Appraisal of applicants for ministry careers

A proposed evaluation protocol addresses the need for standards of practice in assessing candidates for ministry careers. The protocol is tailored to parish clergy psychological risk and resiliency factors articulated by personnel officers and identified in scholarly literature. It employs readily available psychological tests with demonstrated psychometric qualities. It utilises interview questions to confirm or disconfirm test-generated hypotheses and to probe for evidence of coping with challenging circumstances. The protocol generates data for appraising risk and promoting long-term resilience. Application of the protocol to 120 applicants for clergy careers in the Episcopal Diocese of the Southwest (EDSW) demonstrates that applicants respond to psychological tests in a manner different from general job applicants. Data analysis generates norms for indentifying unusual applicants who may be at risk for troubled careers. Discussion centres on identifying early markers of risk and resiliency in ministry careers.     

Trade-offs, individual differences, and misunderstandings about evolutionary psychology

Replies to comments on Evolutionary psychology: Controversies, questions, prospects, and limitations (see record 2010-02208-001) by Confer et al. The purpose of which was to clarify the logic of evolutionary psychology and clear up some of the more common misunderstandings about it. In this response, we address the key points raised by the commentators.     

Researcher and clinician: Role conflict and resolution

Group therapy investigations are often conducted by researchers rather than by experienced clinicians who also possess research expertise. Given the fact that doctorally prepared clinicians must demonstrate research competence in their education programs, it is surprising that there is not more research on group therapy. The literature indicates that research and group psychotherapy practice are considered quite separate entities. However, there is much that both processes have in common. The principal investigator's experience during a group psychotherapy research project suggested that the conflict between the roles of researcher and clinician may not be due to differences in the external processes but rather to difficulties in trying to combine them within one person. The value of the researcher-clinician is elaborated, and recommendations are offered.This paper was supported by a grant from the Group Psychotherapy Foundation.     

Justice in epistemic gaps: The ‘proof paradox’ revisited

This paper defends the heretical view that sometimes we ought to assign legal liability based on statistical evidence alone. Recent literature focuses on potential unfairness to the defending party if we rely on bare statistics. Here, I show that capitulating in response to ‘epistemic gaps’—cases where there is a group of potential harmers but an absence of individuating evidence—can amount to a serious injustice against the party who has been harmed. Drawing on prominent civil law litigation involving pharmaceutical and industrial negligence, the overall aim is to illustrate moral pitfalls stemming from the popular idea that it is never appropriate to rely on bare statistics when settling a legal dispute.     

A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Impact of a Family-Based Adolescent Depression Intervention on both Youth and Parent Mental Health Outcomes

This paper presents findings from a multi-centre, double-blind, randomized controlled trial that tested the hypothesis that parent and youth mental health improvements would be superior in a family-based intervention for adolescent depression (BEST MOOD) compared to a treatment-as-usual supportive parenting program (PAST). Eligible participants were families with a young person aged between 12 and 18 years who met diagnostic criteria for a depressive disorder (major, minor or dysthymic). Participating families (N = 64; 73.4% of youth were female) were recruited in Victoria, Australia and allocated to treatment condition using a block randomization procedure (parallel design) with two levels of blinding. This paper reports on the trial’s secondary outcomes on youth and parent mental health. General linear mixed models were used to examine the longitudinal effect of treatment group on outcome. Data were analyzed according to intention-to-treat; 31 families were analyzed in BEST MOOD, and 33 families in PAST. Parents in the BEST MOOD group experienced significantly greater reductions in stress and depressive symptoms than parents in the PAST group at 3-month follow-up. A greater reduction in parental anxiety was observed in the BEST MOOD group (d = 0.35) compared with PAST (d = 0.02), although the between-group difference was not significant. Both groups of youth showed similar levels of improvement in depressive symptoms at post-treatment (d = 0.83 and 0.80 respectively), which were largely sustained at a 3-month follow-up. The family-based BEST MOOD intervention appeared superior to treatment-as-usual (PAST) in demonstrating greater reductions in parental stress and depression. Both interventions produced large reductions in youth depressive symptoms.