Review several of your colleagues’ posts, and respond to at least two of your peers by 11:59 p.m. on Day 7 of the week.

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Week 3 – Discussion

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Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.

Addressing and Confronting Bias and Prejudice

Prior to beginning work on this discussion, please read Chapters 8, 12, and 13 in DSM 5 Made Easy: The Clinician’s Guide to Diagnosis; Chapter 2 in Turning Points in Dynamic Psychotherapy: Initial Assessment, Boundaries, Money, Disruptions and Suicidal Crises; Chapter 5 in The Psychiatric Interview: Evaluation and Diagnosis; all required articles; and review the PSY645 Fictional Sociocultural Case Studies (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. document.

One of the most important aspects of developing competence in psychopathology is to be as honestly and completely aware as possible of your personal attitudes toward people who have mental health conditions. Through this awareness, we are better able to challenge our own biases and prejudicial views in order to be more open to the findings within scholarly research.

For your initial post in this discussion, choose one of the three case studies from the PSY645 Fictional Sociocultural Case Studies (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. document, and write a detailed description of your uncensored personal observation of the patient depicted. Describe at least one theoretical orientation you would use to conceptualize your view of the patient’s problem and how it may have developed. Identify the issues you might focus on in treatment with this patient. Be sure to identify within your post which of the three case studies you have chosen.

Guided Response: Review several of your colleagues’ posts, and respond to at least two of your peers by 11:59 p.m. on Day 7 of the week. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful interactive discourse in this discussion.

Examine your colleague’s initial post, and formulate a possible response. Research a minimum of two peer-reviewed articles that support the views presented in your response. Compose a response that uses a sociocultural perspective to assess the validity of your colleague’s observation and his or her proposed direction of treatment.

Outline any biases or prejudicial views you observe in your colleague’s post which may affect their conceptualization of the patient’s problems. Remember that your colleague is being open and honest regarding his or her personal views; therefore, your task is to provide persuasive information to encourage your colleague to adopt a view that is supported by peer-reviewed literature. Pay close attention to the tone of your response to ensure your colleague will not become defensive when reading it. Be sure to use at least two peer-reviewed sources to support your statements.

Evaluate the information by identifying any information in the scenario that correlates to the problem. Then, state based on your analysis if this supporting information shows causation [cause and effect] or correlation [co-relation]. Justify your rationale.

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Assignment 1: Anatomy of a Problem

Man with a light bulb over his head (indicating an idea has come to mind.)After examining a problem, creating a hypothesis is the next step. As you gather information relevant to the problem, you may consider the causation and correlation of particular facts. You begin to interpret the problem and plan a course of action; thus, a practical solution is formed. In addition to the information that you gather, your intuition may play a role in your interpretation of the problem and your plan of action.

Read the 9/11 Commission Report in this week’s Learning Resources. Revisit the Causation vs. Correlation webpage, and download the Week 2 Assignment Handout: Problem Scenarios.

For this Assignment, you take the role of a problem-solving consultant giving feedback to a client. The client has provided you with information and stated his or her view of the problem.

Team working togetherThe Week 2 Assignment Handout: Problem Scenarios contains three client scenarios; select one to address for this Assignment.

Assuming that the information provided in the scenario you selected is accurate, identify what information is relevant to the problem described in the scenario and what further information is needed to analyze the problem fully.

Based on your analysis of the information presented in the scenario, determine whether any information shows causation (cause and effect) and whether any information shows correlation (co-relation).

You may want to rearrange the information using a visual tool to help you analyze the information more effectively. You may refer to your course text, Visual Tools for Transforming Information Into Knowledgefor visual tool ideas.

Note to Students: Keep in mind your major or field of interest when selecting one of the three scenarios in the handout. For some of you, your selection could connect to the Final Project where you are asked to identify a social change issue or a social problem related to your major or field of interest.

By Day 7

Submit a 2- to 3-page paper in which you do the following:

  • Create a problem statement that explains your client’s problem.
  • Evaluate the information by identifying any information in the scenario that correlates to the problem. Then, state based on your analysis if this supporting information shows causation [cause and effect] or correlation [co-relation]. Justify your rationale.
  • Include two different perspectives of the problem that would influence the information needed and the approach taken in solving the problem. One approach should be your approach as the consultant. The other perspective could be another individual or party identified in the scenario or another party that would likely have a perspective on the problem.
  • Create a hypothesis that might assist you in solving the problem.
  • Analyze how intuition may play a role for someone involved in solving this problem.
Submission and Grading Information

To submit your completed Assignment for review and grading, do the following:

  • Please save your Assignment using the naming convention “WK2Assgn1+last name+first initial.(extension)” as the name.
  • Click the Week 2 Assignment 1 Rubric to review the Grading Criteria for the Assignment.
  • Click the Week 2 Assignment 1 link. You will also be able to “View Rubric” for grading criteria from this area.
  • Next, from the Attach File area, click on the Browse My Computer button. Find the document you saved as “WK2Assgn1+last name+first initial.(extension)” and click Open.
  • If applicable: From the Plagiarism Tools area, click the checkbox for I agree to submit my paper(s) to the Global Reference Database.
  • Click on the Submit button to complete your submission.
Grading Criteria

To access your rubric:
Week 2 Assignment 1 Rubric

Check Your Assignment Draft for Authenticity

To check your Assignment draft for authenticity:
Submit your Week 2 Assignment 1 draft and review the originality report.

Submit Your Assignment by Day 7

To submit your Assignment:
Week 2 Assignment 1

Assignment 2: Required Summary Blog Post

To prepare for this blog post:

In one paragraph, summarize how the resources in Week 2 extend your understanding of problem solving.

By Day 5

Post this paragraph in your blog.

By Day 7

Read your colleagues’ blogs and consider what resonates with you. Contribute to at least one colleague’s blog.

Submission and Grading Information
Grading Criteria

Propose a study: In the meta-analysis discussion section, the subsection entitled “The Last Word” contains 4–5 suggestions for further studies in Christian counseling.

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Discussion Board Topic: Religious Counseling Meta-Analysis 

Preliminary Reading: McCullough, M.E. (1999). Research on religion-accommodative counseling: Review and meta-analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 46(1), p. 92–98. (attached)

Thread Prompt: As you have been studying this module/week, a meta-analysis is a study that statistically combines the results of several studies on a similar topic. By calculating an overall mean effect size, meta-analyses help provide information on the effects of treatments over and above the individual studies themselves. McCullough’s meta-analysis examines several studies that compare Christian counseling techniques to standard, non-religious counseling techniques. Imagine you are working in a community clinic with a variety of counselors, and you are interested in alerting the clinic supervisors to this meta-analysis and possibilities for future research that could be conducted in your clinic. Write a professional email to your supervisor and include the following required information:

1. Briefly describe how many studies are represented in this meta-analysis and what the main findings of the meta-analysis were.

2. In your opinion, why is this meta-analysis important in the context of Christian counseling, even though the results are not significant? Support your answer with information from the article.

3. Propose a study: In the meta-analysis discussion section, the subsection entitled “The Last Word” contains 4–5 suggestions for further studies in Christian counseling. Choose 1 that interests you and briefly propose a quantitative study to investigate this topic. The description of your proposed study must include:

a) Your research question;

b) A short description of the target participants (gender, age, diagnosis or problem area, etc.);

c) The independent and dependent variables, and how many levels/groups the independent variable would have;

4. The type of outcome measure to serve as your dependent variable, as well as its level of measurement (nominal, ordinal, scale?). The measure could be a questionnaire, self-report, therapist rating of illness severity, number of diagnostic criteria met, etc. This can be something you come up with yourself. You do not have to name an actual existing instrument unless you know of one.

5. Include references in current APA style for any sources, including the meta-analysis.

The psychologist must personally interview the applicant and provide a summary of the applicant’s personal, educational, employment, and criminal history.

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prior to beginning work on this discussion, read Chapter 11 in the text, the articles by Baez (2013), Hogan, Barrett, and Hogan (2007), Morgeson, Campion, and Dipboye (2007), Peterson, Griffith, Isaacson, O’Connell, and Mangos (2011), and the Maximizing Human Potential Within Organizations (Links to an external site.) and Building Better Organizations (Links to an external site.) brochures on the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) website.

Evaluate the MMP1-2-RF Police Candidate Interpretive Reports for Mr. C (Links to an external site.). and Ms. D. (Links to an external site.) For this discussion, you will take on the role of an industrial-organizational psychologist recently awarded a contract to evaluate potential police candidates. The purpose of the evaluations is to determine the psychological capability of the applicants to be certified as police officers in your state. The applicants you are examining are applying for certification and will be vested with a position of public trust. If certified as police officers, the individuals will likely be required at some future time to exercise significant physical strength and undergo high emotional stress. As the examining psychologist, you are required to comment on the applicants’ social comprehension, judgment, impulse control, potential for violence, and/or any psychological traits that might render her or him psychologically at risk to be certified. The state requires that each applicant’s examination include the following elements:

Interview and History: The psychologist must personally interview the applicant and provide a summary of the applicant’s personal, educational, employment, and criminal history.

Required Personality Test: The applicant shall be administered any current standard form of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) by the licensed psychologist who interviewed the individual, or by a paraprofessional employed by and under the direct control and supervision of that licensed psychologist.

Other Testing Methods: If (after conducting the required test) the licensed psychologist is unable to certify the applicant’s psychological capability or risk to exercise appropriate judgment and restraint to be certified as a police officer, the psychologist is directed to personally employ whatever other psychological measuring instrument(s) and/or technique(s) deemed necessary to form her or his professional opinion. The use of any such instrument(s) and/or technique(s) requires a full and complete written explanation to the commission.

For the purposes of this discussion, assume the interview and history information reported to you by Mr. C. and Ms. D. is unremarkable and that neither candidate communicated anything to you during the interview that raised concerns about her or his capabilities to exercise appropriate judgment and restraint to be certified as a police officer. Review the MMP1-2-RF Police Candidate Interpretive Reports for Mr. C. (Links to an external site.) and Ms. D. (Links to an external site.) and evaluate the professional interpretation of this testing and assessment data from an ethical perspective.
In your initial post, communicate your conclusions about Mr. C. and Ms. D., either recommending certification or communicating reservations. After you have made your decision, begin the section on each candidate with one of the following statements, identifying each candidate by name.

To recommend certification: I have examined [insert applicant’s name], and it is my professional opinion that this person is psychologically capable of exercising appropriate judgment and restraint to be certified as a police officer.
Follow the above statement with a one-paragraph rationale for your conclusion based on the available test results.
Follow the rationale with a brief comparison of any additional assessment instruments you might consider administering beyond the MMPI-2-RF. Debate the pros and cons of the potential use of other assessments. Explain any ethical implications that may arise from the interpretation of this data.

To communicate reservations: I have examined [insert applicant’s name], and it is my professional opinion that this person is psychologically at risk for exercising appropriate judgment and restraint to be certified as a police officer.
Follow the statement with a one-paragraph rationale for your conclusion based on the available test results.
Follow the rationale with a brief comparison of any additional assessment instruments you recommend administering beyond the MMPI-2-RF. Debate the pros and cons of using other assessments. Explain any ethical implications that may arise from the interpretation of this data.