Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Saylor.org
dead, deceased, lifeless, and suicide) and “life” (i.e., alive, survive, live, thrive, and breathing) and the attributes of
“me” (i.e., I, myself, my, mine, and self) and “not me” (i.e., they, them, their, theirs, and other). Response latencies for
all trials were recorded and analyzed, and the strength of each participant’s association between “death” and “me” was
calculated.
The researchers then followed participants over the next 6 months to test whether the measured implicit association
of death with self could be used to predict future suicide attempts. The authors also tested whether scores on the IAT
would add to prediction of risk above and beyond other measures of risk, including questionnaire and interview
measures of suicide risk. Scores on the IAT predicted suicide attempts in the next 6 months above all the other risk
factors that were collected by the hospital staff, including past history of suicide attempts. These results suggest that
measures of implicit cognition may be useful for determining risk factors for clinical behaviors such as suicide.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Group therapy is psychotherapy in which clients receive psychological treatment together with others. A
professionally trained therapist guides the group. Types of group therapy include couples therapy and family therapy. - Self-help groups have been used to help individuals cope with many types of disorder.
- The goal of community health service programs is to act during childhood or early adolescence with the hope that
interventions might prevent disorders from appearing or keep existing disorders from expanding. The prevention
provided can be primary, secondary, or tertiary.
EXERCISE AND CRITICAL THINKING
- Imagine the impact of a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina on the population of the city of New Orleans. How
would you expect such an event to affect the prevalence of psychological disorders in the community? What
recommendations would you make in terms of setting up community support centers to help the people in the city?
[1] Yalom, I., & Leszcz, M. (2005). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy (5th ed.). New York, NY: Basic Books.
[2] McDermut, W., Miller, I. W., & Brown, R. A. (2001). The efficacy of group psychotherapy for depression: A meta-analysis and
review of the empirical research. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 8 (1), 98–116.
[3] American Group Psychotherapy Association. (2000). About group psychotherapy. Retrieved
from http://www.groupsinc.org/group/consumersguide2000.html
[4] Humphreys, K., & Rappaport, J. (1994). Researching self-help/mutual aid groups and organizations: Many roads, one
journey. Applied and Preventative Psychology, 3(4), 217–231.