One clinical psychologist who worked with terminally ill, end-stage Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) patients in a hospice type setting experienced more than 150 deaths over an 18-month time period. Many of the patients denied that they had AIDS; some distinguished between having AIDS and testing positive for Human Immunodeficiency Virus…

Some theoreticians believe that diagnostic and prognostic impressions are based in part on clinicians' personal values. A study was conducted to assess whether clinical judgment is affected by patient religiosity, therapist religiosity, or an interaction between patient and therapist religiosity. Psychotherapists' (N=15) judgments concerning…

Most clinical training programs attempt to produce psychologists who are both skilled research scientists and practitioners. This scientist-practitioner or Boulder Model, named for the 1950 conference on clinical psychology held in Boulder, Colorado, has been the subject of much scholarly debate. A study was undertaken to examine the career goals…

This paper identifies typical sampling problems, including improper application of the Central Limit Theorem, that are associated with the probability-based sampling procedures currently used in clinical psychology research. It then presents two alternative research designs, the theory validation model and the extended case study model, which…

This study examined what psychology students know about clinical psychology as most students with declared majors in psychology state that they have career plans to work in applied psychology. A five-item questionnaire was administered to 162 undergraduates in three introductory and upper level psychology courses. The questionnaire asked students…

The interview process was studied to uncover the relationship of expertise in psychotherapy to the likelihood of accurate diagnosis. Experience and training affect the number of diagnostic questions clinicians ask as compared to personal, family, social, occupational, and history questions; and this in turn affects the accuracy of the diagnoses…

This paper describes a 2-year practicum in pediatric psychology at the Bay State Medical Center, as administered by the Psychology Department of the University of Massachusetts. An overview of the pediatric psychology program and its collaborative design between clinical and developmental psychology is given. The learning objectives, and the…

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…

A model for program evaluation with pertinent data from a variety of methods applied in six settings is described. The settings include two university clinical psychology programs at Alabama and Kansas; the Memphis Internship Consortium; the University of Arkansas Student Development Center component of the Counseling Unit; and two county social…

This essay asserts that clinical conceptualizations of emotion that stress its disruptive influences and functional models of emotion that emphasize its adaptive aspects can be integrated into a developmental psychopathology framework. Under certain conditions, emotion regulation may develop dysregulatory aspects that can become a characteristic…

Much confusion exists between post-concussive syndrome (PCS) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This study evaluates the symptoms of both disorders, with the goal of illustrating their unique characteristics. A clinical neuropsychologist interviewed 41 males and 29 females who had previously received the diagnosis of PCS or PTSD. Each…

Over the past decade, there has developed a steadily growing literature on the identification and treatment of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Much of the literature has focused on the incidence and psychological impact of the abuse, and on techniques and stages of treatment. Less attention has been given thus far to the details and nuances…

Although the importance of an experiential component in differing approaches to psychotherapy has been acknowledged, confusion over the concepts of "experience" and "emotion" has resulted in a focus on emotion rather than experience. The fundamental change event in psychotherapy is a kind of experiential learning or reorganization, and while…

Barlow (1981) lists nine reasons why clinical psychologists do not undertake research and why traditional research does not influence clinicians. These reasons focus on: (1) lack of access to a large subject pool; (2) manpower costs of conducting research; (3) financial costs of conducting research; (4) ethics; (5) research's overreliance on…

Current status and new developments in behavioral assessment for clinicians and researchers are discussed. The field of behavioral assessment has attained a recognizable identity in recent years. Behavioral assessment can be defined as the identification of meaningful response units and their controlling variables for the purposes of…