Police perspectives on responding to mentally ill people in crisis: perceptions of program effectiveness

In this study, we sampled sworn police officers from three law enforcement agencies (n=452), each of which had different system responses to mentally ill people in crisis. One department relies on field assistance from a mobile mental health crisis team, a second has a team of officers specially trained in crisis intervention and management of mentally ill people in crisis, and a third has a team of in-house social workers to assist in responding to calls. Calls involving mentally ill people in crisis appear to be frequent and are perceived by most of the officers to pose a significant problem for the department; however, most officers reported feeling well prepared to handle these calls. Generally, officers from the jurisdiction with a specialized team of officers rated their program as being highly effective in meeting the needs of mentally ill people in crisis, keeping mentally ill people out of jail, minimizing the amount of time officers spend on these calls, and maintaining community safety. Officers from departments relying on a mobile crisis unit (MCU) and on police-based social workers both rated their programs as being moderately effective on each of these dimensions except for minimizing officer time on these calls where the MCU had significantly lower ratings. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The opponent process theory and affective reactions

Solomon (1980) proposed an opponent process theory to account for motivational and affective dynamics. This theory asserts that the brain avoids extremes of emotional experience by countering the stimulation it receives with an opposite or opponent reaction. Opponent processes are thought to be responsible for the characteristic changes in affective experience that occur over time, and to account for the dynamics of affective response to such stimuli as skydiving and sauna bathing, which have heretofore been difficult to explain. However, the relevance of this theory for affective experiences in general (beyond physical stimuli and addictions) has yet to be demonstrated. The present paper examines opponent process theory predictions in two settings, involving affective responses to situation-scenarios and emotion-provoking slides. In each study, significant habituation to both positive and negative affective stimuli was found, as the opponent process theory would predict. Subjects also showed a reversal of affect when the stimuli were reversed from positive to negative or vice versa. However, contrary to opponent process theory predictions, there was no evidence that withdrawal responses were greater after habituation to the affective stimulus. The only instance of a significant difference in withdrawal responses was actually in a direction opposite to that which the opponent process theory predicts. All other predicted differences were not significant. The opponent process theory, therefore, was not supported in these data and appears to need revision or qualification as to its domains of application.     

Measurement and quantification of stereotypy in freely behaving subjects: An information analysis

Stereotypy is typically defined as abnormal, repetitive, and purposeless motor behavior. In this study, stereotypy was more rigorously and generally defined in terms ofH, the typical metric for entropy, and was measured using computer-driven analyses of filtered and digitized video records. This technique was validated using rats treated with d-amphetamine, which has been shown to be an effective stimulant of traditionally defined stereotypy in a wide variety of species. Rats were treated with 0, 1, 2, and 4 mg/kg body weight d-amphetamine sulfate, and their unrestrained behavior was recorded on videotape. Our results confirm previous research that found stereotypy to occur at high doses of amphetamine. However, the present measure of stereotypy brought out additional complexities. Our results indicate that stereotypy occurred at significant levels with low drug doses, and, furthermore, that stereotypy in general was highly dependent upon the level of behavioral complexity considered. Finally, we discuss the advantages of the present metric for studying stereotypy.     

A demonstration of a token economy for the real world

Token economies are rarely used in real-world psychiatric settings because of barriers to their implementation, such an institutional constraints and insufficient collegial support. The line-level treatment team at Elgin Mental Health Center was able to overcome these contraints and develop a user-friendly token economy. This article describes Elgin's simple yet effective token economy and the process used to develop it.     

The Metaphysical Expositions of Space and Time

The direct proof of transcendental idealism, in the Transcendental Aesthetic of Kant's First Critique, has borne the brunt of enormous criticism. Much of this criticism has arisen from a confusion regarding the epistemological nature of the arguments Kant proposes with the alleged ontological conclusions he draws. In this paper I attempt to deflect this species of criticism. I concentrate my analysis on the Metaphysical Expositions of Space and Time. I argue that the argument form of the Metaphysical Expositions is that of disjunctive syllogism and that Kant's primary target of attack is that of Leibnizian relativism. I provide a detailed analysis and reconstruction of the arguments of the Metaphysical Expositions, defending Kant against various claims of argumentative invalidity and incoherence. I conclude by identifying what can properly be inferred regarding the ontological nature of space and time, given my reconstructions of the arguments, and by suggesting the manner in which Kant can deflect objections from the other major proponent of transcendental realism, namely, Newtonian absolutism.     

Studies in intuitive personology from an idiothetic point of view: Implications for personality theory

Following Lamiell's (1981) critique of the individual differences approach to the scientific study of personality, questions have arisen concerning (a) the nature of the empirical research to which the “idiotheric” framework he proposed as an alternative has thus far led, and (b) the wider theoretical implications of that research. The present article seeks to address these questions within the medium of research on the nature of the reasoning process by which lay persons formulate and express subjective personality impressions. It is argued that the findings of this research offer strong empirical support for a conception of the intuitive personologist as a dialectician. Among other things, the discussion of these findings focuses on their implications for a humanistic conception of the relation between cognition and behavior, and thus of personality more broadly defined.