Decision-Making Model for Addressing Role Conflict for Psychology Trainees When Supporting Family and Community

As the field of psychology continues to make efforts to diversify the field, training programs must adapt to include the needs of diverse students. Universities in the United States mirror middle-class norms and values, which implies that students are expected to separate from familial roles and focus on their personal growth. This conflicts with core values and intentions of students from collectivist cultures. Although psychology trainees are obligated to adhere to professional ethical standards, a growing number of psychology trainees from collectivistic cultures need support to manage role conflict within potentially ambiguous standards regarding how to care for family and community members. This need is further complicated when training programs consider the lack of equitable access to mental health care resources in communities where their psychology trainees come from. In this paper, we engage in ethical decision making to address two scenarios representing role conflict between training program expectations and collectivist community and familial obligations. Through this exercise we develop and propose a Decision-Making Model for Addressing Role Conflict for Psychology Trainees. This conceptual model details a novel framework to assist psychology trainees when addressing the mental health of family and community while also providing guidance to help graduate training programs proactively equip their students with the skills and ethical framework they need to balance role conflicts such as when family and community members desire and need mental health support.

Addressing the Leaking Pipeline: Supporting Disabled Graduate Student Teachers in Psychology

Introduction: People with disabilities are under-represented among psychology faculty and graduate students and are more likely than their non-disabled peers to attrite from psychology graduate programs. They face numerous barriers in graduate training. Statement of the Problem: Teaching experience is a core experience for psychology graduate students, especially those pursuing faculty positions. Disabled graduate students face many barriers that may make it difficult for them to obtain high-quality graduate student teaching experience. This contributes to the continuing under-representation of disabled faculty in psychology programs. Literature Review: I review key empirical and conceptual articles on the experiences of disabled psychology trainees and how to best support them. Teaching Implications: I provide evidence-based suggestions and strategies for supporting graduate students with disabilities as they obtain teaching experience. Conclusion: By actively supporting graduate students with disabilities in their teaching endeavors, psychology faculty can help stem the leaky pipeline and increase the numbers of psychology faculty with disabilities.

Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy provided by novice psychotherapists: effects on symptomatology and psychological structure in patients with anxiety disorders

This study examines the effectiveness of psychotherapy provided by novice therapists, in an attempt to clarify the controversial relationship between treatment effectiveness and therapist experience. To achieve this, we examined the short- and long-term effectiveness of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP) in the treatment of patients with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, IV edition - Text Revision anxiety disorders, as provided by novice psychology trainees. Twenty-two patients with anxiety disorders were provided ISTDP. Patients improved significantly on all outcome indices, including the global assessment of functioning, the symptom checklist and the inventory of interpersonal problems, at the end of the treatment and at 6 and 12 month follow-up. In addition to these results, there was marked structural personality change as evidenced by ratings on the Shedler Westen assessment procedure (SWAP-200), at the same assessment moments; the SWAP-200 psychological health index score showed a meaningful increase in adaptive psychological resources and capacities, while the mean number of personality diagnoses decreased from the beginning to the end of therapy, and all patients maintaining their gains in 6-12 month follow-up. We conclude that ISTDP provided by novice psychotherapists is efficacious in bringing broad and in-depth change to pathology that can perpetuate anxiety disorders and other psychiatric conditions.

Development and feasibility testing of a play-based psychosocial intervention for reduced patient stress in a pediatric care setting: experiences from Pakistan

Background Hospitalization can be a source of great stress for children and their families. In high-income countries, there are specialized staff to help children cope using different techniques including play. However, it is a major challenge in low and middle-income countries (LMIC) due to financial constraints and untrained human resource. The objective of study was to develop and test the feasibility and acceptance of a psychology trainee-delivered model postulated on employing play as a means of enhancing child-parent interactions leading to reduced stress during hospitalization. Methods This study was conducted in the paediatric ward of a tertiary care private hospital in Pakistan. Pre-intervention survey revealed that parental stress stemmed mainly from seeing their child irritable, distressed, or in pain. Using a theory of change model, a play-based psychosocial intervention was developed to address these factors. The intervention approach was informed by principles of Nurturing Care Framework and play therapy. Children between birth and 6 years admitted in the acute care ward were eligible. The intervention was delivered between March 2019 and December 2020 by psychology trainees who were supervised by a clinical psychologist. The play-based sessions were delivered at the bedside and ranged from 20 to 40 min. Parents receiving the intervention were later interviewed for their stress, child emotions, and feedback about the service using structured surveys administered by psychology graduates. The trainees delivering the intervention were requested to provide their feedback as a written qualitative open-ended narrative. These narratives were analyzed using an inductive approach. Results The survey was conducted with 223 families with about half of the sample having children under 2 years of age. Forty-five percent of parents reported play intervention to be one of 3 key factors in improving their experience during hospital stay. Only 5% of parents reported feeling stressed about the child illness after the intervention. Ninety to 96% parents felt respected, listened to, and understood by the therapists. Thematic analysis of the feedback by trainees indicated the internship to be a useful experience and a new avenue for professional life whereas physicians appreciated the interventions. Conclusions The authors conclude that psychology trainees can feasibly deliver a play-based intervention under supervision for reduced stress in children and their parents during hospitalization with mutual benefits.

Online Supportive Group as social intervention to face COVID lockdown. A qualitative study on psychotherapists, psychology trainees and students, and community people

Several psychological interventions have been activated to help people during the Coronavirus pandemic, and research highlights the crucial role of group interventions as a space for sharing and processing the psychological experiences linked to this emergency and the consequent changes in people’s lifestyles. In this context, psychologists are mostly providers of this kind of service more than users. This study aimed at investigating and comparing post-hoc the subjective experience of psychotherapists, psychology trainees & students, and individuals of the general population who participated in a psychodynamically-oriented supportive group intervention. Fifty-two subjects were enrolled to participate to focus groups aimed at exploring participants’ decision to participate, their perceptions on how the support group influenced their elaboration of the psychological effects of pandemic/lockdown, and their feedback on its utility. Transcripts of the focus groups were analyzed with the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC). Differences in the use of words/linguistic categories between groups were tested through chi-square tests. Content analysis was conducted by independent judges who extracted the most relevant comments. Preliminary results showed the main features related to the crisis response, and how belonging to different social roles was associated with different ways of experiencing and sharing emotions. People react in different ways to traumatic events, and how people react may say a lot about how they cope with the event and the extent to which the event plays a role in the future. Clinical implications on the use of this data for future treatment planning are also discussed.