Clinical Psychology Commons^™

Understanding Stress Reactivity In Schizophrenia, Mary Vertinski

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The role of stress has long been recognized in schizophrenia; several theories have identified the role of stress as an important factor in the etiology of schizophrenia. A handful of studies have used laboratory psychosocial stressors to examine cortisol stress response in schizophrenia; the results obtained have consistently suggested that the stress response is attenuated in people with schizophrenia. Present study set out to examine stress responsivity in schizophrenia relative to healthy controls. A laboratory stress test was used to investigate cortisol response, heart rate and task appraisal in a sample of 17 healthy controls and 16 men diagnosed with …

Development And Validation Of A Brief Assessment Of Social Cognitive Abilities, Ryanna Zenisek

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

It has been consistently found that individuals with schizophrenia exhibit impairments across various social cognitive domains, including emotion processing, social perception, and theory of mind. These deficits have been found across illness stages and cannot be accounted for by clinical symptomatology or neurocognitive skills. Further, while it has been well established that there is a link between cognition and functional outcome, social cognition has been found to be uniquely related to functional impairment in the disorder. Despite this evidence, the field is currently lacking efficient ways to identify and characterize these deficits in clinical settings. The Brief Test of Social …

The Role Of Pain Persistence In The Association Between Negative Urgency And Suicidal Behavior, Hyejin Jin

Master's Theses

Impulsivity has been identified as an important component of suicidal behavior (Mann et al., 1999) but the relationship has been shown to be indirect through painful and provocative events (PPEs; Bender, Gordon, Bresin, Joiner, 2011). Negative urgency (NU) is a subscale of impulsivity (Cyders et al., 2007) that has been associated with high engagement of PPEs such as non-suicidal self-injury because individuals high in NU are highly motivated to eliminate the aversive emotion (Anestis & Joiner, 2011). Past research found that repeated PPEs may increase the capability for suicide by changing how one responds to pain, thereby increasing their pain …

Emotion Socialization And Families Of Children With And Without Adhd., Danielle M. Walerius

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emotional competence (EC) represents several distinct emotional skills found to be strongly associated with children’s socioemotional outcomes. EC is thought to develop through a process known as emotion socialization (ES), whereby children’s emotions and emotion-based behaviors are socialized through interactions with parents and/or other primary figures. The present study examined ES across families of children with and without ADHD in order to clarify the role ES plays in the development of EC in typically developing (TD) children versus children more prone to EC impairments due to intrapersonal characteristics (e.g., inattention, disinhibition, etc.). Forty-eight children 5 to 8-years-old (23 with ADHD, …

Effect Of Cpap Compliance On A Cognitive Screening Test In A Memory Clinic Population With Sleep Apnea, Tatiana Marie Vallejo-Luces

Theses and Dissertations

Objectives: To determine whether the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) was a sensitive indicator of cognitive improvement following introduction of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) in community memory clinic (CMC) patients who had been diagnosed with sleep apnea (SA). Method: Twenty-six CPAP compliant CMC patients (61.5% male; 96.2% Caucasian/Non-Hispanic) with a diagnosis of SA (66-87 years (M=76.27(4.90)) completed a MoCA before initiation of treatment and again 4-9 months later. CPAP compliance was documented through CPAP machine compliance reports and/or clinical interview with patient and family member during subsequent medical visits. Twenty CPAP non-compliant CMC patients (85% male, 100% Caucasian/Non-Hispanic; 66-90 years …

Effective Parental Cooperation And Communication As Protective Factors For Adult Offspring Of Divorce, Damla Til Ogut

Theses and Dissertations

Research and society have focused attention on how divorce affects family dynamics for decades. The clinical literature points to significant discrepancies in psychological variables between offspring from divorced versus intact families, suggesting that divorce contributes to negative psychosocial outcomes. Accordingly, investigations have revealed the adverse effects of co-parental conflict and antagonistic communication on divorce offspring’s psychological outcomes. Although parental cooperation and communication are suggested to serve as protective factors, more research is needed, given the current literature’s reliance on measures of psychopathology, yet making conclusions on psychological wellness. Among 244 college students, results indicated that divorce offspring reported lower levels …

Substance Abuse And Other Factors That Influence Recidivism For Mental Health Court Graduates, Justine Maria Swanson

Theses and Dissertations

Mental health courts (MHC) were designed to divert the overwhelming number of individuals with mental illness involved in the criminal justice system from incarceration through specialty court proceedings intended to meet their unique needs. Individuals who have both mental health problems and substance use are at a disadvantage. For them, this combination contributes to more severe mental health symptoms, physical health issues, interpersonal challenges, and legal problems. The co-occurrence of mental illness and substance use is increasing in prevalence within both the community and justice system settings; however, few studies have explored the effectiveness of MHCs for this specific population …

Two-Week Test-Retest Reliability Of The Scale Of Accurate Personality Prediction, Lisa Dawn Stewart

Theses and Dissertations

The Scale of Accurate Personality Prediction (SAPP) is a measure derived from the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF Fifth Edition) with the objective of assessing one’s level of self-knowledge. The SAPP measures self-knowledge by appraising the extent to which individuals are able to accurately predict their personality traits. Previous research on the SAPP has provided support for its construct validation. The present study served as a replication of prior reliability studies to further assess the SAPP’s temporal stability. Test-retest reliability data of the SAPP was obtained by comparing SAPP scores from 34 individuals across two testing sessions that were two …

Recovery From Borderline Personality Disorder Through Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Carla D. Chugani, Ashley R. Seiler, Tina R. Goldstein

The Qualitative Report

This article presents a qualitative investigation of the perspectives and experiences of recovery from borderline personality disorder from six individuals who were treated with comprehensive dialectical behavior therapy. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews, transcribed, and coded using a six-step analysis process. Six primary themes emerged: (1) belief about recovery, (2) current experience of self, (3) facets of recovery, (4) motivating factors, (5) external supports to recovery, and (6) characteristics required for recovery. Overall, the findings took a dialectical form in which participants often described conflicting experiences (e.g., feeling recovered while also continuing to experience heightened emotional sensitivity). We conclude …

Coping Among Advocates With And Without Lived Experience Of Sexual Assault, Martina Mihelicova

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Volunteer sexual assault survivor advocates are vital to the provision of services by rape crisis centers. Volunteer advocates are exposed to trauma by witnessing the emotional and psychological impact of sexual assault on survivors. Trauma exposure places providers at risk for experiencing negative outcomes, such as vicarious trauma or secondary traumatic stress. Additionally, advocates who are survivors of sexual assault may be at higher risk for these negative outcomes. However, trauma exposure can also be a source of positive outcomes, such as posttraumatic growth. Focusing on advocate strengths, such as coping and self-care strategies that help advocates overcome distress during …

Diversity Of Diagnoses And Student Learning Experiences In An On-Campus School Psychology Assessment Center: Future Directions And Focus, Nina M. Ellis-Hervey Ph.D., N.C.S.P., L.S.S.P., P.L.P., Ashley Doss B.S., Maio-Cert, Deshae Davis-Gatti M.A., Juliet Aura Bs/P

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

School Psychology Assessment Centers (SPAC) developed at the University-level are crucial in developing competent school psychologists. While many models on how to develop mental health centers are in existence, a new model exists for creating a SPAC on a University campus that is specifically designed to serve the diverse surrounding community and postsecondary students (see Ellis-Hervey et al., 2016). The community’s needs were reviewed, including missing service links in the region, and identification of potential clients who would benefit most from services provided. Senior students who work with clients in the SPAC gain assessment skills and build supervision skills through …

Polynomial Regression Analyses Of Parental Desirable Responding, Megan Elizabeth Lilly

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Child assessments have consistently yielded poor agreement between parent-child self-report measures and considerable research has failed to isolate the underlying source of the discrepancies. Validity testing has successfully been used to differentiate credible from non-credible performance, recognize feigned symptoms, and detect underestimates of ability in adults for decades (Sherman, 2015). Despite these potential benefits, attention to the importance of validity testing in the child assessment literature has been largely neglected. Many psychologists believe children are not capable of feigning or exaggerating their symptoms and lack the underlying motivations and incentives for deception found in adult assessments. Whereas, more research is …

Doing Greater Good, While Doing No Individual Harm: A Public Health Approach To Human Trafficking Using A Human Rights-Centered Model, Patrick L. Kerr, Rachel Dash

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Human trafficking (i.e., modern slavery) includes myriad forms of sex and labor trafficking. Widely ranging estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking are commonly cited; at the same time, accurate data on these phenomena remain elusive, and assumptions rather than empirical evidence about the nature, targets, and proliferation of trafficking often dominate public policy discourse.

In this paper, we describe the ways in which this lack of accurate data on basic prevalence rates has led to key limitations in anti-trafficking work. First, this lack of data prevents a clear understanding of the problem of trafficking. Second, this deficit limits our …

Psychopathic Traits, Gender, And Sexual Motivations: Paths To Sexual Coercion, Amy M. Hoffmann

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although evidence suggests that both men and women perpetrate sexual coercion, the majority of work has traditionally focused on men as perpetrators and women as victims. Psy-chological factors, including psychopathic traits and sexual motivations, have been proposed to characterize sexually coercive men. However, the sparse existing research using female samples suggests that these models may not adequately characterize female sexual coercers. In particular, although there is evidence that sexual motivations may mediate the relationship between psycho-pathic traits and coercion perpetration, there is a dearth of information regarding gender as a po-tential moderator of these mediating paths. To improve our understanding …

The Experiences Of African American Pastors Treating Mental Health Issues Among Parishioners In The State Of Texas, Rosalind S. Smith

Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to learn the practices, attitudes, and self-described competency of a sample of 12 African American pastors, with churches located in Texas, as they counsel their parishioners with mental health issues. Pastoral counseling formed the theoretical framework for the study. The researcher asked each pastor eight open-ended questions, inquiring about the pastor's experiences, practices, attitudes, and training in regard to dealing with their parishioners' mental health issues. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and qualitative methods were used to analyze the responses to determine themes in the pastors' responses.

A total of 10 themes …

Assessing The Impact Of White Noise On Cognition In Individuals With And Without Adhd, Scott Roye

LSU Master's Theses

Although originally viewed only as a childhood disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is now recognized to persist into adulthood in many individuals. Adults with ADHD often demonstrate academic, cognitive, and general functioning deficits as a result of their symptoms. Theorists have suggested that features typically associated with ADHD, such as distractibility, excessive motor activity, and executive dysfunction, may stem from being under stimulated at a physiological level. This lack of arousal potentially causes individuals to seek out stimulation, making them more susceptible to background noise and other environmental stimuli. However, previous research primarily focuses on children and adolescents with …

Internet-Delivered Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills Training For Suicidal And Heavy Episodic Drinkers: Protocol And Preliminary Results Of A Randomized Controlled Trial., Chelsey Wilks, Qingqing Yin, Sin Ang, Brandon Matsumiya, Anita Lungu, Marsha Linehan

Psychology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

A Psychometric Evaluation Of The Compensatory Eating And Behaviors In Response To Alcohol Consumption Scale (Cebracs), Emily M. Choquette

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drunkorexia refers to a set of disordered eating behaviors that occur in the context of a drinking episode for the purpose of 1) off setting caloric intake of the alcohol or 2) increasing the effects of alcohol. The Compensatory Eating and Behaviors in Response to Alcohol Consumption Scale (CEBRACS) was developed with the purpose of measuring drunkorexia behaviors at three time points: before, during, and after a drinking episode. The purpose of this study was to further validate the measure for use in men and women by examining measurement invariance, reliability, and validity. First, single group confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) …

Reported Child Sexual Abuse: Impact Of Adaptive Skills And Association With Psychological Adjustment, Seandra Jean Walker

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The impact of sexual abuse on children’s psychological well-being is well recognized. Considerable research has evaluated the deleterious effects and various protective and risk factors to victimization. Research has shown intense and pervasive psychological symptoms preceding child sexual abuse; however, many studies solely report long-term effects of sexual abuse, or rely on retrospective accounts. Additionally, there is a lack of research on the relationship between psychological adjustment and adaptive skills shortly after child sexual abuse. This study investigated the relationship between psychological problems (i.e. posttraumatic symptomology, internalizing, and externalizing problems) and adaptive skills (i.e. adaptability, social skills, leadership, activities of …

Depression And Choice Of Emotional Stimuli, Sunkyung Yoon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent research argued that people with major depressive disorder (MDD) tend to prefer sad stimuli because they want to upregulate their sad feelings. This paper aims to examine investigate the choice of emotional stimuli among those who have MDD, compared to individuals without MDD (healthy controls, HC), and explore the reasons for their choice. Seventy six female university students (38 per group) completed three tasks: 1) In the replication music task, participants listened to happy, neutral, and sad music excerpts, chose the one they wanted to listen most, and reported the reasons of their choice. 2) The Emotional Stimuli Selection …