Individual Psychologists Research Articles

Education and Training: Professional

In the United States, there is an acute shortage of health service psychologists of color. In this paper, we examined this shortage in the context of the American Psychological Association’s apology to people of color for psychology’s role in perpetuating racism and human hierarchy. Drawing from literature on the sociohistorical context of race in America, we argue that the treatment meted out to Native Americans (e.g., exploitation and eviction from their homelands), Blacks (e.g., slavery), and other ethnic-racial groups resulted in the development of racist attitudes about human hierarchy and White superiority, and these initial behaviors and attitudes began a vicious cycle of discriminatory behaviors, racist attitudes, and societal inequities that are still affecting society in the present day. We also contend that the shortage of professional psychologists—both health service and applied—cannot be solved at the graduate school level where these individuals are trained. The solution has to start with increasing the numbers of students of color who succeed in elementary and secondary schooling, ultimately matriculating into college and graduate school. Thus, the solution requires interventions aimed at the entire educational trajectory. We conclude with recommendations for actions and advocacy from psychological associations such as the American Psychological Association as well as individual psychologists.

Changing bank accounts as a preventative health action: Why ACP-UK is making the change

We describe why the Association of Clinical Psychologists-UK is changing its bank account, highlighting how this change can be viewed as a preventative health action in keeping with professional values. We hope other professional bodies and individual psychologists will take similar action.

Cross-Cultural Collaborative Translation/Adaptation of Assessments Via International Working Groups

Abstract: Most neuropsychological assessments are developed in English, yet nearly 95% of the global population are not native English speakers. To further compound this problem, translating and adapting assessments is a complex, expensive, and time-consuming process that few individual psychologists can undertake on their own. To overcome these obstacles, we formed an international consulting group of bilingual pediatric rehabilitation/hospital clinicians to translate and adapt a common assessment of cognitive recovery, the Cognitive and Linguistic Scale (CALS), for use with youth in three linguistic/cultural groups: Spanish-speaking youth residing in the United States, Dutch-speaking youth residing in the Netherlands, and Hebrew-speaking youth residing in Israel. We describe the collaborative process of translating and adapting the CALS for the respective populations following the first two stages of the International Test Committee guidelines (Precondition and Test Development). We also present new, more culturally accessible versions of visual stimuli that can be used across many linguistic/cultural groups in the Western world. Initial examination of responses from a preliminary pilot sample of US youth ( N = 11) supported the acceptability of the Spanish translation and new visual stimuli. Next steps for each translated/adapted version of the CALS are discussed, including plans for validation in each respective population. We hope this overview will serve as a model for other groups to help decrease the translation burden on individual clinicians and promote higher-quality translated/adapted assessments that better serve diverse and often underserved patient populations.

Alfred Adler as a Doctor (Against the Background of Personal Memories): A Psychobiographical Fragment of Adler During World War I

ABSTRACT: Sparse historical sources describe Alfred Adler’s life during World War I, and even fewer sources exist that would provide a thorough understanding of his life in that challenging time. An accidentally found obituary written in 1938 by the Polish Jewish physician Dr. Maksymilian Blassberg in a Polish medical journal unveils some interesting details about Adler’s duty as a military neurologist in the Kraków military hospital in 1917. This article helps fill the gap in understanding the circumstances of Adler’s life at the time. Combined with field letters from Kraków, the article provides a vivid psychobiographical picture of how Adler dealt with wartime circumstances, with fears of being mobilized to the front and the practices of war psychiatry. Many parallels inspire practitioners to think about the dangers and difficulties of today’s Individual Psychologists in Ukraine facing devastating war conditions. The English translation of the obituary is presented here.

The five connections: A human rights framework for psychologists.

This article provides a brief introduction to human rights, describes why human rights are intrinsic to psychology, and introduces the "Five Connections Framework," which was adopted by the American Psychological Association in 2021. This framework articulates five distinct relationships between human rights and psychology: (a) Psychologists possess rights by virtue of being human, as well as specific rights essential to their profession and discipline; (b) Psychologists apply their knowledge and methods to the greater realisation of human rights; (c) Psychologists respect human rights and oppose the misuse of psychological science; (d) Psychologists ensure access to the benefits of psychological science and practice; and, (e) Psychologists advocate for human rights. Each of the five connections is described, highlighting implications for psychological research, practice, training and advocacy, with suggestions for how these connections can guide and inspire individual psychologists and psychological associations worldwide.

On Whose Territory Does Our School District Reside? Beginning Steps Toward Relationship Development With Urban First Nations

Following the 2015 release of Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report in Canada, disciplines at various levels of federal and provincial infrastructures have begun taking up reconciliation in their practice. In 2018, the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) and the Psychology Foundation of Canada (PFC) released a joint response, which outlines how the profession has violated its own ethics with respect to practice with Indigenous peoples and how to move forward through a reconciliatory process as individuals and as a profession. What is unclear is how individual psychologists and psychologist teams are taking up reconciliation in their practice, years after the CPA/PFC Response to the TRC. As psychologists and other helping professionals learn about the history of marginalization of Indigenous peoples within the discipline of psychology, many may be searching for more specific examples of how to begin or extend the process of addressing reconciliation. This Brief Commentary will focus on the practice of one group of school psychologists working in a public school district in an urban setting in British Columbia who are engaging in relationship development with First Nations communities on whose territory the district resides. Psychologists from the team will contribute reflections regarding their experience with the process as a whole. These psychologists have been part of a school psychology team that has been involved in reconciliation for some time and are actively pursuing individual and group accountability toward Indigenous people. The context of the group and steps taken from the team’s personal and professional introduction to the topic of reconciliation, and facilitators and considerations that impacted the group’s progress will be explored.

THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES IN THE CONTEXT OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE

Preserving the mental health of the population is an essential prerequisite for the development of a stable, safe and prosperous society. Despite the fact that in the last decade all international health organizations have paid great attention to mental health, the development of this area is not so smooth, especially in RA. One of the main reasons is the lack of communication between mental health professional centers and the public. The purpose of the article is to consider the role of public relations in psychological services, which play a large role in shaping social attitudes and opinions about mental health care. The results of the study showed that the quality and knowledge-based of psychological services are issues of strategy of psychological centers, and individual psychologists are sole onec, who bear the responsibility, based on the principles of their virtue.

How Effective Altruism Can Help Psychologists Maximize Their Impact

Although many psychologists are interested in making the world a better place through their work, they are often unable to have the impact that they would like. Here, we suggest that both individuals and psychology as a field can better improve human welfare by incorporating ideas from effective altruism, a growing movement whose members aim to do the most good by using science and reason to inform their efforts. In this article, we first briefly introduce effective altruism and review important principles that can be applied to how psychologists approach their work, such as the importance, tractability, and neglectedness framework. We then review how effective altruism can inform individual psychologists’ choices. Finally, we close with a discussion of ideas for how psychology, as a field, can increase its positive impact. By applying insights from effective altruism to psychological science, we aim to integrate a new theoretical framework into psychological science, stimulate new areas of research, start a discussion on how psychology can maximize its impact, and inspire the psychology community to do the most good.

A Global Perspective on Psychologists' and Their Organizations' Response to a World Crisis

Around the world, individual psychologists have stepped up to deliver essential services to address the social and emotional sequelae of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many psychological organizations have also responded to this public health crisis, though their efforts may be less widely recognized. Psychological organizations engaged in preventive and mitigation efforts targeted, among others, the general public, local communities, and high-risk groups such as health care providers. They disseminated mental health information to the general public, trained laypersons to provide psychological first aid, and used research to design and evaluate public health responses to the pandemic. In some countries, psychological organizations contributed to the design and implementation of public health policies and practices. The nature of these involvements changed throughout the pandemic and evolved from reactive to proactive, from local to international. Several qualities appear key to the value, impact, and success of these efforts. These include organizational agility and adaptability, the ability to overcome their political inertia and manage conflict, recognizing the need to address cultural differences, and allocating limited resources to high-risk and resource-depleted constituencies where it was needed most.

WHAT HAVE LIZARDS GOT TO DO WITH PSYCHOLOGY? WHY PSYCHOLOGY SHOULD CHANGE WITH THE TIMES

This essay presents a case study of a species of lizards that evolved after experimentally being exposed to a foreign environment. The research is used to demonstrate the importance of both a change of environment and the capacity for change for a species to thrive over time. These findings relate to the field of psychology, supporting an argument that individual psychologists can spur positive change in psychology by bringing in new perspectives, methods, and ways of working with other disciplines. The piece is intended as inspiration for new student psychologists to embrace their strengths and differences and use them to incite evolution within the field of psychology.

Empowering psychologists to evaluate revisions to the APA ethics code

ABSTRACT The authors argue that individual psychologists have an obligation to understand, review, and comment on upcoming revisions of the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Psychologists may want to consider several factors as they review and prepare comments on these revisions. Among other things, commenting psychologists should consider (a) the purposes of ethics codes and how the writing of a code can meet or balance these often-conflicting purposes; (b) the overarching ethical theory or theories that should form the basis of the APA Ethics Code; and (c) the extent to which individual standards are useful and comprehensive, and avoid unnecessary harm to both the public and psychologists. The authors provide examples from the current and recent APA Ethics Codes to illustrate the types of decisions that psychologists must make when evaluating revisions to the APA Ethics Code.

Quality Improvement in Health Care: The Role of Psychologists and Psychology.

Quality Improvement (QI) is a health care interprofessional team activity wherein psychology as a field and individual psychologists in health care settings can and should adopt a more robust presence. The current article makes the argument for why psychology's participation in QI is good for health care, is good for our profession, and is the right thing to do for the patients and families we serve. It reviews the varied ways individual psychologists and our profession can integrate quality processes and improve health care through: (1) our approach to our daily work; (2) our roles on health care teams and involvement in organizational initiatives; (3) opportunities for teaching and scholarship; and (4) system redesign and advocacy within our health care organizations and health care environment.

My Remembrances of Heinz and Rowena Ansbacher and Alexandra Adler

It may seem like very little has been left undiscovered in the life and work of Alfred Adler, his children, and the first-generation Adlerians. Occasional new discoveries typically do not add much to the body of known facts about Adler’s life or the history of Adler’s Individual Psychology. However, placed in a unique social context, each new story brings more than a new fact to readers. Russian psychoanalyst Valery Leibin’s remembrances of his relations with Adler’s Individual Psychology and with Individual Psychologists, dating back to the 1980s, addressing some events in the 1930s, and being shared now in 2017, hit on a raw nerve of connections and disconnections, commonalities and differences, and what ultimately keeps humankind together. Readers will see the penetrating power of the human need to belong, to contribute to binding communal knowledge, and to connect across theories, through the Iron Curtain, and over the political walls of the 1930s, the 1980s, and 2018.

APA's amicus curiae program: Bringing psychological research to judicial decisions.

An important part of the American Psychological Association's (APA) mission is to advance psychological science "to promote health, education, and public welfare." Organizations with powerful influence on human welfare include state and federal appellate courts, especially the U.S. Supreme Court. Initially, APA's amicus briefs focused on issues of importance to both individual psychologists and public policy. As the program evolved, APA increasingly focused on informing the courts about psychological science relevant to important legal issues, including criminal, civil, juvenile, education, disability, and human rights law. These briefs, and the science that supported them, consistently challenged stereotypical beliefs of laypeople with solid, easily understood empirical research. APA impartially advocates for the use of psychological science research findings by the courts, not on behalf of parties. Volunteer experts, including representatives of relevant APA divisions, participate in creating APA briefs. On occasion, other scientific organizations may join with APA in its filings. The measure of an amicus brief is broader than citations in appellate decisions. Although APA's briefs have been cited many times by courts, a broader impact of APA briefs is seen by references to psychosocial research provided by APA in decisions where its briefs were not specifically cited. APA briefs are being read and are affecting major legal decisions. For APA, the relevant question is not whether its briefs "prevailed" in a case but whether the court was able to render a more informed decision. An important benefit of APA's amicus program has been advancing both the reputation of psychological science and APA. (PsycINFO Database Record

Scientific Eminence

Women are sparsely represented among psychologists honored for scientific eminence. However, most currently eminent psychologists started their careers when far fewer women pursued training in psychological science. Now that women earn the majority of psychology Ph.D.’s, will they predominate in the next generation’s cadre of eminent psychologists? Comparing currently active female and male psychology professors on publication metrics such as the h index provides clues for answering this question. Men outperform women on the h index and its two components: scientific productivity and citations of contributions. To interpret these gender gaps, we first evaluate whether publication metrics are affected by gender bias in obtaining grant support, publishing papers, or gaining citations of published papers. We also consider whether women’s chances of attaining eminence are compromised by two intertwined sets of influences: (a) gender bias stemming from social norms pertaining to gender and to science and (b) the choices that individual psychologists make in pursuing their careers.

Incorporating intersectionality into psychology: An opportunity to promote social justice and equity.

Intersectionality is receiving increasing attention in many fields, including psychology. This theory or framework has its roots in the work of Black feminist scholar-activists, and it focuses on interlocking systems of oppression and the need to work toward structural-level changes to promote social justice and equity. Thus, the current interest in intersectionality in psychology presents an opportunity to draw psychologists' attention more to structural-level issues and to make social justice and equity more central agendas to the field. The large, ever-growing bodies of research demonstrating the wide-ranging adverse consequences of structural- and interpersonal-level oppression, inequality, and stigma for the health and well-being of many diverse groups of people support that these issues are central to the field of psychology. We as individual psychologists and the field as a whole can work to fully incorporate the insights of intersectionality and therefore contribute to making social justice and equity more central across the varied subfields and realms of our work. Specific ways that we can do this are to (a) engage and collaborate with communities, (b) address and critique societal structures, (c) work together/build coalitions, (d) attend to resistance in addition to resilience, and (e) teach social justice curricula. There are important examples both within and outside of psychology that can guide us in achieving these goals. These suggestions are meant to foster conversation and consideration by psychologists across all subfields and areas of focus. (PsycINFO Database Record

Freie Beiträge. Gemeinschaftsgefühl – (k)ein Geheimnis mit neun Siegeln

Summary In his theory of Individual Psychology Adler attached central importance to the concept of social interest. In the community of Individual Psychologists, however, the concept led to a good deal of controversy. In order to bridge this discrepancy, we present in this paper a model of social adaptation using the concept of System Theory. In this model, human thought, action and feeling are related to perception, adaption and experience and then applied to the perspectives, »Me«, »You« and »Us«. Thus, in all, nine aspects of community-oriented social behaviour are derived, which are then combined to make a »Social Matrix«. In the course of children’s unconscious learning processes, when they are living in the family where they grow up, only a part of the inherent social potential of an individual can be developed. This shows up as differences in the patterns on the Social Matrix. In this article the author illustrates ways in which the Social Matrix can be correlated to the Adlerian concepts of life-tasks, lifestyle and social interest. By taking specific steps to vary the significance of the factors that influence social learning, a new learning process can be initiated with a more balanced and personalised Social Matrix. In this process, social interest can be developed and strengthened.

A taxonomy for education and training in professional psychology health service specialties: Evolution and implementation of new guidelines for a common language.

The Education and Training Guidelines: A Taxonomy for Education and Training in Professional Psychology Health Service Specialties was endorsed as a policy of the American Psychological Association in 2012. These Guidelines have the potential for broad impact on the field by providing both a structure and recommendations for the consistent usage of language--definitions and terminology--to reduce current descriptive inconsistencies across education and training programs in professional psychology. The Guidelines are not designed to define specifics of the training or practice of individual psychologists; they are to be used only to describe programmatic structure in a consistent manner. This article details the developmental history of these Guidelines and highlights the strong alliance between the leaders of the various recognized specialties in professional psychology and the education and training community in health service psychology. The content, application, future dissemination and impact of the Guidelines are presented.

Gemeinschaftsgefühl - zur näheren Bestimmung eines individualpsychologischen Leitbegriffes und dessen ethischer Implikation

»Gemeinschaftsgefühl«: On the Ethical Dimension of a Key Term in Adlerian Psychology Within the community of individual psychologists, »Gemeinschaftsgefühl« is one of the most controversial concepts. The term sometimes oscillates between being meaningful and being meaningless, making it even harder to work with. While in Adlers later writing the action theory aspect of »Gemeinschaftsgefühl « in the sense of being useful for society becomes more important, occasionally with strongly moralising connotations, the question of how ethical imperatives receive their defining force becomes less and less his focus of attention. If psychic health and ethical behaviour come together in the concept of »Gemeinschaftsgefühl«, this correlation is of vital importance in the sense of its developmental psychology dimension. This paper investigates these correlations.

Psychology: The Empirical Study of Epistemology and Phenomenology

Though psychology is now fractured, it was not always so. Psychology formed as a distinct discipline when researchers tried to use empirical evidence to answer epistemological and phenomenological questions—questions about knowledge and experience. The current subdisciplines of psychology can be understood as putting emphasis on different parts of the answer to those very complicated questions. Even radical behaviorism, long treated as a pariah among approaches to psychology, can be understood as providing insights into nature of mundane, daily acts of knowing and experiencing. This can be seen in the tradition of descriptive mentalism that connects from Charles Sanders Peirce and William James through to the present. This line of thinking has the potential to unify the field, by allowing us to distinguish core from peripheral questions and to understand how the various interests of individual psychologists fit together, in service of an overarching goal.