Canadian Psychological Research Articles

Relating the importance of psychological science in addressing climate change to cities and health

ABSTRACT The Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) recommended that a task force draft its official position on how psychology can help to address climate change. The aim was to craft a position paper that underscored, for Canadian governments and for members of the public, literature at the intersection of psychology and climate change. The position paper also generated a clear list of recommendations for governments to consider as they make decisions about climate change mitigation, adaptation, and communication strategies. This commentary is a summary of the position paper’s message, focusing on topics germane to international urban living, city governance, and mental health.

Reconciliation and industrial–organizational psychology in Canada.

Reconciliation and industrial–organizational psychology in Canada.

Emerging research in industrial–organizational psychology in Canada.

[...]we present some key workplace challenges, emphasize the excellent work done by I-O psychology researchers across Canada, and highlight what we believe are the next steps needed to maintain vibrant I-O scholarship in this country. Led largely by female researchers, this body of literature tackles important issues such as gender biases, stereotypes, and prejudice women face in performance appraisals, leadership, and negotiations;the work-family interface;organizational interventions;and institutional barriers to gender equality. [...]in the context of standardized testing, the social benefits of accommodation must be considered alongside the risks for the hiring organization;for instance, negative potential impacts on test validity. [...]the trajectory of collective efficacy tends to be negative in most virtual teams;however, teams that are able to minimize this decline tend to perform better. [...]this work highlights some of the challenges that remote teams must face and overcome in order to be effective.

The Responsibility of Canadian Counselling Psychology to Reach Systems, Organizations, and Policy-Makers

Social justice is becoming an increasingly important aspect of counselling psychology in Canada, and more research is needed to understand how to make a difference outside of one-on-one counselling sessions. Twelve individuals (including students, researchers, clinicians, and professors) comprised a working group entitled “The Responsibility of Canadian Counselling Psychology to Reach Systems, Organizations, and Policy-Makers” and discussed the role of counselling psychology in reaching beyond individual change. Discussion generated three main themes: identifying needs, using our unique training, and infiltrating and navigating the system. Future directions for social justice and advocacy in counselling psychology are discussed in relation to systemic change.

Counselling Psychology and Under-Represented Groups: A Vision for Advocacy as Mutual Transformation

The discipline of counselling psychology in Canada has aligned consistently with social justice principles. Consistent with this, a working group at the 2018 Canadian Counselling Psychology Conference was assigned to consider the role of Canadian counselling psychology in advocating for the needs of members of under-represented groups. This brief report captures insights from the working group and focuses on two primary themes: a critical reformulation of advocacy as mutual transformation for personal and social change and a need to engage with change processes at multiple levels. The group conceptualized effective advocacy as recentring historically marginalized perspectives while decentring “expert” roles and traditionally dominant perspectives.

Supplemental Material for Criminalization of HIV: Ethical and Legal Issues for the Practice of Psychology in Canada

Supplemental Material for Criminalization of HIV: Ethical and Legal Issues for the Practice of Psychology in Canada

Experiences and learnings from professional psychology training partners during the COVID-19 pandemic: Impacts, challenges, and opportunities.

The declaration of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in March 2020 has impacted all of society and had unprecedented, transformational effects on professional psychology training within just a few months. This review gathers knowledge from the leaders of three of the main training partners in Canada, the Canadian Council of Professional Psychology Programs (CCPPP), the Accreditation Panel of the Canadian Psychological Association, and the Association of Canadian Psychology Regulatory Organisations (ACPRO), as well as the Editor of Canadian Psychology. We share our experiences and learnings about the profound effect COVID-19 has had on academic programs, internships, accreditation, and regulatory functions. The review discusses the training pathway from student learner to licensed psychologist; the prominent educational, advocacy, and regulatory bodies associated with psychology training in Canada; pandemic-related challenges to training; an ethical decision-making framework developed for the Canadian context that may help in mitigating these challenges; the resulting guiding and aspirational principles for decision making during the pandemic; and personal examples of the pandemic's impact on our roles and affiliated organisations. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has created many challenges for professional training, the pandemic has also been a catalyst for change within the profession, encouraging expansion of tele-education and telehealth practices. The pandemic has encouraged enhanced communication within the whole training community, consensus-based ethical decision making, and has encouraged a focus on defining our professional priorities. The professional psychology training community has faced and will continue to face multifaceted and complex problems as a result of the pandemic. In the end, however, we hope to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic as a more resilient, reflective, and cohesive professional psychology training community.

Developing and revising the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists: key differences from the American Psychological Association code

ABSTRACT There are several key differences between the codes of ethics developed by the American Psychological Association and the Canadian Psychological Association. This paper tells the story behind the key differences between the U.S. and Canada codes. It starts with an introduction to the two countries and a brief history of what led up to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) decision to develop the world’s first ethics code for psychologists. This is followed by a description of the development process used by APA, and the reasons why the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) originally adopted the APA code but subsequently chose to develop its own “made-in-Canada” code of ethics. The key differences of the CPA code, the cultural, legal, and philosophical contexts that help explain the rationale for those differences, and why the differences have been maintained are discussed. In particular, attention is given to the CPA code’s strong focus on: (a) the concept of a contract with society; (b) aspiration vs. enforcement; (c) ethical reasoning and decision making; and (d) organizing standards around ethical principles.

Supply of and demand for accredited doctoral internship/residency positions in clinical, counselling, and school psychology in Canada.

Supply of and demand for accredited doctoral internship/residency positions in clinical, counselling, and school psychology in Canada.

Indigenous peoples and professional training in psychology in Canada.

Indigenous peoples and professional training in psychology in Canada.

Indigenous land-based interventions and nature-oriented wellness programs: Commonalities and important differences.

The importance of Indigenous mental health has been highlighted and affirmed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada report (2015), the Canadian Psychological Association and The Psychology Foundation of Canada’s Task Force report responding to the TRC findings (2018), as well as numerous recent studies. Unfortunately, Indigenous Peoples in Canada continue to suffer from a lack of appropriate mental health care. Land-based interventions have been cited as one culturally appropriate approach to wellness; nevertheless, given the diversity of nature-oriented wellness programs, confusion exists over the qualities unique to and common across each program. As such, this paper will discuss the qualities of nature-oriented wellness programs currently in use by Indigenous communities (e.g. landbased interventions) with land-based approaches outside of Indigenous communities such as forest bathing, Outward Bound programs, and green or blue space research. The authors will then explore what sets Indigenous land-based interventions apart from these other wellness programs and discuss why land-based interventions hold a deeper meaning for Indigenous Peoples.

Outcome and progress monitoring in psychotherapy: Report of a Canadian Psychological Association Task Force.

Outcome and progress monitoring in psychotherapy: Report of a Canadian Psychological Association Task Force.

Clinical-forensic psychology in Canada: A survey of practitioner characteristics, attitudes, and psychological assessment practices.

Clinical-forensic psychology in Canada: A survey of practitioner characteristics, attitudes, and psychological assessment practices.

Moral Economies and Codes of Conduct: the Social Organization of Canadian Experimental Psychology

Psychological science has flourished in North America since the late 19th century. As laboratories multiplied, professional organizations began to emerge to facilitate communications through journals and conferences. This article examines the development of the moral economy of professional and scientific psychology in Canada. While the general features of the social organization of psychological science in Canada and the United States have followed similar trajectories, important differences are also evident. In particular, these differences are apparent in the values and conventions outlined by the two largest professional organizations in Canada (CPA) and the United States (APA).

A survey of the characteristics and professional practices of members in the Canadian psychological association’s section on counselling psychology

ABSTRACT We administered a questionnaire to 78 counselling psychologists who were members of the Section for Counselling Psychology of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA), achieving a 35.4% response rate. There was high satisfaction with the profession and no evidence of gender differences in satisfaction. The sampled counselling psychologists tended to see counselling psychology as moderately different from allied professions with academics and older counselling psychologists reporting the strongest distinctiveness. Respondents were concerned about other professions’ increasingly overlapping scope of practice, and thought that the most important next step was advocacy for the profession and its core values. The results of this study can be used to better address training and professional identity issues adversely impacting the field (e.g. counselling psychologists with graduate degrees in subjects other than counselling psychology, trained counselling psychologists who license as other types of professionals), promote the profession, and prepare for future challenges to the field. The results also are relevant for those seeking to increase their knowledge of the profession in other countries to learn ways to better expand and promote the profession in their own country and for those looking to create country-specific surveys to better elucidate the profession in their own country.

History of Academic Psychology in Canada

History of Academic Psychology in Canada

Not the years in your life, but the life in your years: Lessons from Canadian psychology on living fully.

Not the years in your life, but the life in your years: Lessons from Canadian psychology on living fully.

Not the years in your life, but the life in your years: Lessons from Canadian psychology on living fully.

Not the years in your life, but the life in your years: Lessons from Canadian psychology on living fully.

Developmental Characteristics of Adolescents That Increase Risk of Joining Anti-Social Cults

Socio-pedagogical studies of victimization consider various age cohorts within their respective anthropological contexts, in which specific risk factors are identified for individuals at a given physio-psychological stage that may threaten their integral identity and future development. This paper examines the characteristics of youth that predispose young people to join countercultural groups, and in particular antisocial cults. There is a pressing need to address this issue because the leaders of countercultural organizations are actively recruiting young and capable persons to join their groups. Because Western scholars have been the first to write about the problem of antisocial cultism, our goal has been to analyze the main foreign studies by primarily American and Canadian psychologists and educators that probe the reasons why young people join vile cults. Characteristics of this age group, such as fear of rejection by peers, growing sexuality, growing conflicts with the adult world, youthful black-and-white thinking, the active development of an independent worldview, and sympathy for alternative religiosity, are not strict conditions determining whether young people will join antisocial cults. However, the considered characteristics allow us to deem this period in a person’s development as one of the most vulnerable in terms of developing deviant religious views.

Health psychology in autobiography: Three Canadian critical narratives.

Three Canadian colleagues in health psychology recount their careers in a field of research and practice whose birth they witnessed and whose developments they have critiqued. By placing the development of health psychology in Canada in a context that is both institutional and personal, Stam, Murray, and Lubek raise a series of questions about health psychology and its propagation. While uniquely Canadian their professional careers were affected by international colleagues as well as others-patients and community members-whose views shaped their perspectives. This article is a plea for the continuing development of critical voices in health psychology.