Hans H. Strupp (1921-2006).

Presents an obituary for Hans Hermann Strupp, internationally acclaimed clinical psychologist and psychotherapy research pioneer, who died October 5, 2006, in Nashville, Tennessee, following a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. Hans Strupp elicited unusual respect across disciplines, including psychiatry and medicine, and across national boundaries in numerous countries. Hans was truly a person of great distinction; he brought honor to his friends, his discipline, his university, his nation, and his family. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Roles for Psychologists in End-of-Life Care: Emerging Models of Practice.

Professional psychologists are increasingly likely to encounter opportunities to work with patients and families facing end-of-life issues. Psychologists can provide psychological assessment, intervention for patients and families, consultation with and support of health care team members, grief therapy, and program development and evaluation. Psychological services are useful for healthy individuals who wish to make thoughtful plans about their own future care, patients with life-limiting illnesses, families stressed by providing end-of-life care, bereaved individuals, and health care providers who face issues of burnout and strain. Several challenges for psychologists working in end-of-life care are noted, including training, development of clear roles, and reimbursement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Profile of Psychologists' Views of Critical Risk Factors for Completed Suicide in Older Adults.

The ability to accurately and reliably predict whether an older adult will commit suicide has eluded clinicians and researchers. A random national sample of psychologists who work with older adults was surveyed regarding their perception of 36 risk factors for completed suicide and indirect self-destructive behavior in older adults. This study produced a profile of psychologists' assessment and treatment practices when working with suicidal older adults. Determining what psychologists consider to be the most salient risk factors for completed suicide is important in identifying a minimum standard that clinicians should follow when assessing older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Norman Joseph Slamecka (1928-2003).

Presents an obituary for Norman J. Slamecka (1928-2003). Slamecka and his wife Jan were killed suddenly in a pedestrian accident on August 2, 2003, in Lewes, Delaware. He was a Marine veteran of the Korean War, and after a few years of practice as a clinical psychologist for the Veterans Administration, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Vermont in Burlington. He then taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo for a short while before coming to the University of Toronto in 1970, where he remained until his retirement in 1994. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology, history, and the press: The case of William McDougall and The New York Times..

A number of reasons have been suggested for the rapid decline in influence and credibility experienced by William McDougall after his arrival in America. To obtain some evidence on this issue, all articles appearing in The New York Times between 1906 and 1940 in which McDougall was mentioned were coded for the nature of the image conveyed. Articles mentioning the two authors most similar to McDougall in terms of number of citations, Joseph Jastrow and Edward L. Thorndike, were also coded for the nature of the image conveyed. In contrast to the images of Jastrow and Thorndike, the image McDougall conveyed was significantly more negative. McDougall was more often satirized, and references to McDougall were significantly less likely to be simple reporting of something he had said or done. Results are discussed in terms of the role of the press in "deciding" controversies in which the scientific community has lost interest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preventing problems of professional competence in the face of life-threatening illness.

When a psychologist is diagnosed with a serious medical condition and faces the prospect of an arduous treatment regimen and perhaps a bleak prognosis, it may be difficult to attend to one's level of professional competence. Like their clients, psychologists are vulnerable to distress and diminished functioning caused by a life-threatening illness. Psychologists have an ethical responsibility to monitor and ensure professional competence, yet the distress and distraction that accompany serious health problems can inhibit and undermine self-assessments of competence in many ways; distressed psychologists may react with denial, shame, fear, and problematic countertransference responses. The limitations associated with evaluating competence in the context of distress are discussed and several recommendations are offered for psychologists who deliver services, support gravely ill colleagues, and serve in credentialing and regulatory capacities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Jacquelin R. Goldman (1934–2008).

Presents an obituary for Jacquelin R. Goldman, professor emeritus in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology and the Department of Psychology at the University of Florida, died November 3, 2008, at the age of 74 in Gainesville, Florida. She spent her entire career of 35-plus years at the University of Florida. She mentored 24 doctoral students, authored and edited three psychology textbooks, and published more than 40 professional articles and book chapters. She was an active contributor to university governance and was involved in teaching, research, clinical supervision, and the provision of clinical services to children. She was also an active contributor to the profession, having served as president of the Florida State Board of Examiners of Psychology (1975–1977), chair of the Southeastern Regional Board of the American Board of Professional Psychology (1983–1993), and president of the American Board of Professional Psychology (1990–1991), among other professional involvements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Wendell Richard Garner (1921-2008).

Wendell Richard Garner was born on January 21, 1921, in Buffalo, New York, and died quietly on August 14, 2008, in Redding, Connecticut. He was an experimental psychologist who changed the way researchers study human perception and cognition. He provided new knowledge about how people process information and structure and about how to ask scientific questions. Three classes of his contributions are particularly noteworthy. His concept of converging operations, that outcomes of different studies converge on a common concept, paved the way to powerful analytic techniques, such as additive factors modeling. His information and structure ideas shaped research in perception and cognition and pattern recognition. His perceptual independence notions set the stage for hundreds of studies of dimensional independence and interaction, of perceptual integrality and separability, and of dimensional attention that are still actively pursued. Life for Tex was not all science and administration. He collaborated on Earnshaw Cook's Percentage Baseball (1964) and briefly consulted with the Baltimore Orioles baseball club. I asked why he did not similarly analyze football for the Baltimore Colts. He said it might spoil his love for that game. After his death, nonsolicited kudos circulating on the Internet included such comments as "I wish I had known him" and "I didn't know him, but I did know his elegant and insightful work." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Joseph Banks Rhine (1895-1980).

This item presents an obituary for Joseph Banks Rhine (1895-1980). During more than 50 years of research and related activities, Rhine made a sustained effort to develop psychical research into an experimental, academically based science and to win acceptance for it from the scientific community. The terms 'parapsychology' and 'extra-sensory perception', which he introduced in 1934 to denote, respectively, the new field devoted to the experimental study of psychic abilities and the abilities themselves, have become standard terms and testify to Rhine's importance for the field. Although Rhine's critics were able to score some minor points against his statistical techniques, he and his colleagues were able to demonstrate that their evaluative methods were basically sound, and they received support from the president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. The APA was subsequently willing to consider parapsychology seriously to the extent of appointing a committee of APA members to advise the "Journal of Parapsychology". The Duke parapsychology group, in turn, published their most ambitious survey of the field in 1940 in their book "Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years", hoping to win the support of behavioral scientists. In the ensuing decades, however, parapsychology did not succeed in developing an academic network much beyond what it possessed in 1940. Rhine was recognized both within and without parapsychology as the founder and most authoritative spokesperson of the field. Only months before his death, in October 1979, he was elected president of the Society for Psychical Research in London. Rhine was a man of striking appearance and strong personality. The latter was important to the maintenance of his values and goals in the face of the hostility and ridicule that continued, sporadically, until the very end of his life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)