection with this that the corporation is to be identified with its shareholders, and that where a corporation separates ownership and control, its managers and employees are proxy agents of the shareholders doing business under the corporate form. Finally, I canvass the legitimate ways of construing ordinary talk about corporate intention, belief, and so on, in light of this, none of which support the attribution of genuine agency or intentionality to any group per se associated with the corporation.     

Does ‘Wanting the Best’ create more stress? The link between baby sign classes and maternal anxiety

This study investigated whether gesturing classes (baby sign) affected parental frustration and stress, as advertised by many commercial products. The participants were 178 mother–infant dyads, divided into a gesture group (n=89) and a non‐gesture group (n=89), based on whether they had attended baby sign classes or not. Mothers completed a background demographics questionnaire and the Parenting Stress Index. Gesturing mothers had higher total stress scores, with higher scores on the child domain, despite having similar backgrounds to non‐gesturing mothers. There was no relationship between the frequency or duration of gesture use and stress scores. It is suggested that gesturing mothers had higher pre‐existing stress and were attracted to gesture classes because of the promoted benefits, which include stress reduction, although class attendance did not alleviate their stress. The possibility that attending gesturing classes made mothers view their infant in a more negative way, due to their heightened expectations not being met, is also discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effect of an Expressive‐Writing Intervention for Employees on Emotional Self‐Efficacy,Emotional Intelligence,Affect, and Workplace Incivility

This study examined the effect of an expressive‐writing paradigm intervention designed to increase emotional self‐efficacy in employees. Participants in the intervention condition with lower pre‐test self‐efficacy scores showed significant increases in self‐efficacy. Further, participants in the writing intervention condition showed increased emotional intelligence and positive affect, and decreased workplace incivility perpetration compared to participants in the control writing condition. Overall, the results indicate that an expressive‐writing intervention may be an effective strategy for increasing positive workplace outcomes.     

Truth and meaning redux

In this paper, we defend Davidson's program in truth-theoretical semantics against recent criticisms by Scott Soames. We argue that Soames has misunderstood Davidson's project, that in consequence his criticisms miss the mark, that appeal to meanings as entities in the alternative approach that Soames favors does no work, and that the approach is no advance over truth-theoretic semantics.     

Neediness and connectedness and the five‐factor model of personality

This study examined maladaptive and relatively more adaptive forms of dependency, as measured by the neediness and connectedness factors of the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ; Blatt, D'Afflitti, & Quinlan, 1976 ), within a comprehensive scheme of personality provided by the revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO‐PI‐R; Costa & McCrae, 1992 ). University students (n = 475) completed the DEQ, NEO‐PI‐R, and a measure of depressive symptoms. Results indicated that neediness reflected anxiety, self‐consciousness, vulnerability, unassertiveness, and inactivity, whereas connectedness reflected anxiety, warmth, agreeableness, and valuing of relationships. Neediness demonstrated stronger relations than connectedness with depressive symptoms. These results support the validity of DEQ neediness and connectedness as measures of maladaptive and relatively more adaptive forms of dependency. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.