Psychology Without Psy Professionals: Exploring an Unemployed Centre Families Project as a Mental Health Resource

The activities and technologies of the psychology (Psy) disciplines, in the process of privileging professional understandings of distress, could be seen to be potentially facilitating corrosion in the capacity of the lay public to understand and ameliorate their distress. This paper draws on the experiences of people who use an Unemployed Centre Families Project in the South of England to provide an example of community mental health work that does not draw on the dominant discourses, institutions or practitioners of the Psy sciences. Through interviews with centre users, staff and volunteers, a picture emerges of a community space that provides a variety of services, projects and opportunities that have a very considerable positive impact on the mental well‐being of the centre users. This picture highlights non‐medical intersubjective processes that offer possibilities for recoveries from mental distress but that are often neglected and subordinated in the professional worlds of Psy and psychiatry. Such centres facilitate social networks and practical help, and transitions in identity can be beneficial for those experiencing mental distress. In so doing, they make prominent some of the key limitations of biomedical approaches to recovery. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Losing hope: mental health and religious service non-attendance in Australia

Religious beliefs and practices are related to mental health. Many individuals report a religious affiliation, but do not have specific religious beliefs or practices such as attending religious services. These non-attendees are often assumed to resemble the non-religious, but are poorly studied. This study explored the demographic characteristics and mental health outcomes associated with being a non-attendee using data from a nationally representative Australian sample. Non-attendees were more likely to be non-Christian than attendees at religious services. They had worse mental health than both non-religious individuals and attendees, especially compared to the non-religious. Whether non-attendance is a result of or cause of poor mental health outcomes is not clear and deserves further investigation. Non-attendees clearly differed in our sample from both non-religious individuals and attendees. Our results do not support the hypothesis that individuals who report a religious affiliation, but are not actively religious, are similar to non-religious individuals.     

Innovation in multidisciplinary teams: The moderating role of transformational leadership in the relationship between professional heterogeneity and shared mental models

Research on the effectiveness of multidisciplinary teams has been equivocal. In an attempt to understand when a team’s professional heterogeneity (PH) is positively related to innovation (INN), we proposed an integrative model in which shared mental models (SMMs) are theorized as a mechanism to leverage INN in highly multidisciplinary teams. In addition, we claim that transformational leadership (TL), which is usually regarded as a factor contributing to team effectiveness, will attenuate the effect of teams’ PH on team SMM. In a field study of 55 R&D teams in Israel, we found that SMMs mediated the relationship between PH and INN, and that TL moderated the relationship between PH and Team SMM. We discuss the theoretical and practical implication of these findings.     

Time for temporal team mental models: Expanding beyond “what” and “how” to incorporate “when”

Although often ignored, establishing and maintaining congruence in team members’ temporal perceptions are consequential tasks that deserve research attention. Integrating research on team cognition and temporality, this study operationalized the notion of a temporal team mental model (TMM) at two points in time using two measurement methods. Ninety eight three-person teams participated in a computerized team simulation designed to mimic emergency crisis management situations in a distributed team environment. The results showed that temporal TMMs measured via concept maps and pairwise ratings each positively contributed uniquely to team performance beyond traditionally measured taskwork and teamwork content domains. In addition, temporal TMMs assessed later in teams’ development exerted stronger effects on team performance than those assessed earlier. The results provide support for the continued examination of temporal TMM similarity in future research.     

Mindfulness-based stress reduction and self-compassion among mental healthcare professionals: a pilot study

The authors conducted a pilot study on the effects of a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) educational intervention on mental health professionals' self-compassion, perceived stress, burnout, and quality of life. Data were obtained from 22 female mental healthcare workers between the ages of 24 and 69 years who were enrolled in one of four separate 8-week MBSR courses. Pre- and post-assessment measures consisted of the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), Maslach Burnout Inventory, and Quality of Life Inventory. The changes on the SCS total score proved significant with a p-value of .003. Within the SCS, changes were significant on four out of the six subscales. The study is unique in its use of the eight-week MBSR intervention to target mental health professionals currently working in the field, and in the examination of the specific facets of self-compassion enhanced by this type of intervention.     

生命性在句子加工中作用的ERP研究

生命性广泛地渗透到人类语言系统中发挥其作用。本文主要结合最新和经典的有关生命性的ERP研究探讨了生命性信息起作用的模式和时间进程。在句子加工过程中,生命性影响论元的加工并影响题元结构的建构和解释。以往研究表明,生命性违反有时引发的是N400效应,有时引发的是P600效应,少数情况还表现出N400-P600的双相模式。生命性在句子加工中的作用还跟多种变量存在交互作用,语境、题元可逆性、论元之间的语义关系、动词类型和其固有的题元结构都可能影响生命性信息起作用的模式。文章最后进行总结和展望,并提出未来研究仍有必要继续探讨生命性信息加工的时间神经动态性及其在句子加工中的具体作用机制。     

Teen Dating Abuse: A Paradigm for Mental Health Counselors

Teen dating abuse (TDA) is a serious public health problem affecting almost half of all adolescents in the United States. Because of the developmental characteristics of adolescence such as identity confusion and rejection of adult authority figures, counseling adolescents who are experiencing TDA can be particularly challenging. This article describes the types of abuse, the early warning signs of abuse, and effective strategies that mental health counselors can use to counsel and educate teen victims of TDA and others.     

Comment on “The Self‐Care of Psychologists and Mental Health Professionals” (Dattilio, 2015)—Working With the Mentally Ill Is a Mental Health Hazard: What Can We Do About It?

It has been known for many decades that the risk of burnout, psychological distress, mental illness, or suicidal ideation is higher in mental health professionals (MHP) compared with many other professions and the general population; however, MHPs often disregard their own mental health for the sake of helping others, sometimes with fatal consequences. Paradoxically MHP tends to avoid seeking professional help for their own mental health issues. Apart from the serious risk to one's health that this poses, MHPs are now mandated to report any impairment that affects their ability to practice. The aim of this commentary is to emphasise the heightened risk of mental illness among MHP, and includes some risk factors associated with burnout, psychological distress, or mental illness in MHP. It explores some of the barriers to help seeking, including stigma, and highlights mindfulness as a self‐care strategy to prevent psychological distress and burnout. The commentary makes recommendations for inclusions into current psychology postgraduate as well as undergraduate curriculum. It concludes with recommendation for suitable support from professional bodies to help maintain good mental health and to help prevent mental illness among MHPs.     

Winnicott's invitation to ‘further games of Jung‐analysis’

Winnicott signs off his celebrated review of Jung's (1963) autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections with the warning that translation of ‘erreichten’ as ‘attained’ (implying assimilation) rather than as ‘reached to’, could ‘queer the pitch for further games of Jung‐analysis’. This subtly underscores his view that Jung—who he described earlier as ‘mentally split’ and lacking ‘a self with which to know’—remained essentially dissociated. However, Winnicott, whilst immersed in this work on Jung, wrote a letter to Michael Fordham describing himself as suffering ‘a lifelong malady’ of ‘dissociation’. But this he now reported repaired through a ‘splitting headache’ dream of destruction, dreamt ‘for Jung, and for some of my patients, as well as for myself’ (Winnicott 1989, p. 228). Winnicott's recurrent concern during his last decade was with ‘reaching to’—that quintessential Winnicottian term—some reparative experience that could address such difficulties in constellating a ‘unit self’. This is correlated with his engagement with Jung and tracked through his contemporaneous clinical work, particularly ‘Fear of Breakdown’ (1963). Themes first introduced by Sedgwick (2008) and developed by the author's earlier ‘Winnicott on Jung; destruction, creativity and the unrepressed unconscious’ (2011) are given further consideration.