Reaction to trauma: a cognitive processing model.

We integrated existing cognitive processing models of posttrauma reactions into a longitudinal model. Data were obtained after a multiple shooting in a city office block. The subject group comprised 158 office workers who were in the building at the time of the shootings. The methodology of this research was a repeated measures survey, with data collection at 4, 8, and 14 months posttrauma. Measures included the Impact of Events Scale (IES) and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised. A path analysis was performed with the IES as an indication of cognitive processing. Intrusion and avoidance were shown to mediate between exposure to trauma and symptom development. Intrusion was also found to be negatively related to subsequent symptom levels. The findings provide provisional support for a cognitive processing model.     

Implementation and evaluation of a juvenile mental health training for law enforcement in a medium-sized jurisdiction

The need for specialized training programs that are focused on youth mental health needs, awareness of community-based services, and de-escalation skills is growing across law enforcement agencies due to calls for service that involve youth in mental health crisis. The current study evaluates a juvenile mental health training for law enforcement that was developed based on agency needs. The training was completed by 159 officers and a pre-/post-test design was used. Findings suggest that officers were satisfied with the training and improvements were seen across several training constructs (confidence, preparedness, stigma, resource awareness, and de-escalation skills). Satisfaction with the training predicted change in confidence and preparedness. Recommendations for future research and the implementation of juvenile mental health trainings are discussed.     

Contemporary views of man in psychology

Summary Contemporary views of man in psychology are in flux. The American tradition of experimental materialism is being modified by serious attention to personality theory. The existential movement in Europe is beginning to have a serious influence on both theory and therapy. The development of psychosomatic medicine is part of a vital reconsideration of the problems of mind-body. And within the psychotherapeutic disciplines, serious attention is being given to the role of patient-therapist values and the therapeutic concept of man. The relevance of spiritual concepts is being given serious consideration, and potential modifications of theology and psychology are being entertained by both disciplines. Hopefully, out of this interchange will develop more adequate concepts of man and God.Presented at Eastern Mennonite College and Seminary, January, 15, 1965, as one of the 1964–65 lecture series on Contemporary Views of Man.     

Developing the matrix representation grid (MRG): A method for observing group processes. Findings from time-limited group psychotherapy for alcohol-dependent patients

The MRG was published 1988 in order to support developments in group psychotherapy methods as one of the all too few process observation research methods for studying group-as-a-whole. After 9 years of what pilot studies have labeled successful clinical trials, this study aims at validating the MRG against the established SAVI: Structural Analysis of Verbal Interaction (Agazarian & Simon 1989). Videotaped group sessions from short-term groups for alcohol dependent patients conducted along two therapy methods, one behaviorally oriented and the other group analytic, are used as material. The MRG is validated in the study, confirmed to be clinically valuable, and some interesting comparisons between the two treatment modalities are also made.     

Psychiatry and religion circa 1978: Analysis of a decade,part II

Prior tensions between science and religion have dissolved and coalesced into new alliances based on ideology and philosophy. This general cultural pattern is reflected in the realignment of interests and interactions between paychiatry and religion. There are increasing numbers of mental health professionals with devout religious commitments and involvement in religiously oriented mental health activities; while clergy have developed new organizational structures to reflect many diverse mental health interests, including pastoral counseling, community mental health chaplains, hospitals chaplains, and expanded parish ministries. Clinical and research literature has continued to rapidly proliferate, while a unique genre of pastoral care and counseling literature has emerged. A decade ago there was hope for an amicable alliance between specialists in psychiatry and in religion. That irenic quest has shifted into overlapping goals and roles, with tensions between those engaged in universalistic norms and those seeking to develop particularistic norms.Dr. Pattison is Director of Training, Orange County Department of Mental Health and Professor and Acting Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California Irvine Medical Center, 101 City Drive South, Orange, California 92668. Part I of his article appeared in the Fall, 1978 issue ofPastoral Psychology.     

How a thing is called—A study of mothers' and children's naming

Mothers' selections of category names in object-naming tasks were examined using the levels of categorization defined by Eleanor Rosch (E. Rosch. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language, New York: Academic Press, 1973. E. Rosch. In E. Rosch & B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and categorization. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1978. E. Rosch, C. Mervis, W. Gray, D. Johnson, & P. Boyes-Braem. Cognitive Psychology, 1976, 8, 382–439). The effect of three variables—Presentation Context, Taxonomy, and Age (of person for whom mother was naming the items)—on mothers' choice of category names, was also investigated. The stimuli were 36 photographs of common concrete objects representative of four taxonomies. Forty mothers named the stimulus items for their 2-year-olds (N = 20), for their 4-year-olds (N = 20), and for the Experimenter. The category labels that children of both ages used when naming the same items, and mothers' independent predictions of the names their children would use in the naming task, were recorded. Contextual factors were found to have a primary role in determining mothers' selections of category names and the three independent variables had a complex and dynamic effect on mothers' naming practices.