The use of consultants in the provision of psychological services to the university community.

Attempted to justify the provision of psychological services within the university community by consultation. In this context, 4 main issues are discussed. The recommendations of the Kirk Committee concerning the provision of consulting services to the university community are summarized. 5 views of the consultant task and consultant role models are presented. 2 role models for the university consultant, emphasizing the consultant as a facilitator of social integration and/or the consultant as a facilitator of appropriate action toward distressed individuals are recommended. (French summary) (22 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Consultant as Confidant.

This article deals with something that is probably a common experience to every seasoned consultant but is rarely discussed in an academic journal. The authors are unaware of any research studies on the topic: the consultant as confidant. They discuss the role of the consultant as confidant through their personal experience and by bringing to bear consulting and other psychological literature. They also discuss why there is a need for consultants as confidants, the experience of being a confidant, violations of the role, and some guidelines for performing the role of confidant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality Culture Auditing for Engineering Consultants

Design is one of the most important aspects in the engineering project cycle. To improve the quality of engineering consulting firms, various quality techniques and practices have been proposed by researchers. Most researchers agree that the successful implementation of such quality practices depends on the quality culture of the consultant organization. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the overall quality culture that exists in a consultant organization is essential. The purpose of this paper is to develop a pragmatic tool, a quality culture auditing (QCA) questionnaire, which enables engineering consulting firms to measure the quality culture quantitatively through a scoring system. The responses obtained from 30 engineering consulting firms that participated in the QCA show that the scores obtained can be a good indicator of a consultant organization’s current quality culture. Using these results as the basis, benchmarking exercises and parametric studies can also be conducted. Through the use of QCA, an engineering consultant can pinpoint areas of weakness so that more effort can be put into these areas for future improvement.     

Practicums in consulting psychology: Working with doctoral clinical programs.

Practical training in consulting psychology is sorely lacking in most doctoral programs. This article explores the role that practicums can play in the training and development of the consultant. A program case study in clinical and consulting psychology serves as the focus. Several examples of psychological consultation involving trainees are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Factors related to consultant credibility.

Strong credibility is a marketplace advantage for consultants, but factors that contribute to credibility are not well understood. Literature on reputation, competency, and effectiveness is summarized. Research on interpersonal, personal, and experiential factors is reviewed. A common theme in the literature and research is emphasis of relationship skills and deemphasis of personality traits, technical competence, and credentials, which is in contrast with typical consultant training programs and day-to-day management of consulting practices. Recommendations for consultant training and further research are to concentrate on relationship variables and transactions in the context of consulting roles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Executive consulting under pressure: A case study.

This consulting psychology case study describes how an initially nonvoluntary consulting engagement with an executive client in a highly complex nuclear industry organization evolved from suspicion to trust, enabling the client to achieve work-related goals. Methods used by the consultant, and reactions to those efforts by the client, are presented and discussed. The intervention evolved from executive coaching to team development opportunities, intergroup conflict management assignments, behavioral skills training, special fact-finding assignments, and, ultimately, to a long-term, system-wide organization development and change. The paper presents the case from the perspectives of both the consultant (the senior author) and the initial client (the junior author). Factors that seemed to contribute to the success of the coaching process are also described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Outcome evaluation: Deja vu all over again.

The current interest in and call for use of outcome evaluation data are not new in the mental health field. This paper identifies barriers that have served to temper the outcome evaluation movement in the past. Barriers identified and discussed include economic, technical, scientific, and organizational issues. For the consultant assisting mental health organizations establish outcome evaluation processes, several aspects to consider in developing a productive consulting relationship are offered. These include entry and movement in the mental health system; qualities of the mental health consultant most likely to be congruent with the values of mental health administrators; roles the consultant might play; and potential targets for the consultant's interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The inner world of workplaces: Accessing this world through poetry, narrative literature, music, and visual art.

Psychology is preeminently the science of the inner and intersubjective spaces. Consulting psychology is the application of this science in helping organizations to identify and solve problems in the workplace. This article addresses the issue of how consultant and client(s) together gain access to and make use of this inner world in their work. The author draws on various art forms to illustrate and to evoke situations and scenarios that arise in organizational consulting. The arts help to create new space both internally and between client and consultant. In this new space, the interior worlds of client and consultant become available for problem identification and problem solving. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The consultant as expert witness in school and workplace cases—Part 2.

This article provides a review of both Part 1 and Part 2 of a series of the Consulting Psychology Journal on the consultant as an expert witness in school and workplace cases. Part 1 covered topics such as professional consultants as expert witnesses from a legal perspective, sexual harassment and retaliation cases in the workplace, and special education consultants in due process hearings. In part 2, three articles focus on violence in the workplace and two articles alert the consulting psychologist to the issues related to malingering by clients and how to detect it. These articles are meant to provide a sampling of contemporary issues for which the mental health consultant may provide expert testimony in litigation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Professional development for beginning consultants in firms: Real-world considerations.

This article presents a frame of reference that compares and contrasts beginning consultants' academic preparation with the real-world demands of successful membership in organizational consulting firms. It also specifies target areas that must be addressed in consultants' adaptation to their firms, their clients, and their consulting practices. Five approaches a firm can take in providing orientation, training, and guidance to new consultants are discussed. The article concludes with reference to several elements of the career-long pursuit of professional development necessary to maintain excellence as a consultant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The quest for executive effectiveness: Consultants bridge the gap between psychological research and organizational application.

However we picture success for ourselves as consulting psychologists or for the executives and clients with whom we work, the role as pathfinder and mapmaker identifies those who "make a diference." Effectiveness for both consultant and executive calls for competencies in dealing with individual, group, and organizational-level issues. Critical competencies are discussed under the headings vision, motivation, and action. The ability to conceptualize, or to envision, relies on updated mental processes and stagnates without motivational astuteness. Key to motivation is emotional wisdom, the management of vital sign emotions: curiosity, anxiety, and anger. Finally, the invitational leadership approach (ILA) is presented as a synthesis of leadership research to assist a consultant or an executive in execution of the action competencies that get an organization moving in a coordinated, constructive direction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anatomy of an executive consultation: Three perspectives.

A case of psychological consultation involving an executive and his direct supervisor is presented from the perspectives of the consultant, the consultee, and the president of the company who made the request for services. The presenting situation, consulting process, and results of the consultation are reviewed. Lessons learned by all participants are reported. Overarching issues and strategies relevant to the delivery of consulting services in the executive suite are highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Caplanian mental health consultaiton: Historical background and current status.

Traces the historical roots of Caplanian mental health consultation and lists 9 aspects of the model that have proven valuable over time. A relatively new development, mental health collaboration, is discussed with reference to the internal consultant. The role of mental health consultation in primary prevention is briefly reviewed, and it is argued that consulting psychologists who conduct organization development would do well to consider explicitly the preventive aspects of their work. The paper concludes with some thoughts regarding potential problems of working through intermediary caregivers to achieve the goals of primary prevention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In the Eye of the CEO!

Consultants need to seek more client advice and counsel. This article shares an interview with a chief executive officer (CEO) regarding the need for consulting services, expectations, able and less able consultants, and the issue of consultant training and experience from the client's perspective. The CEO's views might provide a platform for thinking about the education and continuing growth and development of the consultant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Framework for Evaluating the Performance of Engineering Consultants

The evaluation of consultant’s performance is crucial to the success of a consulting assignment especially when today’s construction projects are becoming more sophisticated, large-scale, and risky. However, since individual clients have developed their own consultant’s performance evaluation (CPE) procedures, the sharing of performance information, though desirable, may not be too meaningful as the results of evaluation could be inconsistent. There is a need to examine whether a unified framework can be derived for CPE. The aim of this paper is to improve the transparency and rigorousness of CPE through the establishment of an evaluating framework for gauging the performance of engineering consultants. In this paper, a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria is identified, and the significance of these criteria is discussed through an empirical survey. Then, a multicriteria model for evaluating the performance of engineering consultants is presented. The results indicate that once an acceptable CPE framework is devised, the performance scores can be utilized for various purposes, including monitor and control, incentive and sanction, preselection, technical assessment, and bid evaluation.     

Accessibility and organizational power in the entry phase of mental health consultation.

Correlated indexes constructed to represent expert, legitimate, and reward power for each department of a college with the accessibility of each department to mental health consultants who began work with the college. Results support the hypothesis that accessibility to the consultant is inversely related to organizational power. Legitimate power appears to be the central factor in the data, although the power indexes were substantially correlated with each other and with accessibility. Results are interpreted in terms of power-dependency relationships within the organization. Implications for consulting are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anticipating the school consultant role: Changes in personal constructs following training.

Investigated developmental changes in novices' personal theories of consulting. A variation of G. Kelly's (1955) role repertory grid technique was used to explore changes in school psychology students' cognitive representations of the consultant role following a 9-mo consultation practicum experience. Nine graduate students in school psychology were interviewed prior to and following a program of consultation training. Results document subtle and interesting changes in how these beginning consultants construed their role. Ss applied slightly more varied constructs to the hypothetical consultation situations. Although they continued to primarily focus on the child, Ss demonstrated a shift in the way they approached problems, following the training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychiatric consultant in professional team sports

The role of the sport psychiatrist consulting to a professional sports team is complex, challenging, and varied. Sport psychiatrists enhance the psychosocial development of the athlete by removing obstacles to growth and by facilitating lines of communication that support exchange of information, sharing of feelings, and the development of solid winning relationships on the team and throughout the organization. The consultant psychiatrist often provides input both to players and to management, however; these dual responsibilities raise ethical concerns and often require the services of additional treating psychiatrists and other mental health professionals.     

Forecasting bed needs and recommending facilities plans for community hospitals: a review of past performance

A university-based hospital consulting group reviewed six studies of Michigan hospitals retrospectively in 1975. The studies represented all those done between 1967 and 1971 requiring forecasts of acute bed supply and service needs. The original studies developed forecasts using empirical studies of patient origin and rigorously prepared authoritative forecasts of county populations. The 1975 review compared forecasts of population, service population, and bed need against current values and also interviewed clients to assess retrospective satisfaction with the recommendations. Although the consultants strove steadily to minimize the bed supply and base population forecasts were accurate, the studies overestimated bed needs. Further, the clients were often dissatisfied with the original recommendations, and frequently acted to exceed them. Comparing the 1975 actual with what would now be recommended by the consultant indicates that the "error" cost the communities about $50 per person per year.