Introduction.

This article introduces the current issue of Health Psychology. The call for early intervention to prevent adulthood health problems and the need to consider each period of children's lives within its developmental perspective are the main emphases in this special issue of the journal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction.

In the articles presented in this issue, developments in professional psychology following World War II are described. Elizabeth B. Wolf recounts her experiences as a graduate student in clinical psychology in the period just before the "psychotherapy revolution" and gives us a glimpse of clinical psychology in action during the 1940s and how she bartered her way into an internship. Dr. Wolf, still active in clinical psychology training, also discusses the early evolution of clinical psychology training programs. Milton F. Shore chronicles the rise and fall of the community mental health movement in our country and addresses the strengths and weaknesses of these programs and psychology's contributions to them. Robert Perloff, who characterizes himself as an "applied generalist," relates how his training in industrial psychology set the stage for his role in the development of consumer psychology and led to his interest in knowledge utilization. Each of these reminiscences catches the enthusiasm and optimism that pervaded professional psychology in the postwar years. These articles challenge us to recapture that optimism and commitment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction.

The development of effective interventions that focus on the manipulation and utilization of behavioral and psychological variables to influence health outcomes is an important component of health psychology. Investigators in clinical health psychology make important contributions to our basic understanding of the role of behavioral and psychological factors in disease and contribute to improved patient care in primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention programs. The purpose of the present series of Health Psychology articles is to provide readers who may not be familiar with research in clinical health psychology with a sample of research in this area and to emphasize that the journal is an outlet for research in clinical health psychology. This series of articles represents some of the diversity and strengths of research in clinical health psychology. The investigations range from controlled laboratory investigations to worksite field interventions. The scope of outcome and process measures encompasses behavioral, subjective, and physiological changes. The studies utilize both hypothetico-deductive and inductive theoretical models to generate hypotheses. Finally, several of the studies provide outcomes that clinically benefit the study participants. It is hoped that identification of Health Psychology as a resource for clinical health psychology research will stimulate the submission of more high-quality articles in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Manic-depressive disease.

Reviews the book, Manic-depressive disease by John D. Campbell (1953). This book presents the thesis that manic and depressive disorders are forms of a bodily disease. Mental symptoms and psychodynamic problems are secondary and superficial; disturbance of the autonomic nervous system lies behind the presenting symptoms, and the root of the trouble is a defect in autonomic regulation. It is the reviewer's opinion that the author has gone rather far: certain of the cases in which he perceived only autonomic imbalance seemed to glare with psychodynamic problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction: Diversity Within Unity.

Provides an introduction to the Clinical Psychology section of the current issue of Professional Psychology. This issue, as a whole, focuses on the future of professional psychology. This section, in particular, reflects the diversity of practitioners as well as their clients, describes a few settings in which clinical psychology is practiced, presents some of the external and internal conflicts and problems that affect both the present and future of clinical psychology, and offers some possible solutions. The first three articles use specific settings to describe some of the problems encountered by psychologists who work with underserved populations. The last four articles in this section depart from specific settings and focus on issues that affect the goals of psychology, the provision of services, the role of psychologists in training settings, and the hospital practice of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction.

The three articles presented in this issue reflect different problems encountered by psychologists as each attempted to pursue a career. All three psychologists were trail blazers, developing new applications of psychological knowledge, and each faced different challenges. Stanley Moldawsky, a pioneer in the development of professional psychology, reflects on the establishment of a private practice in the 1950s. He shares how politics had to become an important concern in order to survive, gives us a glimpse of some of the hurdles that had to be crossed to establish a professional school in New Jersey, and impresses on us that professional psychology will grow only if we advocate for it. In contrast to Moldawsky, Jonathan Cummings' career was devoted to the application of clinical and counseling psychology to the medical-surgical areas of the health field. His career was focused on working in the Veterans Administration Hospital system, where he was the first psychologist who was assigned to work outside of the mental health area. Cummings' work was instrumental in the development of the field of health psychology and of the need to focus on the whole person when treating people in these settings. John Jackson, in his poignant essay, reflects on the upward climb of minorities into professional psychology. An African American, Jackson did not have the benefit of more recent civil rights legislation to assist his career. He reflects on his involvements with the American Psychological Association and how he perceives the role of minority psychologists within organized psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Central Adiposity Is Associated With Cardiovascular Reactivity to Stress in Adolescents.

The current study examined the association between central adiposity, measured by waist circumference, and cardiovascular reactivity to stress among 106 White and 105 Black adolescents, approximately 50% of whom were girls. Participants engaged in 4 laboratory tasks while cardiovascular reactivity measures were taken. Independent of body mass index, race, and gender, participants with a greater waist circumference exhibited greater systolic blood pressure reactivity and diastolic blood pressure reactivity (boys only). Race did not affect the results. Results from the present study suggest that central adiposity is associated with blood pressure reactivity early in life, especially in adolescent boys. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Diminished self-conscious emotional responding in frontotemporal lobar degeneration patients.

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a neurodegenerative disease that dramatically alters social and emotional behavior. Recent work has suggested that self-conscious emotions (e.g., embarrassment) may be particularly vulnerable to disruption in this disease. Self-conscious emotions require the ability to monitor the self in relation to others. These abilities are thought to be subserved by brain regions (e.g., medial prefrontal, anterior cingulate, and insula) that are particularly vulnerable to damage in FTLD. This study examined emotional responding (expressive behavior, peripheral physiology, and subjective experience) in 24 FTLD patients and 16 cognitively normal control participants using a karaoke task known to elicit self-conscious emotion reliably and a nonemotional control task (isometric handgrip). Results indicated that FTLD patients showed diminished self-conscious emotional behavior (embarrassment and amusement) and diminished physiological responding while watching themselves singing. No differences were found between patients and controls in the nonemotional control task. These findings offer evidence of marked disruption of self-conscious emotional responding in FTLD. Diminished self-conscious emotional responding likely contributes significantly to social inappropriateness and other behavioral abnormalities in FTLD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential autonomic responsiveness in the process-reactive classification of schizophrenia.

"This investigation consisted of two studies which were concerned with the relationship between the process-reactive classification of schizophrenia and autonomic nervous system activity… . [Both]… studies revealed that the patients classified as 'reactive' exhibited a significantly greater fall in blood pressure after the administration of mecholyl than the process patients… . It was concluded that the process-reactive classification seems to provide a fruitful frame of reference for research in schizophrenia." (31 ref.) From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:1JS60K. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Genes, Race, and Psychology in the Genome Era: An Introduction.

The mapping of the human genome has reawakened interest in the topic of race and genetics, especially the use of genetic technology to examine racial differences in complex outcomes such as health and intelligence. Advances in genomic research challenge psychology to address the myriad conceptual, methodological, and analytical issues associated with research on genetics and race. In addition, the field needs to understand the numerous social, ethical, legal, clinical, and policy implications of research in this arena. Addressing these issues should not only benefit psychology but could also serve to guide such thought in other fields, including molecular biology. The purpose of this special issue is to begin a discussion of this issue of race and genetics within the field of psychology. Several scholars who work in the fields of genetics, race, or related areas were invited to write (or had previously submitted) articles sharing their perspectives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special issue on culture, race, and ethnicity in organizational consulting psychology.

The need to strongly and directly address issues related to the rapidly changing culture, race, and ethnicity mix of workers, managers, customers, and services recipients in the United States and throughout many parts of the world is now essential. The goal of this special issue is to provide conceptual and practical resources that will contribute to greater effectiveness of consultations when consultants, consultees, and client systems involve diverse culture, race, and ethnicity. Specifically, this special issue consists of five articles, each of which focuses on four common questions: (1) In your experience in consulting, what have been the major challenges posed by culture, race, and ethnicity? (2) How have you dealt with these challenges? (3) Have you developed any conceptual or theoretical models to guide you in this work? (4) Given your expertise, what advice and recommendations would you offer to your fellow consultants as they deal with these challenges? All five articles rely on a variety of narrative-related writing methods, including case examples, biographical stories, and vignettes in narrative form. These five articles are followed by the presentation of an extensive category-clustered bibliography of publications on this topic. It is our hope that this special issue will continue to stimulate discussion and theory building concerning the consultation enterprise in our increasingly culturally diverse society, which is embedded in a highly globalized world community. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived racism and cardiovascular reactivity and recovery to personally relevant stress.

This study evaluated cardiovascular responses (CVR) to an active speech task with blatantly discriminatory (BRC) versus neutral (NRC) stimuli and an anger recall task in a sample of Black men (N = 73; age 18 to 47). Diastolic blood pressure scores were higher for NRC versus BRC stimuli during anger recall (p = .05). Moreover, persons in the NRC group who perceived high levels of racism (vs. no racism or BRC group) during active speech showed larger increases in blood pressure across postspeech rest, anger recall, and subsequent rest (p = .03). The notable elevation in CVR in response to an ambiguous event extends current models of racism suggesting that subtle racism is a psychosocial stressor that erodes health through chronically elevated CVR. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction: Methodological issues in school-based mental health services research.

New research directions on the effectiveness of mental health services for children and adolescents offer the opportunity for school psychology to apply its knowledge base to the systemic juncture between mental health and school systems. Models of service delivery to children, adolescents, and their families that integrate school, mental health, and other service sectors are being actively studied to answer questions about the outcomes of these services for children with mental health problems. The papers in this journal were first presented at the 6th Annual Research Conference of the Florida Mental Health Institute on "A System of Care for Children's Mental Health: Expanding the Research Base." The papers describe state-of-the art studies of school-based mental health interventions for children, adolescents, and their families. In each of the papers, particular attention is paid to the salient methodological issues researchers face in conducting these studies within school settings. It is hoped that these articles will foreground the healthy and creative tensions that exist between different research paradigms and multiple service communities, especially mental health and school systems, by encouraging new research on important and as yet unanswered questions about the effectiveness of school-based service delivery to children and adolescents with mental health needs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special issue: Psychology and AIDS.

From its beginnings in 1981, psychologists have been involved in worldwide efforts to meet the many challenges of the AIDS health crisis. As researchers and practitioners, as consultants and policy advisors, as educators and evaluators, and as activists and concerned members of the community--we psychologists have responded in many ways. We have attempted a broad perspective in approaching this special issue. We wanted coverage of the science, the practice, and the social issues that AIDS has brought into focus for psychology. Any attempt to cover all the issues is doomed to failure, however. The science changes too quickly, and the disease is spreading too rapidly, for any group of journal articles to ever claim currency and comprehensiveness. The issue has been divided into six major sections, each with an introduction. We begin with articles that overview the roles of psychology in the AIDS health crisis as seen in our own profession, and from various levels of science, health care, and legislative and government action. Then we present articles reviewing some of the primary issues AIDS commands us to examine: public health, antibody testing, AIDS and the communities of Black and Hispanic men, IV drug abuse, sexual behavior change, stigma, and psychoneuroimmunology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction.

As we continue on our journey of capturing some aspects of an oral history of professional psychology in writing, we selected three articles that address different aspects of the field. Dr. Leona Tyler, past president of the American Psychological Association and pioneer in the field of counseling psychology, shares with us how counseling psychology has changed over the years from being concerned with helping individuals understand themselves, make important choices, and plan their lives to being more concerned with issues traditionally in the realm of clinical psychology. The second article is written by Dr. Grant Dahlstrom, one of the "greats" in the field of objective testing. He reviews for us why he and George Welsh embarked on the writings of their books on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and what they used in their preparation of guides for clinicians. In the third article, Drs. Lillie and Barry Weiss, clinical psychologists who met and married while in graduate school in the late 1960s, to reflect on the uniqueness of the married couple experience in professional psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Autonomic responses and their relationship to race attitudes.

Slides showing Negroes elicited greater GSR in Ss having scale-measured prejudice. But the sex of the S also was a factor. "Autonomic activity may be considered as another dimension of attitudinal behavior to be considered along with the verbal and overt action dimension." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the Special Section on the Future of Health Psychology.

Following 25 years of landmark progress, health psychology faces even greater change in the foreseeable future. Evolving patterns of health and illness and developments in medicine and related fields will shape the future of health psychology. The articles in this special section discuss these future issues in several areas: the biopsychosocial model, changes in demographics, prevention, clinical health psychology interventions, health care financing, and new technologies. In every case, the future holds a variety of important challenges and opportunities in research, practice, training, and policy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special section on multicultural and community psychology: Clinical psychology in context.

Human behavior occurs in the contexts of culture and community. Yet, clinical psychology has traditionally focused on the individual, neglecting the individual's context. The purpose of this Special Section is to address the underlying conceptual issues in integrating multicultural and community psychology within a common framework. The integration of etic and emic approaches distinguishes the research programs in these articles from others that have solely focused on universal or culture-specific approaches. Issues facing ethnic minority populations are addressed, including identification of risk and protective factors, obstacles to mental health service use, and optimal treatment effectiveness. The integration of culture and community contexts into clinical psychology is necessary for it to remain relevant in an increasingly diverse 21st century. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction.

As the celebration of the American Psychological Association's centennial closes with the end of 1992, so does the series of personal reflections and recollections on the development of professional psychology. Francis (Frank) A. Young, Ernst Beier, Rogers Wright, and Robert (Bob) Weitz—who have all been active in shaping professional psychology's future through their careers and through tireless efforts in state and national advocacy are our final writers. Frank Young, a prominent researcher in vision at Washington State University, presents how he became involved in state psychological association activities, ultimately becoming the executive officer of the Washington State Psychological Association and of APA's Division of State Psychological Association Affairs. Ernst Beier, an immigrant to the United States who fled his homeland during the Holocaust tells how he became interested in subtle cues in communication and shares some vignettes, one a life threatening one, about this. Rogers Wright has devoted his career to advocacy for psychology. A founder of psychology's first advocacy organization, Council for the Advancement of the Psychological Professions and Sciences, he recounts how advocacy has developed during the last three decades. The final essay is by Bob Weitz, the first psychologist to open a private practice in the state of New Jersey. His career, which has spanned half a century, gives us a glimpse of how clinical psychology grew to what it is today. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special section: In search of a double paradigm.

The goal of this special section was to publish articles that would speak to two audiences simultaneously—health psychologists with an interest in adult development and aging and geropsychologists with an interest in health psychology. The three articles that were included were each quite different in conceptualization and design. They included a targeted longitudinal study of samples of hypertensive and normotensive patients, a large national population survey, and a targeted pair of experiments. These articles add to a growing literature in health psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)