Career guidance in Scotland: retrospect and prospect

Devolution of powers to Scotland has accentuated pre-existing divergence from the rest of the UK with respect to education, training and career guidance provision. Scotland now has an all-age national careers service—Careers Scotland. It is suggested that it is unlikely that a national, publicly-funded careers agency would have been established in the absence of devolution. The article outlines the development of career guidance in Scotland over the last 25 years and how the pre-existing Scottish context and the new context of devolution have impacted upon it. The role of Careers Scotland and its relationship with other providers of career guidance in Scotland are examined. Other key issues considered include: the allocation of resources based on need; relationships with local authorities and schools; and training and professional identities in an increasingly diverse UK guidance context.     

Differentiating Adolescent Self-Injury from Adolescent Depression: Possible Implications for Borderline Personality Development

Self-inflicted injury (SII) in adolescence marks heightened risk for suicide attempts, completed suicide, and adult psychopathology. Although several studies have revealed elevated rates of depression among adolescents who self injure, no one has compared adolescent self injury with adolescent depression on biological, self-, and informant-report markers of vulnerability and risk. Such a comparison may have important implications for treatment, prevention, and developmental models of self injury and borderline personality disorder. We used a multi-method, multi-informant approach to examine how adolescent SII differs from adolescent depression. Self-injuring, depressed, and typical adolescent females (n = 25 per group) and their mothers completed measures of psychopathology and emotion regulation, among others. In addition, we assessed electrodermal responding (EDR), a peripheral biomarker of trait impulsivity. Participants in the SII group (a) scored higher than depressed adolescents on measures of both externalizing psychopathology and emotion dysregulation, and (b) exhibited attenuated EDR, similar to patterns observed among impulsive, externalizing males. Self-injuring adolescents also scored higher on measures of borderline pathology. These findings reveal a coherent pattern of differences between self-injuring and depressed adolescent girls, consistent with theories that SII differs from depression in etiology and developmental course.     

Validation of a Standardized Multiple‐Choice Multicultural Competence Test: Implications for Training,Assessment, and Practice

The Multicultural Counseling and Psychotherapy Test (MCPT), a measure of multicultural counseling competence (MCC), was validated in 2 phases. In Phase 1, the authors administered 451 test items derived from multicultural guidelines in counseling and psychology to 32 multicultural experts and 30 nonexperts. In Phase 2, the authors administered the top 50 discriminative items to licensed mental health professionals (N = 227) and compared MCPT scores to external indicators of MCC. Evidence was found for the construct validity and internal consistency reliability of the MCPT. El Test de Consejería Multicultural y Psicoterapia (MCPT, por sus siglas en inglés), una medida de la competencia en consejería multicultural (MCC, por sus siglas en inglés) fue validado en dos fases. En la Fase 1, los autores administraron 451 elementos del test derivados de las pautas multiculturales en consejería y psicología a 32 expertos multiculturales y 30 no expertos. En la Fase 2, los autores administraron los 50 elementos más discriminativos a profesionales licenciados de la salud mental (N = 227) y compararon los puntajes del MCPT con indicadores externos de MCC. Se hallaron evidencias de la validez del constructo y la fiabilidad de la consistencia interna del MCPT.     

Far from “Anything Goes”: Ethics as Communally Constructed

Constructivist and constructionist stances have long been critiqued for inviting “anything goes,” otherwise referred to as “rampant relativism.” As Raskin and Debany (this issue Raskin, J. D., &; Debany, A. E. (this issue). The inescapability of ethics and the impossibility of “anything goes”: A constructivist model of ethical meaning making. Journal of Constructivist Psychology. (Reprinted from Ethics in action: Dialogue between knowledge and practice, pp. 13–32, by S. Cipolletta &; E. Gius (Eds.), 2012, Milan, Italy: LED) [Google Scholar]) argue, there could be nothing further from the case. In my response to their article, I take up three issues: (a) the distinction between constructivism and social construction, (b) the critique of rampant relativism, and (c) the case for an ethic of relational responsibility that emerges within a constructionist philosophical stance.     

医学专业精神及医疗保密：美国历史及现状中的冲突

讨论卫生部门宣传和加强强制汇报的法律的努力、强制性汇报的规定与医学专业精神及个人自主性之间的冲突、私人医生避免遵守这些规则的策略、病人和倡议者设法避免强制性登记和检测的策略,以及医生/病人和公共卫生官员达成的妥协。最后对公共卫生政策提出建议,认识到强制性汇报存在的问题和卫生政策透明度的重要性。     

Contingency Management for Attendance to Group Substance Abuse Treatment Administered by Clinicians in Community Clinics

Contingency management (CM) is effective in enhancing retention in therapy. After an 8-week baseline, four community-based substance abuse treatment clinics were exposed in random order to 16 weeks of standard care with CM followed by 16 weeks of standard care without CM or vice versa. In total, 75 outpatients participated. Patients who were enrolled in the clinics when the CM treatment phase was in effect attended a significantly greater percentage of therapy sessions than patients who were enrolled in treatment when CM was not in effect. This study is one of the first to investigate CM in community settings implemented entirely by community clinicians, and results suggest that CM is effective in improving therapy attendance.     

A Review of Research on Moral Injury in Combat Veterans

The moral injury construct has been proposed to describe the suffering some veterans experience when they engage in acts during combat that violate their beliefs about their own goodness or the goodness of the world. These experiences are labeled transgressive acts to identify them as potentially traumatic experiences distinct from the fear-based traumas associated with posttraumatic stress disorder. The goal of this article was to review empirical and clinical data relevant to transgressive acts and moral injury, to identify gaps in the literature, and to encourage future research and interventions. We reviewed literature on 3 broad arms of the moral injury model proposed by Litz and colleagues (2009) Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., &; Maguen, S. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review, 29, 695–706. 10.1016/j.cpr.2009.07.003[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]: (a) the definition, prevalence, and potential correlates of transgressive acts (e.g., military training and leadership, combat exposure, and personality), (b) the relations between transgressive acts and the moral injury syndrome (e.g., self-handicapping, self-injury, demoralization), and (c) some of the proposed mechanisms of moral injury genesis (e.g., shame, guilt, social withdrawal, and self-condemnation). We conclude with recommendations for future research for veterans suffering with moral injury.     

Coping with AIDS: Psychological and Health Implications1

The current study explored the relationship of coping to both psychological and health parameters in 50 gay men recently (within three months) diagnosed with AIDS. Three methods of coping (active behavioral, active cognitive, and avoidance) and eight different coping strategies (positive involvement, expressive/ information seeking, reliance on others, positive understanding/create meaning, passive/ruminative, distraction, passive resignation, and solitary/passive behaviors) were assessed. Findings indicate that avoidance coping is not protecting these people from distressful feelings, mood disturbance, and concerns. The three coping methods evidenced distinctly different associations with measures of psychological and health variables. Active-behavioral coping was related to lower total mood disturbance and higher self-esteem, while avoidance coping was inversely related to self-esteem and positively correlated with depression. The frequencies of specific coping strategies indicate men in this study were using cognitive strategies most frequently. Suggestions for interventions to help people cope with AIDS are given.