The need for a more responsive service system for people who are both mentally ill and homeless is a salient concern in America today. Preliminary research was conducted to examine how homeless mentally ill persons are processed by the currently organized network of human services in the nation's capital. Data were gathered in the summer of 1985…

The paucity of research on children's conceptions of mental illness seems surprising considering the recent interest in social cognition and person perception in children, and the contention that stereotypes of mental illness are learned in childhood. A study was conducted in a large midwestern city to survey the attitudes of children toward…

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has ranked 130 jobs in terms of the level of stress they engender. According to this ranking, clerical and service workers are in occupations which engender very high levels of stress. This study examined the relative contribution of a variety of occupational and nonoccupational sources of…

The connections between human communication and mental health were first noted 50 to 60 years ago by such early psychiatrists as Alfred Adler, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Karen Horney. They were concerned with understanding those communication processes and skills that make for effective, fully functioning human beings. Adler emphasized faulty…

In recent years, clinical and developmental psychologists have been practicing in health care settings, including public health programs and hospitals. Psychologists have struggled to develop an identity in the health care setting and a medical-psychological theory for practicing as a consultant with medical patients. Because consultation/liaison…

Previous research suggests that the mental and physical health of the Type B personality should be better than that of the Type A personality. To test this hypothesis, 81 university students responded to the Glass (1977) version of the Jenkins Activity Survey for college students which assessed perceived health status. The results showed that 54…

An obvious source of information for assessing mental health program effectiveness comes from clients who have received the services and, indeed, much effort has been devoted to developing data collection instruments which are administered to clients upon completion of treatment. To assess the advantages and disadvantages of three treatment…

High stress and job dissatisfaction interact negatively to produce the condition known as burnout. Teacher burnout is the state of exhaustion, despair, and futility which results from the belief that achievement and satisfaction in teaching is either not possible or not worth the effort required to produce it. By making repeated measures of…

A plan was developed to evaluate the organizational interchanges between local school districts and community mental health centers. The objective was to identify and describe the organizational interchanges, to assess interface satisfaction, and to identify innovative planning, program, or administrative linkages for potential replication. Data…

Career research has generally focused on either career stages of individuals or organizational models but not on an integration of both. Mental health administrators in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin were interviewed and completed questionnaires about turnover rates in their profession. Career types were identified and compared across job…

In terms of a dialectical model, the person-situation context is viewed as inseparable and necessarily interdependent. The very diagnostic categories used in the profession are as subject to the zeit geist as are the character structure and behavior of the individual. The evolving diagnostic categories as codified in the "Diagnostic and…

Mental health professionals and the general public have generally held differing attitudes toward mental illness. As part of a needs assessment survey, 102 persons (20 service providers, 20 referral persons, and 62 potential consumers) were interviewed concerning their views of mental health problems and services. Respondents first listed examples…

Because previous studies that focus on undocumented aliens (those residing in the United States illegally) fail to define the barriers that inhibit use of mental health services, the proposed model considers these barriers and outlines ways in which social workers employed in mental health institutions can actively help undocumented Mexican…

Two-hour semi-structured interviews were conducted with a heterogeneous group of psychotherapists to investigate their experience of therapeutic practice, and in particular to study the phenomenon of emotional and physical exhaustion known as "burnout," in which professionals lose all concern, all emotional feelings for the persons with…

This article reviews the literature concerning the use of seclusion in psychiatric treatment facilities during the last 15 years. Following a brief historical summary of how seclusive techniques have been used in psychiatric treatment, recent literature is presented on: (1) demographic and statistical data; (2) theoretical justifications; (3)…