CCPJ - Volume 1, Issue 1

Counseling and ^TM

Clinical Psychology

Journal

ISSN:1545-4452

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Volume 1, Issue1

January 2004

An Editorial Introduction to Counseling and Clinical Psychology Journal

William E. Kelly

(pp. 2-3)

Socially Desirable and Non‑Purposeful Responding on the Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory‑Revised

Larry C. Bernard & R. Patricia Walsh

(pp. 4-16)

ABSTRACT - This study explores socially desirable and non-purposeful responding on the Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory – Revised (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992), an objective measure of the “Big Five” personality traits: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. The NEO PI-R’s three validity-check items were examined in relation to the traditional, lengthier validity scale of another objective personality measure, the Personality Research Form (PRF; Jackson, 1999). In a sample of 237 university students, none of the NEO PI-R’s validity check items were significantly correlated with the PRF Desirability. In addition, the PRF Infrequency scale (non-purposeful responding) was significantly correlated with one, and the Desirability scale with four NEO PI-R scales, and PRF Desirability and Infrequency scores jointly predicted Conscientiousness scores. The implications are discussed and, interestingly, may provide support for the Conscientiousness scale construct, because four of five NEO PI-R scales may be obliquely related by a higher-order factor of social desirability.

Professional Boundaries: The Dilemma of Dual & Multiple Relationships in Rural Clinical Practice

Mary-Beth Nickel

(pp. 17-22)

ABSTRACT - Dual or multiple relationships have traditionally been discouraged in mental health practice. Some clinicians, however, contend that extra-therapeutic contact is not only unavoidable at times, but, under certain conditions, even uniquely beneficial. Particularly in small or rural communities, the high probability of such contacts necessitates careful, case-by-case evaluation of associated risks and potential benefits. This paper reviews the ongoing debate concerning the potential harm or benefit of nonsexual dual relationships, examines the influence of small community characteristics on professional boundaries, and offers a compilation of multiple authors’ suggestions for the ethical management of relationships outside the therapy office.

Psychopathy and Sexual Coercion: A Darwinian Analysis

Richard P. Wiebe

(pp. 23-41)

ABSTRACT - Psychopathy combines a selfish, emotionless interpersonal style with persistent antisocial behaviors. Psychopathy is generally considered a mental disorder, or "harmful dysfunction." Because psychopaths suffer little subjective distress (blaming others for any they feel), psychopathy may harm only others. Further, there may be no dysfunction: Low‑anxiety of primary psychopathy (related to physiological more than social causes) may result from physiological and psychological adaptations that underlie the psychopaths' emotional "deficits" but that render the psychopath particularly suited for an adaptive strategy involving coercive interpersonal interactions, including coercive sex. Candidates for adaptions include abnormal startle potentiation and a general lack of autonomic reaction to distress felt by others, reduced emotional input into decision‑making, lack of attention to peripheral circumstances, and perseveration in goal‑directed activities in the face of changing circumstances, which may stem from an abnormal amygdala. Psychopathy may be characterized as an ethical pathology: beneficial to the actor, harmful to society.

Do We Think Ourselves Sick? Psychological Processes and Health Behaviors Associated with Adolescents’ Somatic Complaints

Sigurlina Davidsdottir

(pp. 42-59)

ABSTRACT - The effects of psychological variables, as measured by health hardiness, life orientation, perceived stress, Type A behaviour, anxiety, and attributional style, were contrasted with lifestyle, as measured by alcoholism, smoking, and exercise, for their association with somatic complaints. The sample consisted of 105 psychology undergraduate students in a Midwestern university. Psychological processes were better predictors of somatic complaints than lifestyle. A statistically significant association was found between somatic complaints and the following psychological processes: pessimism, Type A, perceived stress, anxiety, and global explanatory style for bad events. Health control and health challenge were negatively correlated with somatic complaints. Psychological variables explained about 40% of the variance in somatic complaints, but lifestyle variables had little association with such complaints.