Student Attitudinal Changes in a Counseling Ethics Course

The purpose of this study was to investigate ethical attitude changes in counselors in training related to specific topics during a 16-week, two-credit counseling ethics course. This study indicated that significant attitudinal changes occurred related to professional ethics and self-awareness, dual relationships, impairment, and multiculturalism.     

Fear questionnaires for simple phobias: Psychometric evaluations for a Norwegian sample

The present study presents psychometric data for four different phobic fear questionnaires in a Norwegian sample of 284 subjects. The questionnaires concerned fear of flying, snakes, spiders and a questionnaire of general phobic complaints. The results showed a high estimate of internal consistency, and a very high test-retest reliability for all questionnaires. A low to moderate degree of intercorrelation between the questionnaires appeared. A clear sex difference emerged in responding to all four questionnaires. In addition, a clinical sample of phobics with fear of flying as the main symptom was compared to the larger sample on a fear of flying scale. The results showed a clear difference in responding between the samples. The present study concludes that the four different fear questionnaires yielded a high degree of reliability, and their use in clinical practice is encouraged.     

Artists' vulnerability to psychopathology: Towards an integrative cognitive perspective

A relationship is commonly reported between high levels of artistic creativity and mental health problems (e.g., depression or psychosis), and it is now becoming clearer that the divergent cognitive style associated with creativity has commonalities with some of the processes involved in the development and maintenance of some psychological difficulties. Our aim was to investigate the nature of this cognitive style. More specifically, we considered the profile of probabilistic reasoning and associated problem solving abilities, as both of these mechanisms have been found to be integral to major forms of clinical dysfunction. We assessed levels of creative potential, mood, probabilistic reasoning, and problem solving abilities in 66 arts and 85 science undergraduate volunteers. As predicted, art students showed higher levels of creative potential and experienced lower levels of mood than their science peers. Differences in probabilistic reasoning were observed which are in keeping with the pattern reported to be present in those suffering with psychosis in that they tended to ‘jump to conclusions’. Art students also displayed both poorer problem solving abilities and self‐appraisal of their problem solving skills. Our results extend previous findings associated with the mediating role of cognitive processes in the relationship between creativity and some forms of psychopathology. Implications for the prevention and treatment of psychological difficulties in the creative are highlighted.     

Art and Moral Revolution

Traditionally, questions about the role of the arts in moral thought have focused on the arts’ role in the acquisition of new moral knowledge, the refinement of moral concepts, and the capacity to apply our moral view to particular situations. Here I suggest that there is an importantly different and largely overlooked role for the arts in moral thought: an ability to reconfigure the structure of our moral thought and effect what we might call a revolution in that framework. In this article I explain this distinction between two kinds of change in view, suggest the second type has not been addressed by the extant literature, provide examples of this role, and argue for its importance.