Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

L.A. Psych School Lied, Class Claims

By WILLIAM DOTINGA
Courthouse News Service
November 15, 2012


Students claim in a class action that the Los Angeles campus of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology recruited them by lying that it was accredited by the American Psychological Association.

Miranda Jo Truitt and three other named plaintiffs sued the Chicago School of Professional Psychology and its subsidiaries, including TCS Global, in Superior Court. They allege fraud, conspiracy, false advertising and consumer law violations.

Also named as defendants are the California Graduate Institute and the school's national president Michelle Nealon-Woods and "lead faculty" member of the Los Angeles campus, David Sitzer.

The students claim the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, or TCS, was "ostensibly formed, organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code for the 'advancement of education and science,' but in fact is being operated by its management team for the benefit of private interests for financial profit and personal gain through a network of interrelated companies and entities owned and controlled by TCS.

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this story.

Monday, November 26, 2012

What Brand Is Your Therapist?

by Lori Gottlieb
The New York Times
Originally published November 23, 2012

Here is an excerpt:


What nobody taught me in grad school was that psychotherapy, a practice that had sustained itself for more than a century, is losing its customers. If this came as a shock to me, the American Psychological Association tried to send out warnings in a 2010 paper titled, “Where Has all the Psychotherapy Gone?” According to the author, 30 percent fewer patients received psychological interventions in 2008 than they did 11 years earlier; since the 1990s, managed care has increasingly limited visits and reimbursements for talk therapy but not for drug treatment; and in 2005 alone, pharmaceutical companies spent $4.2 billion on direct-to-consumer advertising and $7.2 billion on promotion to physicians, nearly twice what they spent on research and development.

According to the A.P.A., therapists had to start paying attention to what the marketplace demanded or we risked our livelihoods. It wasn’t long before I learned that an entirely new specialized industry had cropped up: branding consultants for therapists.

I couldn’t imagine hiring a branding consultant to lure people to the couch. Psychotherapy is perhaps one of the few commercial businesses that doesn’t see itself as one, that views financial gain as unseemly when connected to the delicate work of emotional insight. Moreover, the field is predicated on strict concepts of authenticity, privacy and therapist-patient boundaries. Branding was the antithesis of what we did.

The entire article is here.

When the Patient Is ‘Noncompliant’

By DANIELLE OFRI, M.D.
The New York Times
Originally published November 15, 2012

Here are some excerpts:

“Noncompliant” is doctor-shorthand for patients who don’t take their medications or follow medical recommendations. It’s one of those quasi-English-quasi-medical terms, loaded with implications and stereotypes.

As soon as a patient is described as noncompliant, it’s as though a black mark is branded on the chart. “This one’s trouble,” flashes into most doctors’ minds, even ones who don’t want to think that way about their patients. And like the child in school who is tagged early on as a troublemaker, the label can stick around forever.

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“Improving adherence is a team sport,” Dr. Steiner adds. Input from nurses, care managers, social workers and pharmacists is critical.

The entire article is here.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Move Over Economists: We Need a Council of Psychological Advisers

Much of governing involves predicting behavior or getting people to change it. Lawyers and economists need some help with both.

By Barry Schwartz
The Atlantic
Originally published

Though President Obama won reelection decisively, he won't have much time to celebrate. Many of the nation's problems -- stimulating employment, reducing the deficit, controlling health-care costs, and improving the quality of education -- are very serious, and some of them must be addressed with great urgency. And none of these problems can be addressed simply by waving a magic government wand. To a significant degree, they all involve understanding what motivates current practices -- of business-people, financiers, doctors, patients, teachers, students -- and what levers we may be able to use to change those practices.

Historically, when the need has arisen to change behavior, political leaders have turned to economists. That's one reason why presidents have a Council of Economic Advisers. When economists speak, presidents listen. And when economists have the president's ear, all their whispers are predicated on a set of assumptions about human behavior. Whether it's increasing GDP, reducing unemployment, sustaining Social Security, making sure people are financially prepared for retirement, or stabilizing the financial sector, economists commonly hold certain beliefs. They will for example argue that people are motivated by self-interest and are rational calculators of their interests, and that the most effective way to get people to change the way they behave is by creating the right material incentives.

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There is also growing evidence, some of it provided by psychologists Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth, that the focus on beefing up the cognitive components of education that has dominated reform for the last 30 years may be misplaced. More important may be efforts to cultivate motivation and character (Paul Tough's remarkable new book, How Children Succeed, provides a vivid summary of this work). The importance of character and motivation suggests that the drill-and-test model of education that has become so common may actually be not just ineffective, but counterproductive.

The entire story is here.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

The Half-Life Of Facts: Sam Arbesman at TEDxKC

Editorial note: The following video is about the half-life of facts.  Many lessons can be learned in this brief and fascinating presentation about our knowledge base related to psychology, ethics and ethical decision-making.


Friday, November 23, 2012

A Regular Checkup Is Good for the Mind as Well as the Body

By Ann Carrns
The New York Times
Originally published November 13, 2012

EVERYONE is familiar with the concept of a periodic medical checkup — some sort of scheduled doctor’s visit to check your blood pressure, weight and other physical benchmarks.

The notion of a regular mental health checkup is less established, perhaps because of the historical stigma about mental illness. But taking periodic stock of your emotional well-being can help identify warning signs of common ailments like depression or anxiety. Such illnesses are highly treatable, especially when they are identified in their early stages, before they get so severe that they precipitate some sort of personal — and perhaps financial — crisis.
      
“Absolutely, people should have a mental health checkup,” said Jeffrey Borenstein, editor in chief of Psychiatric News, published by the American Psychiatric Association. “It’s just as important as having a physical checkup.”
 
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Over all, however, 15 percent of employers in the United States do not offer mental health coverage to employees, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. Such benefits may become more widely available in 2014, when many provisions of the Affordable Care Act take effect. Mental health benefits will be part of the “essential package” that must be offered by many insurance plans, including the new state-sponsored insurance exchanges.
 

Military says it's focusing on suicide prevention

By Mike Urban
The Reading Eagle
Originally published November 12, 2012


Fewer of America's troops are heading into combat with the war in Iraq over and the war in Afghanistan nearing a close.

But the demand for mental health care among active duty personnel is increasing, in part because combat has left many in need of help, and because the military is doing more to treat its mentally ill troops, Department of Defense officials said.

Suicide prevention has become one of the military's most urgent concerns, and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder within the military has come a long way in recent years, said Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith.

"We are committed to taking care of our people, and that includes doing everything possible to prevent suicides in the military," she said.

To reduce the long-standing military stigma surrounding mental health problems, the defense department urges commanders to support those in need of care, she said.

The entire story is here.

Army, Navy suicides at record high


By Gregg Zoroya
USA Today
Originally published on November 19, 2012


With six weeks left in the year, the Army and Navy are already reporting record numbers of suicides, with the Air Force and Marine Corps close to doing the same, making 2012 the worst year for military suicides since careful tracking began in 2001.

The deaths are now occurring at a rate faster than one per day. On Nov. 11, confirmed or suspected suicides among active-duty forces across the military reached 323, surpassing the Pentagon's previous high of 310 suicides set in 2009.

Of that total, the Army accounted for 168, surpassing its high last year of 165; 53 sailors took their own lives, one more than last year.

The Air Force and Marine Corps are only a few deaths from record numbers. Fifty-six airmen had committed suicide as of Nov. 11, short of the 60 in 2010. There have been 46 suicides among Marines, whose worst year was 2009 with 52.

The entire story is here.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Emotions Come to Fore in Political Wins and Losses

By Richard Friedman
The New York Times 
Originally published November 12, 2012

Just one look at the dejection on the faces of Romney supporters or the jubilation of Obama supporters on election night should tell you that politics is first and foremost a very emotional affair.

Ann Romney was crying while her husband delivered his terse concession speech, not because a majority of Americans voted against his economic policy, but because of the personal — and highly public — rejection of Mitt Romney as their next president.

Nor were President Obama’s supporters ecstatic because his health care policy would not be overturned. Rather, both camps were in the grip of powerful emotions akin to the passion of spectators rooting for their team at a sporting event.

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But political affiliation is not driven by ideas alone. Most people do not choose a political party by carefully analyzing its policies or even its track record for competence. Instead, some social scientists argue that people select their political party in early adulthood the way they choose their friends or social groups: They go for the party that has people who resemble themselves.

Once you’ve selected your party, you are likely to retrofit your beliefs and philosophy to align with it. In this sense, political parties are like tribes; membership in the tribe shapes your values and powerfully influences your allegiance to the group.

So strong is the social and emotional bond among members of a political tribe that they are likely to remain loyal to their party even when they give it low marks for performance. Yankees fans don’t jump ship when their team loses any more than Republicans switch parties when they lose an election.

The entire blog post is here.