Three sources of professional uncertainty have been described: uncertainty about the practitioner's mastery of knowledge; uncertainty due to gaps in the knowledge base itself; and uncertainty about the source of the uncertainty, i.e., the practitioner does not know whether his uncertainty is due to gaps in the knowledge base or to personal…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of chaos theory for counseling. The scientific notion of chaos refers to the tendency of dynamical, nonlinear systems toward irregular, sometimes unpredictable, yet deterministic behavior. Therapists, especially those working from a brief approach, have noted the importance of the client's…

A study involving a sample of people selected to represent the nonimpaired American population, aged 16 to 74 years, was undertaken to determine the effectiveness of the Wechsler Memory Scale--Revised. The scale's subtests were designed to assess memory of personal and general knowledge, logical memory, verbal paired association, figural memory,…

Although studies have examined assaultive behavior by patients toward mental health practitioners, very little research has explored patient violence toward, or harassment of, psychologists in independent practice and at other jobs. To investigate this area, a 17-item questionnaire was sent to independent practitioners in psychology. The…

Hypnosis is an increasingly popular clinical intervention. The number of training courses in hypnosis is growing each year. Research on hypnosis training appears to show that limited exposure to training, as is typical in the common 3 to 5 day format of mass training, produces limited results. Only when training is extended over time do the…

Psychoanalysis is undergoing rapid and remarkable changes in its basic metapsychology, theoretical reflections, and concrete, clinical interventions. Through self-psychology, Heinz Kohut's alternative views on the clinical relationship have contributed to this restructuring of psychoanalysis. Traditionally, mainstream psychoanalysis has viewed the…

Clinical report writing involves two interlinking processes--creation and communication. There are six stages of clinical inference that find parallels in generative writing stages: possessing a postulate system, constructing the major premise, observing for occurrences, instantiating (classifying) the occurrences, reaching a referential product,…

Increasing numbers of psychologists are moving from academic to private practice settings. In order to obtain information from private practitioners on aspects of their practices including education, location, orientation, hours, referrals, fees, incomes, and additional jobs, questionnaires were sent to a national sample of 300 private…

From all indications, meditation is being used more and more by psychotherapists and counselors in their practices. Research has not to date produced empirical guidelines for the therapeutic use of meditation. This report compiles clinical and research data to provide a step toward a systematized approach to the utilization of meditation so as to…

The 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), which is reviewed historically in this essay, represents a unique and significant chapter in the history of personality assessment. During the first 20 years of its existence, the 16PF underwent numerous revisions and restandardizations. During that period, R. B. Cattell, the creator of the 16PF,…

This paper considers three clinical judgment biases in clinical inference: (1) illusory correlation bias, the report by clinicians of a correlation between psychodiagnostic test signs and patient's symptoms which are not correlated or are correlated to a smaller degree than that reported; (2) labeling bias, the tendency of exposure to diagnositc…

The search for and generation of causal explanations required by the task of explaining an initial impression, appear to be sufficient to raise the subjective likelihood of the event explained and to result in the persistence of the initial impression. Generating supporting and counter arguments with respect to the event does not result in an…

A survey of minority curricula and training in accredited clinical psychology programs (1982) revealed that a multicultural approach to training was poorly represented. Multicultural training seeks to understand people of different groups based on their cultures and experiences over time, not in comparison to the dominant culture. A multicultural…

A dilemma faces the ethnographer whose discipline forces the creation of an objective text from an intimate participatory experience. There have been three ways in which ethnographers have attempted to solve the dilemma of producing the objectivity of a scientific text while acknowledging their presence in the field. The first approach is the…

Clients with concurrent substance abuse and other psychopathology constitute an often neglected patient population which presents significant assessment and treatment challenges. Proper treatment requires a careful assessment of issues not always addressed in standard substance abuse or mental health treatment settings. Psychologists with…