The Narrative Arc of TATs: Introduction to the JPA Special Section on Thematic Apperceptive Techniques

The past decade has seen important developments in thematic apperceptive techniques (TATs), with the creation of new card sets having alternate pictures representing different cultures, new scoring systems becoming available, and increasing international communication of these achievements. However, continuing impediments to the development of a validational literature include lingering mistaken assumptions about the nature of story data, ongoing debates about appropriate psychometric evaluation, and continuing questions about how stimuli and scoring systems should be conceptualized and interpreted. Negotiating the publication system can impede some potential authors. Excellent work on TATs with children is not well known in the adult-focused journals. The labor burden of meeting increasingly sophisticated publication standards might be a barrier to assessors focused on clinical practice. Accumulating a focused evidence base is challenging given the diversity of criterion variables for which TATs have been used. Research on TATs by clinicians can span the science–practice gap, but the narrative arc can be a dramatic one. The articles in this special section on TATs represent important conceptual, methodological, and substantive innovations.     

Clergy Burnout: A Comparison Study with Other Helping Professions

Clergy experience a large number of stressors in their work, including role overload and emotional labor. Although studies have found high rates of depression in clergy, the degree of work-related burnout in clergy compared to other occupations is unknown. The widely used Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) measures three aspects of burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. We sought studies using comparable versions of the MBI for clergy; for social workers, counselors, and teachers because of those occupations’ emotional intensity and labor; and for police and emergency personnel because of the unpredictability and stress-related physiological arousal in those occupations. We found a total of 84 studies and compared the ranges of burnout scores between the studies of clergy, each additional occupation, and MBI published mean norms. Compared to U.S. norms, clergy exhibited moderate rates of burnout. Across the three kinds of burnout, clergy scores were relatively better than those of police and emergency personnel, similar to those of social workers and teachers, and worse than those of counselors. Clergy may benefit from burnout prevention strategies used by counselors. The moderate levels of burnout found for clergy, despite the numerous stressors associated with their occupation, suggest that clergy generally cope well and may be models to study. Overall, there is room for improvement in burnout for all professions, especially police and emergency personnel. It is important to remember the variation within any profession, including clergy, and prevent and address burnout for those in need.     

Growing Up Can Be Painful: A Case Report of the Bat Mitzvah and Chronic Pain

Among a subgroup of adolescents with chronic pain syndromes, anxiety about “growing up” appears common and may be exacerbated by developmental transitions. Using the bat mitzvah ceremony as one example of a developmental rite of passage, we present two cases in which adolescent girls facing this transition developed new chronic musculoskeletal pain syndromes or experienced recurrences of pain symptoms. In both cases, the transition to adulthood, symbolized by the bat mitzvah, was associated with anxiety in adolescents who were unusually focused on the negative aspects of becoming independent adults. The aims of this case report are (1) to highlight the role of developmental transitions as a possible factor in the biopsychosocial model of pediatric pain; (2) to illustrate how to address emotional and cognitive responses to these transitions in the context of cognitive-behavioral treatment for pain; and (3) to suggest systematic approaches to investigating this clinically-observed phenomenon in future research.     

Seminary Students and Physical Health: Beliefs,Behaviors, and Barriers

Journal of Religion and Health - As an occupational group, clergy exhibit numerous physical health problems. Given the physical health problems faced by clergy, understanding where physical health...     

Student Ratings of a Male and Female Professors’ Lecture on Sex Discrimination in the Workforce

Using an experimental design, male (n = 41) and female (n = 46) undergraduate students in the southeastern USA evaluated an identical written lecture by a male and female professor on pay disparities between men and women in the workforce suggesting sex discrimination. Regardless of the students’ sex, the male professor and his lecture was rated more positively and less sexist than the female professor. Moderated multiple regression analysis indicated that more traditional and gender stereotypical attitudes toward women in male students were related to greater sexism ratings of the female professor compared to the male professor whereas; no differences on ratings of sexism between the male and female professor were found for male students with more liberal attitudes.     

VR-based conversation training program for patients with schizophrenia: a preliminary clinical trial.

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness and is characterized by hallucinations and delusions as well as social skills deficits. Generally, social skills training designed to help patients develop social skills includes role-playing, but this form of training has typical shortcomings, which are largely due to a trainer's difficulties to project emotion. Virtual reality (VR)-based techniques have the potential to solve these difficulties, because they provide a computer-generated but realistic three-dimensional world and humanlike avatars that can provide emotional stimuli. In this paper, we report on a method of implementing virtual environments (VEs) in order to train people with schizophrenia to develop conversational skills in specific situations, which could overcome the shortcomings of or complement conventional role-playing techniques. The paper reports the efficacy of the proposed approach in a preliminary clinical trial with 10 patients with schizophrenia.     

Psychological Distress in Caregivers of Liver and Lung Transplant Candidates

Although organ transplantation represents a stressful experience for the entire family, surprisingly little research has focused on the adjustment of caregivers. The purpose of this study was to examine what caregivers report to be the greatest benefits and stressors pretransplant, the prevalence of psychological distress and caregiver strain in pretransplant caregivers as compared to normative populations, and the physical, psychological, and demographic variables that predict distress. Fifty-two caregivers of transplant candidates (28 liver and 24 lung) completed a series of questionnaires, including the Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale (PAIS-SR), SF-36 Health Survey, Caregiver Strain Index (CSI), and qualitative questions about benefits and stressors. The most commonly reported benefit of being a caregiver could be categorized as Helping the Patient, and the most common stressors were associated with Uncertainty/Waiting/Fears. Compared to normative samples of caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease, caregivers of liver transplant candidates reported more caregiver strain; there were no differences for lung transplant caregivers. Caregiver social functioning was found to be the only significant predictor of caregiver distress, with those caregivers who report greater distress also reporting extreme and frequent interference with normal social activities. Implications of these findings for psychological interventions are discussed.