July 2008

News & Information:

SPECIAL REPORT:
CPA Convention in Anaheim: April 3-6, 2008

By Dr. Edda Schweid
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This year's CPA Convention, held at the Disneyland Resort Hotel, was a rich and varied experience. First of all, the setting was surprisingly pleasant and fun. I must confess I had expected old facilities -- instead, the rooms were very nice, the restaurant excellent, the swimming pools (heated to 75 degrees) marvelous, and the staff friendly. A nice surprise was an area called "Downtown Disney," a busy, long street starting from the back of the Dream Tower, where I stayed, full of shops, sidewalk restaurants, bands playing dance music Friday nights, a movie theater, etc. You did not want for entertainment, even without going to the rides at the Theme Park. A nice continental breakfast was served in the Exhibit Hall every morning as well.

Besides these wonderful side-dishes and amenities, the heart of our convention –- the speakers, papers/panels, and especially the Master Lecturers –- was inspiring and informative. I will mention the ones that were the highlights for me, sequentially.

I. Opening Plenary session: Elyn Saks, JD, Professor of Law, author of The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey through Madness. This was a harrowing story. It was hard to picture this erudite, well-spoken woman undergoing the paranoid schizophrenic episodes she so well described. They corresponded to the classical symptom array we hear if we work with psychotic individuals. But she is also obviously brilliant and ever so admirable.

II. J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D., "Stalking, Threatening, and Attacking Public Figures: The Pathway to Violence." Dr. Meloy gave a useful outline of two types of stalkers -- namely, the predatory kind who is cool, calm, and psychopathic, and the affective kind, who gets emotionally aroused, often acts on spur of the moment passion and does not necessarily pre-plan the crime. I only wish I had read the excellent article by Myrna Glick, Ph.D., in our MBPA Newsletter before that lecture. I would surely have asked Dr. Meloy about his complicity in the conviction of an apparently innocent young man, Tim Masters. Alas, I read the Newsletter article the day I got back!

III. Alice Van Alstine, M.D. and Morgan Sammons, Ph.D., “Psychological Aspects of Medical Disease." This talk was exactly what I had hoped for. Dr. Van Alstine was only able to cover about a quarter of her material, even though we had three hours. The many psychological concomitants of hormonal, autoimmune, neurological, circulatory, etc. diseases were a good reminder of how complex and integrated the whole organism is, and that any thinking of the body and brain as separate is nonsense. Dr. Sammons is a prescribing psychologist, trained originally by the Department of Defense. As a teacher of psychopharmacology at Alliant International University in San Francisco, he added that perspective to the program.

IV. Panel: "Ethics in Psychology" was presented by Ofer Zur, Ph.D. from Sonoma, CA, Melba Vasquez, Ph.D., from Austin, Texas, Eric Harris, Ed.D., JD, legal counsel for the APA Insurance Trust, and Stephen Behnke, JD, Ph.D., of the APA Office of Ethics. Two case histories were distributed and then discussed by the panel. One involved questions of who becomes "holder of the privilege" after a patient commits suicide (answer: the executor of the estate). And what is the psychologist’s ethical and clinically appropriate behavior vis-a-vis the family who wants information. The second case involved a psychologist whose patient confesses she loves him, leaves his care, and they meet again 2.5 years later. What is ethical and/or wise behavior in that case? Good discussions followed.

V. The Sunday luncheon speaker, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D., spoke eloquently and with great spirit on "The Hoe of Happiness." She has conducted years of research on specific instrumental behaviors, such as keeping a thankfulness journal (once a week works better than three times a week), writing letters of gratitude, etc. She reported on short- and long-term effects and self-reported happiness scales. Her book, by the same title, is in print.

VI. The last was my favorite speaker and topic. "Aspects of an Effective Clinical Practice: Research Evidence," by Bruce Wampold, Ph.D., Professor at University of Wisconsin. I cannot do him justice in a brief summary here, so I recommend reading his article in The American Psychologist (November, 2007). The bare bones of his findings are that different theoretical orientations of therapists do not matter in the success of treatment. What matters is an alliance with the patient, setting up goals and tasks, making sense of the patient's difficulties, and reframing in new, positive, and beneficial terms. These ideas may not be new, but his research is.

I would be remiss not to mention our own psychologists, Dani Beckerman, Ph.D. and Diane Bridgeman, Ph.D., presenting on CLASP theory and applications. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend their presentation. But I heard from a reliable source that they did very well indeed –- the blue stress balls were a big hit!