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VOL. 18, NO. 3 ::: MAY/JUNE, 2009

Welcome!
Welcome to the online home of The National Psychologist, an independent bi-monthly newspaper for behavioral healthcare practitioners. Please take a moment to sign our Guestbook.

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Also in this issue:

APA sues APA Insurance Trust for financial data

    The American Psychological Association (APA) is suing the APA Insurance Trust (APAIT) that it created in 1962 to provide liability insurance for its members.
    At issue is whether the APA board has any oversight of APAIT. APA seeks access to detailed financial information, including the number of insured APAIT covers, audited financial statements, tax returns, budgets, expense-to-premium ratios, loss-to-premium ratios and solvency ratings of insurance providers.
    APAIT contends that information is confidential and proprietary and the APA board has no oversight under the agreement signed when the trust was created nearly half a century ago.
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Positioning for change in the health care industry

Jeanne Wendel, Ph.D., professor of economics, says that the health care industry has undergone significant changes in the past two decades, and even-more significant transformation is predicted for the upcoming decade. The health care industry is already experiencing new types of competition and substantial new investments in electronic medical records and area-wide health information systems are expected to accelerate the pace of change.
The predictions are controversial, of course. The changes might not happen at all, they might not happen quickly or they might not be as dramatic as some commentators suggest. However, the Obama administration is clearly betting that the changes will be seismic.
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How ‘tweet’ it is: Social networking using Twitter

Twitter is a social networking application that does only one thing – allows the mutual sharing communications (called “tweets”) of no more than 140 characters each. Why the 140-character limit? So you can send text updates on your cell phone as well as the net.
If you haven’t used or even heard of Twitter, don’t worry. You’re not alone. As of now, only 11 percent of American Internet users have used something like Twitter, says John M. Grohol, Psy.D., an author, researcher into online behavior and the publisher of the Internet’s leading mental health resource: PsychCentral.com.
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Concerns voiced over secrecy surrounding DSM-V

By James Bradshaw
Senior Editor
Akron, Ohio – Two psychologists who were integrally involved in the development of the DSM-IV are critical of secrecy surrounding the DSM-V revision process.
Peter E. Nathan, Ph.D., and Thomas A. Widiger, Ph.D., who held sessions on the history and development of the DSM at an April conference hosted by the Archives of the History of American Psychology, were among four psychologists on the task force overseeing revisions for the 1994 publication of the DSM-IV.

Women in war: The new combatants

By Penny F. Pierce, Ph.D., RN
The inevitable truth is that the face of the American soldier is increasingly likely to be female. Although women have always served alongside their male counterparts, they were more likely to be in supportive roles stationed behind enemy lines out of harm’s way.
The Persian Gulf War (PGW) was a critical turning point for women in the military because of the large number of women deployed (40,793 served in the theater of operations), the first time mothers of dependent children were activated and the emergence of women into traditional male war-fighting roles.

Family meals: The role of psychologists

By Kathleen M. Cuneo, Ph.D.
Family meals have been consistently demonstrated to be a robust protective factor for a number of health and mental health variables. Children and adolescents who eat meals regularly with their families have been shown to have better nutrition (Gillman et al., 2000), lower risk for depression and suicide (Eisenberg, et al., 2004), lower risk for disordered eating (Neumark-Sztainer, et al., 2008) and lower risk for substance abuse (CASA, 2007).
Despite these findings, many families do not have meals together on a consistent basis. Today’s families face many obstacles to organizing family meals. Many child-related activities such as sports, music lessons, dance classes and martial arts programs frequently occur around the dinner hour. Many parents work long hours and are either not available for family dinners or are too tired at the end of a long workday to cook.

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