Do substance abuse and mental health clients prefer automated assessments?

In both psychiatric and substance-abuse services, clinicians have been concerned with the introduction of automated assessments and with their clients’ reactions toward those assessments. The positive reactions of psychiatric clients have been well documented, but little has been known about substance-abusing clients’ impressions of automated assessments. The impact of automated assessment on clients seeking substance-abuse services was evaluated and compared with a previously analyzed sample of clients seeking mental health services. On the whole, both groups responded similarly and positively to automated assessments. Factor analyses revealed three underlying dimensions in client attitudes toward automated assessment,Completeness and satisfaction,Ease of use and enjoyment, andNegative attitudes. In addition, statistically, though not clinically, significant differences in attitudes were found between various demographic groups. Overall, the results support the use of automated assessments with individuals seeking either substance-abuse or mental-health services.     

Editor's Introduction

Studies in Philosophy and Education -     

Clinical pragmatism: a method of moral problem solving

This paper presents a method of moral problem solving in clinical practice that is inspired by the philosophy of John Dewey. This method, called "clinical pragmatism," integrates clinical and ethical decision making. Clinical pragmatism focuses on the interpersonal processes of assessment and consensus formation as well as the ethical analysis of relevant moral considerations. The steps in this method are delineated and then illustrated through a detailed case study. The implications of clinical pragmatism for the use of principles in moral problem solving are discussed.     

Resource-Allocation Behavior in Complex but Commonplace Tasks

We all face resource-allocation tasks, yet little is known about how people make resource-allocation decisions. Three earlier papers (Langholtz, Gettys, & Foote, 1993, 1994, 1995) established that people can intuitively solve technical two-dimensional resource-allocation problems, where allocations are made on a continuous scale, reaching solutions that approach the optimum solution determined with Linear Programming (LP). In this research we expand our understanding of how people make resource-allocation decisions by examining how people perform complex but commonplace problems using a discrete scale where optimal solutions are determined with Integer Programming. We also contrast performance under conditions where progressively unequal scheduling is required to reach the optimum solution. The data show people can achieve solutions that provide most of the payoffs found with LP, even when they are faced with a complicated three-dimensional problem, but there is a tendency toward equal scheduling under all conditions.     

Epistemic Normativity, Argumentation, and Fallacies

In Biro and Siegel (1992) we argued that a theory of argumentation mustfully engage the normativity of judgments about arguments, and we developedsuch a theory. In this paper we further develop and defend our theory.     

New Roles for Rhetoric: From Academic Critique to Civic Affirmation

The classical conception of rhetoric as the method of reasoned political judgment survived into the Renaissance but was reduced to academic critiques of style and "empty" public rhetoric with the rise of modern science and its representationalist theories of language. Recently, however, rhetoric, textuality, and the "linguistic turn" generally, have become central metaphors in the human sciences. This renewed rhetorical perspective not only fosters a critique of positive philosophy and of scientism in public discourse, it also offers affirmative methods by which persons can construct their civic lives.     

Stress and family support as predictors of distress and rejection in people who care for a relative with schizophrenia

Relatives (N=121) of adult schizophrenia patients were interviewed to investigate predictors of their level of psychological distress and of rejecting attitudes toward the sufferer. The relatives' total stress, particularly that associated with poor communication skills in the sufferer, predicted several measures of their psychological distress, and the same variables plus turbulence of sufferer behavior (i.e., violence and disruptiveness) predicted rejection of the sufferer by the relative. In each case, adequacy of family support moderated the influence of the stressors, although this effect was more marked for distress outcomes than for rejection. The results have important implications for the sorts of professional and peer support which relatives may need to encourage their performance of this potentially burdensome role. In addition, the results fit a classic stress management model and provide a feasible alternative to the Expressed Emotion Model of the relationship between relatives' rejection and patients' illness severity.     

Personality and Coping: Three Generations of Research

ABSTRACT This article introduces the Journal of Personality 's special issue on coping and personality. It first presents a historical overview of the psychological study of how people cope with stress and identifies three generations of theory and research: (a) the psychoanalysts and the ego development school, which tended to equate personality and coping strategies; (b) the transactional approach, which appeared in the 1960s and emphasized situational and cognitive influences on coping while downplaying the role of individual differences; and (c) the most recent, "third generation," whose work is represented in this special issue and focuses on the role of personality in coping while maintaining strong operational distinctions among coping, personality, appraisal, and adaptational outcomes. This introduction concludes with a discussion of unresolved conceptual and methodological issues and a brief orientation to the third-generation articles that follow in this special issue.