Nurse therapists in behavioural psychotherapy.

Five registered mental nurses (R.M.N.s) were trained over two years to become behavioural psychotherapists for adult neurotic disorders. They achieved results comparable to those obtained with similar patients and methods by psychologists and psychiatrists. Similar results were maintained when over a third year the therapists were seconded to work in four hospitals and a general practice. Patients were satisfied at being treated by nurses. After initial teething difficulties nurse therapists became valuable members of treatment teams during both training and secondment, becoming accepted by most nurses, psychologists, and psychiatrists with whom they came into contact. The training of further nurse therapists would facilitate treatment of many disabled neurotics who would otherwise go without effective treatment. Training nurse therapists takes less time and money than training psychologists and psychiatrists because less of their education is redundant to the skills involved. The pool of R.M.N.s suitable for training is much larger than that of psychiatrists and psychologists. The nurse therapists can be integrated relatively easily into treatment teams. The present nursing structure imposes restrictions on the advancement of clinical nurse specialists and a clinical tree is badly needed parallel with present administrative and teaching hierarchies. An 18-month course in adult behavioural psychotherapy has been recognized by the Joint Board of Clinical Nursing Studies for England and Wales so that nurse therapists seem destined to be a lasting feature of future treatment teams.     

On the inappropriate use of the naturalistic fallacy in evolutionary psychology

The naturalistic fallacy is mentionedfrequently by evolutionary psychologists as anerroneous way of thinking about the ethicalimplications of evolved behaviors. However,evolutionary psychologists are themselvesconfused about the naturalistic fallacy and useit inappropriately to forestall legitimateethical discussion. We briefly review what thenaturalistic fallacy is and why it is misusedby evolutionary psychologists. Then we attemptto show how the ethical implications of evolvedbehaviors can be discussed constructivelywithout impeding evolutionary psychologicalresearch. A key is to show how ethicalbehaviors, in addition to unethical behaviors,can evolve by natural selection.     

Pavlov and the Nobel Prize Award

When Pavlov was first nominated for the Nobel Prize, he was well recognized by physiologists, especially those concerned with digestion. It appears unlikely that psychological interpretations of his conditional reflex findings had begun to penetrate deeply into the discipline of psychology. The selection in 1904 of Pavlov for the award in physiology or medicine attracted the attention of a broader range of scientists. American psychologists, in particular, probably became more aware of the advantages of incorporating his "objective" conditional reflex method into their investigations. General biographical aspects relating to the award and the effect of the award upon the acceptance of the conditional reflex method by American psychologists are developed in this presentation.     

Stages in the Evolution of Higher Nervous Activity

American learning theory and its physiology of learning have long depended on the white rat as their experimental model. So pervasive has that little creature been in American research that our psychophysiologists of learning have often been called "rat psychologists." Our stereotype of our Soviet colleagues has been that they are "dog psychologists."     

The clinical psychologist; his role in private medical practice

The independent diagnosis and treatment of mental and nervous disorders according to California law constitutes practicing medicine. By this yardstick, an increasing number of clinical psychologists are entering the private practice of medicine. The medical profession has not provided through its leadership the opportunity for clinical psychologists to utilize their skills in a legitimate and supervised way in the treatment of private patients, nor has the medical profession taken sufficient interest in modern methods of treating patients with psychogenic disorders. If the psychiatric team is a feasible and practical approach to spreading the base of psychiatric treatment in hospitals and clinics, it should be applicable to private practice settings too. In the team setting, the psychologist can render great assistance to the physician in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with psychogenic disorders without compromising the principle that the primary responsibility for the patient is the physician's. By virtue of his training and experience, it is the psychiatrist who is best qualified to supervise the work of the psychologist; and until such time as the medical profession is better acquainted with psychotherapeutic techniques, the employment of psychologist assistants should be (according to good medical practice) left to the psychiatrist. The need for some regulation of the use of the title "psychologist" is increasing in order to protect the public from quacks who pose as psychologists. However, any law which is directed toward elimination of the quack should specifically define psychotherapy and contain provisions for its use under adequate medical supervision. The medical profession is obligated to take its traditional role in providing the best possible treatment for patients who are in need of it, and psychotherapy is an inherent part of treatment.     

The self-organizing fractal theory as a universal discovery method: the phenomenon of life

A universal discovery method potentially applicable to all disciplines studying organizational phenomena has been developed. This method takes advantage of a new form of global symmetry, namely, scale-invariance of self-organizational dynamics of energy/matter at all levels of organizational hierarchy, from elementary particles through cells and organisms to the Universe as a whole. The method is based on an alternative conceptualization of physical reality postulating that the energy/matter comprising the Universe is far from equilibrium, that it exists as a flow, and that it develops via self-organization in accordance with the empirical laws of nonequilibrium thermodynamics. It is postulated that the energy/matter flowing through and comprising the Universe evolves as a multiscale, self-similar structure-process, i.e., as a self-organizing fractal. This means that certain organizational structures and processes are scale-invariant and are reproduced at all levels of the organizational hierarchy. Being a form of symmetry, scale-invariance naturally lends itself to a new discovery method that allows for the deduction of missing information by comparing scale-invariant organizational patterns across different levels of the organizational hierarchy.     

The organizational social context of mental health services and clinician attitudes toward evidence-based practice: a United States national study

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Evidence-based practices have not been routinely adopted in community mental health organizations despite the support of scientific evidence and in some cases even legislative or regulatory action. We examined the association of clinician attitudes toward evidence-based practice with organizational culture, climate, and other characteristics in a nationally representative sample of mental health organizations in the United States. METHODS: In-person, group-administered surveys were conducted with a sample of 1,112 mental health service providers in a nationwide sample of 100 mental health service institutions in 26 states in the United States. The study examines these associations with a two-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analysis of responses to the Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale (EBPAS) at the individual clinician level as a function of the Organizational Social Context (OSC) measure at the organizational level, controlling for other organization and clinician characteristics. RESULTS: We found that more proficient organizational cultures and more engaged and less stressful organizational climates were associated with positive clinician attitudes toward adopting evidence-based practice. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that organizational intervention strategies for improving the organizational social context of mental health services may contribute to the success of evidence-based practice dissemination and implementation efforts by influencing clinician attitudes.     

护理人员实施关怀护理组织环境因素的质性研究

目的 归纳总结护理人员对患者实施关怀护理的组织环境因素,为护理管理者制定合理应对措施优化实施关怀护理的组织环境提供参考。方法 采用质性研究方法,对15名护理人员进行半结构式访谈,用现象学分析法进行资料分析。结果 护理人员在实际工作中感知到的对患者实施关怀护理的组织环境因素包括物理环境、心理环境、组织资源、组织制度和组织气氛。结论 关怀护理的良好实施需要组织环境的支持。     

Pavlov as a psychologist. A reappraisal

American psychologists are informed on Pavlov's work on conditional reflexes but not on the full development of his theory of higher nervous activity. This article shows that Pavlov's theory of higher nervous activity dealt with concepts that concerned contemporary psychologists. Pavlov used the conditioning of the salivary reflex for methodological purposes. Pavlov's theory of higher nervous activity encompassed overt behavior, neural processes, and the conscious experience. The strong Darwinian element of Pavlov's theory, with its stress on the higher organisms' adaptation, is described. With regard to learning, Pavlov, at the end of his scholarly career, proposed that although all learning involves the formation of associations, the organism's adaptation to the environment is established through conditioning, but the accumulation of knowledge is established by trial and error.     

Integral Periodization of General Psychological Development

The desire to generalize current knowledge of the phased structure of human psychological development into a unified sequence that covers various stages of the developmental process as well as its mechanisms will continue to occupy psychologists until they construct this synthetic depiction. Such a universal schema could play a role in developmental psychology similar to that of the evolutionary tree in biology or the periodic table in chemistry—the role of pointing up the gaps in our knowledge. If a general picture of development is constructed, psychologists and educational theorists would be able to see the blanks or gaps, in the cultural and educational spaces that they construct in order to support optimal ways of facilitating human development at different ages (from the standpoint of particular cultural values).     

Foreword to Psychological Science in the USSR

The realization of the many and varied practical tasks to be met by psychology calls for a thorough study of the theoretical problems. The basic questions with which psychology is concerned along these lines have been outlined above. Their solution must rest upon the concrete investigations carried out by Soviet psychologists, upon the data obtained in their research.     

État des lieux des organisations de la prise en charge psychologique dans les réseaux et recommandations de la SFPO

In 2007, the SFPO (French Psycho-Oncological Society) created a Care Network Commission, which was to conduct a two-year survey regarding the organization of psychological management within 148 oncology and palliative care networks in France. The results demonstrate the need for trained psychologists. We here present some of the SFPO recommendations on this topic.     

Formal Mathematical Description of Intelligence Concept in a Model Problem on the Influence of Observations on Quantum Processes

Biophysics - An attempt to mathematically formalize the problem of intelligence causes difficulties, if only because there is no single definition for intelligence adopted by all psychologists. In...     

Mission impossible or mission accomplished: Do zoo organizational missions influence conservation practices?

Conservation is an important organizational focus for zoos and aquariums. Organizational identity theory predicts a relationship between what is central to organizations, such as their mission statements, and their strategic activities. Based on this theory, we tested how organizational missions relate to their conservation strategies and practices. Tax forms and websites provided data from 173 zoos and 38 aquariums in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in North America. We analyzed conservation mission strength, organizational characteristics, and project features with dependent variables representing the depth of organizational conservation commitments: amount of grants zoos funded, number of partner organizations, and number of projects per zoo. On tax forms, the average amount of total conservation grants donated to partner organizations per zoo was over $650,000, while the average number of partners reported on the tax forms was two. The content analysis of websites revealed an average of 14 conservation partners and 10 projects per zoo. Negative binomial regression models were significant. The financial analysis revealed that only the number of zoo personnel, as a surrogate for organization size, significantly predicted the amount of zoos’ conservation grants. Website analyses found increasing budgets, organizational involvement, and geographic reach of the projects predicted increasing numbers of conservation projects and partnerships. However, our findings did not support the hypothesized relationship—strength of organizational mission did not predict strategy and activities. Zoos could do more to strategically activate their organizational identities and conservation missions to achieve their conservation goals.     

Evidence-based practice implementation: The impact of public versus private sector organization type on organizational support,provider attitudes,and adoption of evidence-based practice

Background

The goal of this study is to extend research on evidence-based practice (EBP) implementation by examining the impact of organizational type (public versus private) and organizational support for EBP on provider attitudes toward EBP and EBP use. Both organization theory and theory of innovation uptake and individual adoption of EBP guide the approach and analyses in this study. We anticipated that private sector organizations would provide greater levels of organizational support for EBPs leading to more positive provider attitudes towards EBPs and EBP use. We also expected attitudes toward EBPs to mediate the association of organizational support and EBP use.

Methods

Participants were mental health service providers from 17 communities in 16 states in the United States (n = 170). Path analyses were conducted to compare three theoretical models of the impact of organization type on organizational support for EBP and of organizational support on provider attitudes toward EBP and EBP use.

Results

Consistent with our predictions, private agencies provided greater support for EBP implementation, and staff working for private agencies reported more positive attitudes toward adopting EBPs. Organizational support for EBP partially mediated the association of organization type on provider attitudes toward EBP. Organizational support was significantly positively associated with attitudes toward EBP and EBP use in practice.

Conclusion

This study offers further support for the importance of organizational context as an influence on organizational support for EBP and provider attitudes toward adopting EBP. The study demonstrates the role organizational support in provider use of EBP in practice. This study also suggests that organizational support for innovation is a malleable factor in supporting use of EBP. Greater attention should be paid to organizational influences that can facilitate the dissemination and implementation of EBPs in community settings.

     

Has psychology “found its true path”? Methods,objectivity, and cries of “crisis” in early twentieth-century French psychology

This article explores how French psychologists understood the state of their field during the first quarter of the twentieth century, and whether they thought it was in crisis. The article begins with the Russian-born psychologist Nicolas Kostyleff and his announcement in 1911 that experimental psychology was facing a crisis. After briefly situating Kostyleff, the article examines his analysis of the troubles facing experimental psychology and his proposed solution, as well as the rather muted response his diagnosis received from the French psychological community. The optimism about the field evident in many of the accounts surveying French psychology during the early twentieth century notwithstanding, a few others did join Kostyleff in declaring that all was not well with experimental psychology. Together their pronouncements suggest that under the surface, important unresolved issues faced the French psychological community. Two are singled out: What was the proper methodology for psychology as a positive science? And what kinds of practices could claim to be objective, and in what sense? The article concludes by examining what these anxieties reveal about the type of science that French psychologists hoped to pursue.     

Glossary of Terms Frequently Encountered in Soviet Psychology

Numerous terms are used in Soviet psychology, the direct translation of which may be misleading to American psychologists because they are habitually used in a different sense from that familiar to Western psychology. For example, righteous indignation has been vented by Western psychologists over the "Russian preoccupation" with interpreting all behavior in terms of Pavlovian reflexes. To the Russian psychologist, the word refleks is no more a specific term than the word "response" is to an American psychologist. Its use does not imply the classical Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. Since interpreters are not necessarily aware that the cognates are not synonymous, it is worthwhile for any Western psychologist to become aware of the most common and easy sources of terminological confusion. The following is a glossary of terms which are so familiar to the Russian psychologist that he will seldom stop to explain them. Most of them are cognates. Some are synonymous with their usual English translations; many are not.     

Wundt contested: The first crisis declaration in psychology

When reflecting on the history and the present situation of their field, psychologists have often seen their discipline as being in a critical state. The first author to warn of a crisis was, in 1897, the now scarcely known philosopher Rudolf Willy. He saw a crisis in psychology resulting, firstly, from a profuse branching out of psychology. Adopting a radical empiriocriticist point of view, he, secondly, made the metaphysical stance of scholars like Wilhelm Wundt responsible for the crisis. Meanwhile, the priest Constantin Gutberlet responded to the claim of crisis arguing, on the contrary, that the crisis resulted from research that was empirical only. Throughout the discipline psychologists felt troubled by a widespread sense of fragmentation in the field. I will argue that this is due to psychology's early social success and popularization in modern society. Moreover the paper shows that the first declaration of crisis emerged at a time when a discussion of fundamentals was already underway between Wundt and the empiriocriticist Richard Avenarius. The present historical research reveals the depth of the confrontation between Wundt and Willy, entailing a clash of two worldviews that embrace psychological, epistemological, and political aspects.     

Counsellors in English and Welsh general practices: their nature and distribution.

OBJECTIVE--To establish the prevalence of counselling services in English and Welsh general practices and factors associated with their distribution; to describe qualifications, working arrangements, and case mix of "counsellors." DESIGN--Postal questionnaire and telephone interview survey of a sample of about one in 20 general practitioners in England and Wales. SETTING--English and Welsh general practices. SUBJECTS--1880 general practitioners of whom 1542 (82%) completed questionnaires. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Prevalence and distribution of practice counselling services; counsellors'' qualifications and funding; types of patients referred. RESULTS--586 counsellors were distributed among 484 of the 1542 practices. Three types of counsellor predominated: community psychiatric nurses (187); "practice counsellors" (145); and clinical psychologists (95). Practice characteristics which independently predicted the presence of a counsellor were for community psychiatric nurses four or more partners (odds = 1.72, 95% confidence interval 1.18 to 2.26); for practice counsellors stress clinic (odds = 2.22; 1.83 to 2.61), training practice (odds = 1.70; 1.24 to 2.16), and health region (chi 2 = 55.94; df = 14; p < 0.001); and for clinical psychologists list size of > or = 10,500 (odds = 1.79; 1.09 to 2.49), training practice (odds = 1.78; 1.31 to 2.25), health region (chi 2 = 48.31; df = 14; p < 0.001). 197 counsellors had training in counselling. The qualifications of 85 were unknown to the general practitioner. The principal source of funding was the district health authority for community psychiatric nurses (150) and clinical psychologists (58) and the family health services authority for practice counsellors (76). All counsellors were referred a wide range of problems. CONCLUSIONS--Counselling services are wide-spread in general practice, but a high proportion of counsellors lack qualifications, and many may be referred problems outside their knowledge.     

Step-parents and infanticide: new data contradict evolutionary predictions

Evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized, inspired by evolutionary biology, that parents should care less for children with whom they are not genetically related since these young do not contribute to the genetic fitness of the parents. Based on this, evolutionary psychologists have predicted that there will be an overrepresentation of step-parents as offenders in family-related killings of children. Data on child homicide, particularly from Canada, have supported this prediction in that the frequency of children killed was relatively high in families where one of the two parents was a step-parent. Here we present a survey of all child homicide that occurred in Sweden between 1975 and 1995. In contrast to the Canadian data, children in Sweden living in families with a step-parent were not at an increased risk compared with children living together with two parents to whom they were genetically related. In addition, there were no other indications that step-parents are overrepresented as offenders.