CARE: Bridging the gap between clinicians and computers.

Psychologists and other mental health specialists have yet to capitalize on the enormous potential of computers as "clinical assistants." Many therapeutic uses of computers reflect overly ambitious if not naive uses of these machines, such as providing warmth and understanding to hurting persons. The present authors review previous applications of computers in health care, the nature and scope of computer resistance, the relative merits of people and machines in performing different kinds of tasks, and the ethical–legal issues involved when psychological services are provided by computers. Also presented is a relatively simple algorithm for an automated psychological service delivery system that provides, in response to specified complaint statements, low-level inference evaluations, concrete clinical advice, and modest referral information. The use of this computerized assistance, referral, and evaluation (CARE) system in a college community is described. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bridging the gap between alcoholism treatment research and practice: Identifying what works and why.

Despite the proliferation of alcoholism treatment research over the past 2 decades, there is a continued gap between what has been shown to be promising in the extant literature and what is commonly practiced by clinicians in the alcohol treatment field. The present article is an effort to bridge this gap by examining findings from the broad body of alcoholism treatment outcome research to determine how these findings may optimally be used by treatment providers. To this end, the authors provide clinicians with a succinct review of the current alcoholism treatment outcome literature and identify hallmarks of the most empirically supported treatments. Clinical implications of this literature for practitioners working with client with alcohol use disorders are discussed, with a focus on factors underlying effective treatments and on how these factors can be transferred from research to practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital and family therapy of alcohol use disorders: Bridging the gap between research and practice.

Clients with alcohol and other substance use disorders are routinely encountered by practitioners in various treatment settings. This article traces the rationale for using marital and family therapy with alcoholics and describes an ongoing behavioral marital therapy program that exemplifies an integration of clinical practice and research in this area. Specific treatment suggestions are offered and practical considerations for therapists working with families struggling with alcoholism are discussed, including the role of self-help groups in family treatment, the danger of having preconceived notions about "alcoholic families," and the necessity for clinics and clinicians to possess the capacity to assess and treat comorbid psychological disorders as well as addictive behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multisystemic therapy: Bridging the gap between university- and community-based treatment.

This article proposes, within the context of discouraging findings from child psychotherapy literatures, 2 theory- and empirically based explanations for the emergent success of multisystemic therapy (MST) when implemented in community settings as well as for MST's favorable long-term effects on serious antisocial behavior in adolescents. First, MST may have demonstrated success in community settings because it explicitly bridges the gap between university-based psychotherapy studies and their community-based counterparts (J. R. Weisz & B. Weiss, 1993). Second, although MST is based on a social-ecological model of behavior, its favorable cross-setting and temporal outcomes may exemplify the successful use of several active behavioral generalization strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adolescent attachment and psychopathology.

The relationships among attachment classification, psychopathology, and personality traits were examined in a group of 60 psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. The concordance of attachment classification was examined in 27 adolescent-mother pairs. Both adolescent and maternal attachment status were overwhelmingly insecure and were highly concordant. Adolescents showing a dismissing attachment organization were more likely to have a conduct or substance abuse disorder, narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder, and self-reported narcissistic, antisocial, and paranoid personality traits. Adolescents showing a preoccupied attachment organization were more likely to have an affective disorder, obsessive-compulsive, histrionic, borderline or schizotypal personality disorder, and self-reported avoidant, anxious, and dysthymic personality traits. The results support a model of development of psychopathology based partially on relational experiences with parents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult development and psychotherapy: Bridging the gap between theory and practice.

Views adult development, as posed by C. Jung (1933) and E. Erikson (1950, 1968), as precursors to D. Levinson and colleagues' (1978) notion of life structure (LS). The present authors apply psychosocial adult development theory to psychotherapy practice and report a way of working with dreams to facilitate LS work in psychotherapy. Levinson and colleagues postulate that adult development is a process of (1) building an adult LS; (2) cyclically solidifying it; and (3) through transition periods, changing the existing LS. For some, the first adult LS may be heavily influenced and then modified on the basis of guiding image or dream. Parts of the dream may be conscious and/or unconscious. It is during the novice phase of adulthood (ages 17–33 yrs) in the early adulthood era of the life cycle that this crucial work of identifying and working with the dream to form and reform the first adult LS takes place. Two examples illustrate the use of dreams in LS work during early adult transition and age 30 transition. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The surgical hotline. Bridging the gap between hospital and home

The telephone, an effective means of communication, offers the public access to healthcare personnel for advice and support. The authors describe the development of a surgical hotline, an innovative and cost-effective method that provides a continuum of care to postsurgical patients.     

Empirical study of hearsay rules: Bridging the gap between psychology and law.

The legal rules regarding hearsay rest heavily on "empirical hunches" that could usefully be evaluated through psychological research. Because of the complexity of the rules, psychologists have found it difficult to identify important underlying assumptions that might be tested and lawyers have not appreciated the possible importance of empirical research. This article is designed to help bridge the gap between psychology and law by promoting innovative thinking about the role of empirical research in the evaluation of hearsay. The authors describe the hearsay rules and their rationale in a manner useful to psychological researchers and discuss the prospects for testing underlying assumptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between attachment, psychopathology, and childhood disability.

Analyzes the literature on 3 aspects of attachment—neurobiological influences, interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, and societal factors—in the psychological development of chronically disabled children. Evidence suggests that neurochemical substances such as cortisol and brain biogenic amine systems reciprocally interact with psychological and psychosocial factors to influence attachment. Interpersonal and intrapersonal factors such as temperamental characteristics of children, severity and type of disability, and family influences interact in the process of attachment. Social perceptions and prejudices about the disabled individual increase parental stress, and diminish parental involvement and resources, which are necessary for attachment. These 3 processes are powerful and interrelated forces in child development, with potential to modify social competence, neurological development, and psychosocial adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bridging the gap between laboratory and clinic in child and adolescent psychotherapy.

Meta-analyses of laboratory outcome studies reveal beneficial effects of psychotherapy with children and adolescents. However, the research therapy in most of those lab studies differs from everyday clinic therapy in several ways, and the 9 studies of clinic therapy the authors have found show markedly poorer outcomes than research therapy studies. These findings suggest a need to bridge the long-standing gap between outcome researchers and clinicians. Three kinds of bridging research are proposed and illustrated: (a) enriching the research data base on treatment effects by practitioners in clinical settings—including private practice and health maintenance organizations, (b) identifying features of research therapy that account for positive outcomes and applying those features to clinical practice, and (c) exporting lab-tested treatments to clinics and assessing their effects with referred youths. If these bridging strategies were widely adopted, despite the numerous obstacles described herein, real progress might be made toward more effective treatment in clinical practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bridging the gap: Transitive associations between items presented in similar temporal contexts.

In episodic memory tasks, associations are formed between items presented close together in time. The temporal context model (TCM) hypothesizes that this contiguity effect is a consequence of shared temporal context rather than temporal proximity per se. Using double-function lists of paired associates (e.g., A–B, B–C) presented in a random order, the authors examined associations between items that were not presented close together in time but that were presented in similar temporal contexts. After learning, across-pair associations fell off with distance in the list, as if subjects had integrated the pairs into a coherent memory structure. Within-pair associations (e.g., A–B) were strongly asymmetric favoring forward transitions; across-pair associations (e.g., A–C) showed no evidence of asymmetry. While this pattern of results presented a stern challenge for a heteroassociative mediated chaining model, TCM provided an excellent fit to the data. These findings suggest that contiguity effects in episodic memory do not reflect direct associations between items but rather a process of binding, encoding, and retrieval of a gradually changing representation of temporal context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special section on attachment and psychopathology: Part 1.

Research derived from attachment theory has generated a rich and rapidly growing body of findings on the importance of early caregiving experience in the development of psychopathology and in the promotion of adaptation. This special section presents research and scholarship on the relation of attachment status to psychiatric classifications and diagnosis in child, adolescent, and adult populations. Included as well are articles that explore the cross-generational transmission of attachment patterns and investigate the relation of attachment status to response to psychotherapy. These articles are representative of the notable impact that attachment theory and research are making in the field of developmental psychopathology. The special section is intended to help bridge the gap between thinking about attachment and clinical research and intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special section on attachment and psychopathology: 2. Overview of the field of attachment

An improved system for amplification of hepatitis C virus genome (HCV) was developed based on a multiplex nested polymerase chain reaction format. Two sets of oligonucleotide primers were used simultaneously. One was derived from the conserved sequences in the 5' non-coding region of the viral genome which can bind to the viral genome of all genotypes. The other set of primers was designed from a sequence in the nonstructural-5 region of HCV. HCV genotypes 1 and 3 can be differentiated by the banding patterns of amplified DNA products. All of 39 samples containing the HCV genotype 1 could be amplified with primers in the 5' non-coding region only, whereas 92% of those with genotype 3 could be amplified by both primer sets. In addition, HCV RNA can be detected in 81% of 84 anti-HCV-positive blood donors and in 0% of 34 anti-HCV-negative cases. Of the HCV RNA-positive specimens, 69% showed genotype 1-like patterns while 31% showed genotype 3-like patterns. The detection rate of HCV RNA in this study was much higher than that in our previous report due to the improvement of new primers which can detect all genotypes of the virus. In conclusion, this improved amplification system is a sensitive method for rapid identification of HCV RNA in clinical specimens that can simultaneously differentiate the two most common genotypes of HCV found in Thailand.     

Finding the attractor of anger: Bridging the gap between dynamic concepts and empirical data.

Although it accounts for the prototypical course of emotions, the attractor concept has hardly ever been used empirically. Authors applied Empirical Differential Equations (EDE) to frequent (hourly) anger ratings to find the attractor of anger. The attractor concept, its neurological basis, and EDE are explained. The attractor of anger follows an underdamped oscillator, and is affected by the capacity to inhibit prepotent responses. Anger accelerates less fast when inhibitory control increases. Results stress the internal dynamics of emotions, and help to bridge the gap between concepts from dynamic systems theory and empirical data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The single practitioner and community engagement: Bridging the gap between practice and social action.

Urban communities, with their myriad systemic problems of poverty, social dysfunction, and diminishing public and private resources compounded by endemic health and economic disparities, provide the single psychologist practitioner with a rewarding opportunity to become involved in urban community activities and to make a positive impact. Finding common ground for discourse and action with community members can benefit both the community and the psychologist by helping them to identify, understand, and engage the community in developing solutions for community-based problems faced by residents on a daily basis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The gap between research and practice.

Comments on the article by M. D. Sherman and M. H. Thelen (see record 1997-38424-014) examining distress and professional impairment among psychologists in clinical practice. The current author takes exception to 2 conclusions made in the original article. First, Pipal notes that the suggestion for a practitioner to set aside 20–30 minutes per day to complete paperwork and other similar duties is inadequate, given this work consumes hours for many practitioners. Second, Pipal contends that the gender-specific finding that female practitioners report greater distress and impairment regarding work factors due to roles and perfectionistic attitudes is also a point of concern, suggesting that role overload leads to stress regardless of one's perfectionistic tendencies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bridging the wage gap: Pay equity and job evaluations.

Addresses arguments of pay equity opponents and discusses ongoing and proposed solutions to close the gap between the wages of men and women. It is argued that occupational segregation and sex-based wage discrimination continue to depress women's wages vis-à-vis those of men. Major strides have been made in remedying wage discrimination through negotiation, collective bargaining, and litigation, and the use of job evaluation studies has figured prominently in achieving pay equity. The need for increased activity and research to perfect job evaluation as a pay equity tool so that the wage gap between men and women may be bridged is emphasized. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)