If you’re looking for a good laugh (and sometimes, at the expense of the profession), Showtime’s new comedy, Web Therapy , may be just what you are looking for to blow off some steam after a tough day. Starring Lisa Kudrow as Fiona Wallice, a therapist who invented “web therapy,” the main character, who is sorely lacking in professional skills, makes her living by seeing clients via webcam.

While this is a fictional account of one therapist providing services online (as Fiona’s unique brand of therapy would never pass any kind of ethics codes), the area of telepsychology is a growing one. Although supporters of telepsychology tout a provider’s ability to serve clients all over the world, those who question the practice bring up issues related to licensure issues, privacy concerns, and the general effectiveness of outcomes.

Because the body of research on this practice is still evolving and best practices have not yet emerged, this year’s APA president, Melba J. T. Vasquez, PhD, has made a point to work on creating and adopting guidelines for telepsychology services.

Do you provide services via the web, e-mail, or telephone? How do you feel about the telepsychology movement? What do you think should be included in the guidelines?

PAR author Adele Eskeles Gottfried, professor of educational psychology and counseling at the California State University at Northridge, is being honored by the Western Psychological Association (WPA) at their convention next month in Los Angeles. Dr. Gottfried, creator of the Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (CAIMI), has been named recipient of the WPA’s 2011 Social Responsibility Award based on her research in the field of intrinsic motivation that has contributed to enhancing knowledge about children’s motivational development and educational attainment. In recognition of her award, she has received a special invitation to present at the convention; her talk will be entitled, “Searching for Motivation from Childhood through Adulthood: Findings and Implications.” Dr. Gottfried will also present her research on intrinsic motivation at the 2011 Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Biennial Meeting next week in Montreal. This presentation will be entitled, “Developmental Motivation Roots and the Need for Cognition: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study.”

Dr. Gottfried developed the Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (CAIMI) as a tool to help differentiate motivation from achievement and ability factors in students with academic difficulties. The CAIMI is also useful for counseling students in the general population with regard to academic interests and course selection, in instructional planning to stimulate motivation in weak areas and facilitate intrinsic motivation in strong areas, in providing individualized program planning, and in program and educational evaluation by schools and school districts. In addition, the CAIMI is the basis for the construct of gifted motivation, which addresses the concept that individuals with exceptionally high intrinsic motivation have a history of higher academic competence and functioning. Through the years, the evidence for the validity and stability of the CAIMI has continued to mount. Dr. Gottfried currently has both a book chapter and a journal article in press that extend the CAIMI to leadership literature.

To learn more about Dr. Gottfried’s research, click here for her intrinsic motivation bibliography.

Congratulations to Dr. Gottfried on this honor!

While the forefathers of psychology established many theories that became building blocks of what we study today, sometimes some of our highest-regarded researchers came up with some ideas that don’t necessarily fit with today’s view of the world of psychology. The following are some bits of “wisdom” from some familiar names.

“I wish that one would be persuaded that psychological experiments, especially those on the complex functions, are not improved [by large studies]; the statistical method gives only mediocre results; some recent examples demonstrate that. The American authors, who love to do things big, often publish experiments that have been conducted on hundreds and thousands of people; they instinctively obey the prejudice that the persuasiveness of a work is proportional to the number of observations. This is only an illusion.”
— Alfred Binet (1903). L' Études expérimentale de l'intelligence (p. 299). Paris, France: Schleicher.

“Being in love with the one parent and hating the other are among the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses which is formed at that time and which is of such importance in determining the symptoms of the later neurosis... This discovery is confirmed by a legend that has come down to us from classical antiquity: a legend whose profound and universal power to move can only be understood if the hypothesis I have put forward in regard to the psychology of children has an equally universal validity. What I have in mind is the legend of King Oedipus and Sophocles' drama which bears his name.”
— Sigmund Freud (1953). The Interpretation of Dreams. In J. Strachey (Ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 4, pp. 260-261). Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books (Original work published 1900)

“Since my mother is the type that's called schizophrenogenic in the literature—she's the one who makes crazy people, crazy children—I was awfully curious to find out why I didn't go insane.”
— Abraham Harold Maslow (2001). In Colin Wilson, New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revolution (pp. 155-156). Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books (Original work published in 1972)

What do you think is psychology’s funniest or most interesting misstep?

What Do You Know About Psychology Organizations?

 

31
The original total membership list of the American Psychological Association (APA) at its founding in 1892.

152,000
The number of APA members today.

25,245
The number of members of the National Association of School Psychologists, according to NASP’s 2009 membership statistics.

13
The number of specializations offered by the American Board of Professional Psychologists.

2,823
The number of applicants who successfully matched through the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) in 2010. 846 applicants were not matched to an internship position.

1,090
The number of chapters of Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology for undergraduate and graduate students. Psi Chi chapters are found in the USA, Canada, and Ireland. There are more than 500,000 lifetime members.

Top Psychology Schools in the U.S.

A number of online academic resources have come out with lists of the best U.S. colleges for psychology majors. We decided to take a look at College Crunch, Social Psychology Network, Schoolahh to see which undergraduate programs were highly ranked across the board.

Stanford University in Palo Alto, California ranks number one on all three of the lists above. This isn’t surprising given that Stanford’s psychology department has been collecting kudos for more than fifty years. The philosophy of the department is that success results from the connection between teaching and scientific research. It’s organized into five areas of study within the field of psychology: Cognitive, Developmental, Neuroscience, Personality and Social Psychology. Research at Stanford includes (but is not limited to) topics like aggression, social behavior, competitiveness, dreaming, color perception, spatial relations, learning and memory.

The University of Michigan Ann Arbor appears in the top five of each list. This Big Ten School offers three concentrations: 1) Psychology, 2) Brain, Behavior and Cognitive Science and 3) Neuroscience. The school has many research labs that provide undergraduates with the ability to participate in research studies. Active research studies include African-American racial identity, human brain electrophysiology, human performance and cognition, visual and verbal working memory, affective neuroscience and biopsychology, neuronal mechanisms of movement and reward, and many more.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign appears in the top ten on the lists above largely because of its laboratories for research in human learning, animal learning, physiological psychology, animal motivation, human perception, and social behavior, just to name a few. The school houses extensive computer facilities, a complete animal colony, a fully equipped video laboratory facility for observation and videotape production. The Urbana-Champaign psychology department also operates a psychological clinic and other research and training facilities housed outside of its main building.

Because PAR, Inc. is based in Florida, we’re also familiar with high caliber programs in our Sunshine State. Most notable is University of Florida’s graduate program, which was voted one of the best programs in the country by U.S. News and World Report in 2009. Programs at University of South Florida and University of Miami also earn high marks for their courses of study and resources.

When it comes to common fears, snakes, heights and confined spaces seem to grab all the headlines. But there are hundreds of other phobias we struggle from, including some you may never have heard of:

1.  Chionophobia: February 13, 2010 must have been a particularly bad day for Americans suffering from Chionophobia – a fear of snow. On that day, 49 out of 50 states had snow on the ground. The holdout? Hawaii.

2.  Coulrophobia: Finally! A proper name for our fear of clowns. Coulrophobia often originates with an early childhood experience that’s, well, not very funny.

3.  Phronemophobia: This could win the award for being the world’s most difficult phobia to treat -- the fear of thinking.

4.  Telephonophobia: No word on whether this phobia – a fear of telephones – extends to text messages.

5.  Geniophobia: We were certain this referred to a fear of genies, but the only genies that could scare a Geniophobe would be those with … chins.

Assuming that you don’t suffer from Sesquipedalophobia (fear of long words), we’d like to hear about other unusual phobias you know about. Please use the comment section below to add to our list.

Dear Colleagues,

There are so many new and exciting things to tell you about—our newly updated Web site, our first blog, and the release of several innovative new products; and the availability of the Mini-Mental® State Examination, 2nd Edition™ (MMSE®-2™) forms in 10 new languages. I encourage you to take a few minutes to browse our Web site or download a PDF of our latest catalog and discover all that we have to offer.

Download a PDF of our latest catalog.

I am delighted to announce the upcoming release of four new products: the NEO™ Inventories (NEO-PI-3™/NEO-FFI-3™), the Emotional Disturbance Decision Tree™–Parent Form (EDDT™-PF), the Inventory of Legal Knowledge™ (ILK™), and the Memory for Intentions Test™ (MIST™).

• The NEO-PI-3™ is a concise measure of the five major domains of personality, as well as the six traits that define each domain. Designed to provide a detailed assessment of personality in adolescents and adults, this new edition is appropriate for use with adolescents ages 12 years or older. Thirty-eight items have been revised or edited to lower the reading level and make the instrument more appropriate for younger examinees. In addition, new NEO tools have been created to enhance the usability of the NEO-PI-3™ in occupational and clinical settings. The  also has been revised.


• The EDDT™-PF is designed to assist in the identification of children who qualify for the federal special education category of emotional disturbance (ED). Because many school districts require parental input when making eligibility decisions, the EDDT™-PF was developed to provide a standardized approach to the assessment of ED that encompasses the federal guidelines and addresses the broad emotional and behavioral nuances of this population.


• The ILK™ is a 61-item, orally administered interview designed to help practitioners and researchers quickly evaluate response style in adolescents and adults undergoing evaluations for competence to proceed.


• The MIST™ is an examiner-administered performance-based test of prospective memory skills—the ability to remember to carry out a task in the future.

Additionally, the new MMSE®-2™ forms are being translated into 10 languages, including Spanish for the U.S., German, Italian, Chinese, Dutch, Latin American Spanish, French, Russian, European Spanish, and Hindi. These translations will be available soon. Contact our Customer Support Center for more information.

Finally, I want to thank you for your continued support and for your business. We sincerely appreciate the opportunity to serve you.

R. Bob Smith III, PhD, Chairman and CEO

P.S. PAR has evaluated its proprietary software for compatibility with the recently released Windows® 7. Download our Windows 7 Compatibility Chart to find out if the version of PAR software you are using is compatible with Windows 7. If you have further questions, please call Technical Support at 1.800.899.8378.

Every once in a while a person or publication will try to rank the most influential people in the field of psychology, past and present. Inevitably each list delivers different results, so we want to bring the question to you. Fromm? Freud? Frasier? Who gets your vote? Is there a place on the list for popular culture?

We would love to hear who you think is the most influential person in the history of psychology and why. Please comment.

34

The percentage of psychologists who are self-employed—mainly as private practitioners.*

12

The percentage of employment growth expected between 2008 and 2018 for the overall field of psychology. Clinical, counseling, and school psychology are expected to grow about 11%, while industrial-organization psychology is expected to grow 26%.*

6,800

The projected number of additional neuropsychologists that will be needed by 2018 to keep up with demand.*

2

The number of states that currently allow appropriately-trained psychologists to prescribe medications (Louisiana and New Mexico).*

170,200

The number of jobs held by psychologists in 2008.*

0.270%

The percentage of the employed population who are psychologists in New Mexico, the state with the highest concentration of psychologists. Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and Connecticut all have concentrations of more than 0.1% of their respective populations.*

$87,130

The annual mean wage for psychologists in New Jersey, the top paying state for psychologists.*

93,000

According to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Center for Workforce Studies, the number of practicing psychologists in the U.S.

31

The number of psychologists who are members of a union.*

*Information from the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.

By: James Swain (www.jimswain.com)

I became friends with Bob and Cathy Smith, the founders of PAR, 15 years ago, when we were introduced by a mutual friend. At the time, I knew of their company’s terrific reputation, and that they were strong supporters of many charities in the Tampa Bay area. Recently, I had a chance to sit down with the Smiths and talk about the company’s origins, and what they believe the future holds for their business.

Question: What did you and Cathy do before starting PAR?

Bob Smith: I served as a staff psychologist at the James A. Haley Veteran’s Administration Hospital in Tampa, Florida, and was in private practice as a clinical psychologist from 1975 until 1986.

Cathy Smith: I worked at the VA Hospital for 10 years as a psychiatric nurse.

Question: I ran my own business for 20 years and know how challenging it can be. What compelled you to start PAR?

Bob Smith: I didn’t want to be in clinical practice forever, and yearned to do something on my own. Cathy and I thought of opening a cookware store like Williams-Sonoma, or some other type of business. PAR was more of an experiment.

Question: What was your first product?

Bob Smith: We released our first product in 1978. It was the scoring keys for supplemental scales of the MMPI. Today we sell approximately 400 products on our Web site and through our catalog.

Cathy Smith: We started out with $2,251 in capital. Initially, we ran the business on our kitchen table. Bob’s Uncle “Rip” used to come over to the house and help out.

Question: Do you still have the table?

Cathy Smith: Of course! We are very sentimental. The table is now in the break room of our distribution center. We also still have the Selectric typewriter we used to start the business.

Question: I’ve read that most people who become entrepreneurs are inspired by someone. Did you have an inspiration?

Bob Smith: My father ran his own CPA firm for many years. I’m sure that had an influence on my decision to go out on my own. I always wanted to create something of my own. I was also inspired by Tom Peter’s book, A Passion for Excellence. I still have the dog-eared copy of that book on my office bookshelf.

Question: It takes a strong marriage for a husband and wife to work together. You and Cathy seem extremely happy. How do you do it?

Bob Smith: Cathy and I are able to work together because we share a mutual respect for one another. We share similar values and are passionate about many of the same things.

Cathy Smith: Bob runs the business and the final decisions are his. Only one person is responsible in the end, and that’s Bob. That is the difference between leaders and bosses.

Question: Many small businesses don’t make it past 5 years. Did you ever think that PAR might not make it?

Bob Smith: For the first 8 years, Cathy and I took no compensation, and we reinvested everything we made into PAR. At one point in the early 1980s, we thought the business might not survive. We managed things very conservatively, which helped us survive during leaner times.

Question: PAR has grown a great deal since those early days. How large is the company now?

Bob Smith: We presently have 58 full-time employees.

Question: I’ve had the opportunity to spend time in your offices, and talk with your employees. They are a very happy group of people, and seem to genuinely enjoy working here. How do you accomplish that?

Bob Smith: We try to take very good care of our staff. For the most part, when people start working here, they want to stay, and we want them to stay. We have 24 employees who have been here over 10 years. We know that in order to expect our employees to take good care of our Customers, it is important for us to take good care of them.

Question: Which leads me to my next question. In order to succeed, a company must have a core philosophy. What is yours?

Bob Smith: We hire smart people who are very conscientious. We surround ourselves with people we want to be around. PAR employees are our extended family. You must invest up front, and find the right people to succeed.

Visit our blog Thursday, May 20th for the conclusion of the interview with PAR founders, Bob and Cathy Smith.