Fall/Winter 2004-5 |
Section
on Clinical Emergencies and Crises
American Psychological Assn. Section 7 Contact Info |
In this issue...
Ethical Issues in Research on Behavioral Emergencies and Crises
Subtle Differences between Self-Injury and Suicide in Adolescents
Section VII in Hawaii
Conference Photos
What is Suicidal Behavior? Definitional Problems in Research and Practice
Congratulations to Our Newly Elected Members
Section VII in Hawaii
An Update on the Section’s involvement
at APA, August, 2004
Thanks to Phil Kleespies for his contribution to
this article
In the dark days of December, recollections of the activities of Section VII at the APA convention in Hawaii bring back bright and warm memories. A high point of the Section VII program was the Presidential Address by Dr. Lanny Berman. Lanny’s address was entitled “The Psychological Autopsy in Clinical and Forensic Practice”. He focused on taking a fresh look at the psychological autopsy, a method for attempting to determine if suicide was the cause of death, in light of the recent emergence of the so-called Daubert standard in court proceedings. The Daubert standard requires that evidence presented in court on issues such as cause of death have a firm scientific basis. Given the retrospective nature of the psychological autopsy, this new standard presents challenges in terms of establishing the reliability and validity of the method.
Section VII also sponsored a two hour symposium entitled “Responding to Violence in Hospitals and Communities: Two Innovative Programs”. This symposium featured Dr. Connie Best from the Crime Victims Center in Charleston, SC, who presented on a hospital-based program for seriously injured crime victims, and Dr. Dean Kilpatrick (President-Elect of Section VII) who presented a paper by Dr. Heidi Resnick (who was unable to be at the convention) entitled “Addressing the Psychological Impact of Mass Violence Via Internet Based Interventions”. Dr. Resnick’s paper was based on research that she and her colleagues at the Crime Victims Center had done examining the mental health impact of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
Drs. Phil Kleespies and Bruce Bongar presented the Section VII Career Achievement Award to Dr. Larry Beutler at the Division 12 Awards ceremony on July 30,2004. Dr. Beutler was honored for his many contributions to the science and practice of clinical psychology, and for his support of issues relevant to Section VII. Elizabeth Dexter-Mazza, a graduate student at Pacific University and a pre-doctoral psychology intern at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, received the Section VII Graduate Student Research Award (in absentia) for her excellent dissertation entitled “The Effectiveness of a Standard Suicidology Curriculum Developed by the American Association of Suicidology: A Preliminary Study”