letters

Work, love and play

We are writing to thank Dr. Seligman for his profoundly enlightening column in the August, 1998 Monitor entitled 'Work, love and play.' The proposed conceptual model represents an evolution beyond the existing paradigms for experimental and applied psychology, and it creates new opportunities for collaboration within the discipline of psychology. Perhaps there can be another conference in Boulder to elaborate the model and to develop a strategy for implementation? Thank you for your inspiration.

Janine Scheiner, PhD
Peter Mills, PhD
Norwich, Vt.

Martin E.P. Seligman wrote that work, love and play are 'the three great realms of life,' but that many fine psychology departments have no faculty with expertise in those areas. My research supports his observation; people mention work, love and leisure when asked about the most meaningful aspect of their life. However, many psychology departments do have scholars whose research focuses on vocational behavior, and the study of attraction (liking and loving) is now a core area in social psychology.

Sadly, psychologists continue to ignore play, or more broadly, leisure. I know of fewer than half a dozen psychologists whose primary research interest involves the study of leisure. I do not know of a single psychology department that offers an organized program of study in the psychology of leisure. In fact, my class on the psychology of leisure is the only one I know of in the United States that is offered within a psychology department.

Leisure is highly valued by most persons, but few psychologists seem to wonder why, or what that means. As a consequence, we know relatively little about the effects of leisure on physical health, mental health and life satisfaction. The effects of too much and too little leisure are poorly understood, and the implications of leisure deficit and leisure surfeit for social policies involving the structure of work, the criminal justice system, the prevention of personally injurious behaviors, and the amelioration of physical and mental illness are unknown.

Howard E. A. Tinsley, PhD
Gainesville, Fla.

The freedom to move from state to state

As a licensed psychologist in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, I well appreciate and identify with Patrick McGuire?s August report on the ASPPB?s initiation of a 'Certificate of Professional Qualification' in psychology. I know from personal experience that reapplying for state licensure is, at best, time-consuming and often a lion?s den of bureaucratic snafus for previously practicing licensed psychologists.

A national consortium recognized by all regulatory licensing boards would make it easier for psychologists moving from state to state. However, what does CPQ offer that the National Register of Health Care Providers in Psychology does not? The Register compiles credentials: degree and coursework, clinical specialties, documentation of supervised hours and other state licenses for all its applications. It seems to me that CPQ is redundant and yet another expense. Will the Register of Health Care Providers become extinct? Why don?t the states recognize the function of the National Register, which has been a compendium of data on psychologists for many years?

Susan E. Barbour, EdD
Oshkosh, Wisc.

Practitioners in denial

Regarding the 'In my opinion' column in the July Monitor, I believe Dr. Lipsitz missed an important point. Not only are psychologists in denial about the impact of managed care, we have denied our capacity to fight the movement. We?ve too easily believed the early dire predictions of the demise of the independent practitioner, and our state and national associations, in an effort to prepare us for the future, have helped us to do so. Rarely do I hear psychologists say they have opted not to participate in managed-care programs.

I resigned from all the managed-care plans several years ago. Despite my initial fears, I have never been happier. I am certainly no worse off financially. My clients understand that they pay for a service that has value. There is therefore a more strictly ethical contract between us. A steep

sliding-fee scale allows me to see whomever I wish to see. And I have found that many insurance companies will reimburse the client for some portion of my fees. My client records are now truly confidential, and I am no longer a party to systematic discrimination against those with mental illness who need services. Although this path initially meant reducing my fees in many cases, the investment was highly worthwhile in the long run.

I realize this solution may be difficult for some to make reality. Yet there is need for our services everywhere, and if we don?t defend our professional independence and the value of our services, no one will.

Michael F. O?Connor, PhD
Palo Alto, Calif.

Credit the original theorists

I was disappointed in the article on emotional intelligence in the workplace by Bridget Murray in the July Monitor.

Daniel Goleman has done the field of psychology a valuable service by expanding upon and especially by popularizing the notion of emotional intelligence originally set forward by Peter Salovey and Jack Mayer. Goleman?s contribution is well represented by this article. There are two aspects of the article that troubled me, however.

First, one can understand why lay media would concentrate on the popularization rather than on the scientific theory underlying the popularization. But it is disappointing when the Monitor contains no more than passing references to the work of the originators of the concept and theory. Many individuals have expanded upon and popularized the work of theorists such as Freud or Skinner, but at least the original theorists still receive major credit and attention from psychologists.

Second, given the growing body of carefully designed empirical research that now exists on emotional intelligence (both pro and con), it is disappointing that this research was largely ignored. Psy-chologists deserve at least a taste of what has been and is about to be published in scientific journals as well as of what is to be published in popular psychology books.

I do not mean to detract from the outstanding contribution that Daniel Goleman has made. But articles such as this one do a disservice to the field in passing over the scientific contributions that are at the core of our discipline.

Robert J. Sternberg
New Haven, Conn.

Self-esteem issues

I am writing in response to Dr. Seligman?s July column 'The American way of blame.' Notable to me was the absence of any mention of how the youths of whom he spoke developed their 'mean streak.' As a clinical psychologist, my experience has been that it is childhood physical and sexual abuse, and neglect, which are major contributing factors to further violence perpetrated by these same children and teens?not too much 'self esteem' as Dr. Seligman suggests.

A study recently published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine reported that even two 'spankings' a week was positively correlated with increased cheating, lying, disobedience and cruelty to other children up to two years later. How many beatings or rapes and head injuries secondary to abuse or neglect does it take to create a young murderer? It may well be advised for middle-class Americans to '...spend more time with their kids.' However, if we can believe all of our own studies about the high correlation between abuse and neglect and eventual violent, criminal behavior, then some of these young murderers may prefer to have spent a little less time with certain abusive parents or caregivers. Dr. Seligman suggests we are too much of a 'victim' society and individuals need to take responsibility for their actions. What about an 11-year-old murderer, or one who is 8? Who then is accountable? Violence begets violence, and I think far more goes into creating a young murderer than a double dose of self-esteem training and a 'mean streak.'

Perhaps these violent youths are also the 'victims' of well-meaning but naïve psychologists who make glib prescriptions for their, most likely, violence-ridden lives.

Sara K. Sexton, PsyD
Scottsbluff, Neb.

There is something about Mary

As a former undergraduate student of Dr. Mary Ainsworth in child and personality psychology courses at Johns Hopkins, I greatly appreciated Richard McCarty?s tribute to her in his 'Science directions' column in the August Monitor. Along with her outstanding work in child and developmental psychology cited in this article, Dr. Ainsworth also made significant contributions to the field of clinical assessment. Not only did she co-author Klopfer?s Developments in the Rorschach Technique, she also wrote a highly insightful article in the 1951 issue of the British Journal of Medical Psychology on the challenges of validating the Rorschach and other projective techniques.

Malcolm Kahn, PhD
Ypsilanti, Mich.

Other explanations

We enjoyed reading about the courageous lives of Ian Waterman and Ginette Lizotte and the important research of Cole, Bard, McNeill and co-workers in the June Monitor. We are writing because there are alternate explanations for Waterman?s inability to move without visual feedback that need to be considered. Your article indicates that Waterman falls to the floor when the lights go out because some sensory input is necessary for movement and the maintenance of posture. Research by Taub and co-workers has demonstrated that monkeys from whose forelimbs all somatic sensation has been surgically abolished by dorsal rhizotomy are able to use their forelimbs, albeit clumsily, even when they were unable to view them. Given that all of Waterman?s somatic sensation was not totally destroyed and that we are not certain of the exact damage to the nervous system caused by the viral infection, alternate explanations for Waterman?s behavior include an imbalance in afferent input to central nervous structures or some CNS damage that is not apparent on neurological examination. Or Waterman might have experienced aversive events when first attempting to move without visual feedback that conditioned him to avoid such movement. We have termed this mechanism 'learned nonuse' and have shown that it occurs following deafferentation in monkeys (Taub 1977, 1980) and after stroke in humans (Taub et al., 1993; Taub, Crago & Uswatte, 1998). These hypotheses do not detract from the heroism displayed byWaterman and Lizotte in running their 'daily marathon.' Rather they are offered to encourage the investigators to test alternate explanations for such motor deficits.

Gitendra Uswatte, PhD
Ed Taub, PhD
Birmingham, Ala.

Clarification on ADHD

We are concerned about comments attributed to Donald Hentula, PhD, in the July article 'Mental disabilities no barrier to smooth and efficient work.' In a sidebar to the article, Dr. Hentula is described as supporting the position that physical or mental impairments can be turned to assets in a suitable work environment. As an example, he cites individuals with adult ADHD who, according to him, can be disabled in circumstances requiring sustained attention, but advantaged when the job requires quick decision-making and 'brief, intense periods of activities, such as options trading or corporate sales.' Dr. Hentula added that individuals with ADHD, because they are 'particularly adroit' at networking and socializing, would be especially suited for managerial positions.

Dr. Hentula?s position is unsupported by a vast research literature on the nature and consequences of ADHD. Despite an increasingly popular trend toward romanticizing the disorder by viewing it as potentially adaptive, the evidence shows that individuals who meet criteria for the disorder display profound weaknesses in self-regulatory skills and executive functions. Furthermore, the literature documents that individuals with this disorder are anything but 'adroit' at social skills. In fact, they demonstrate serious problems interacting effectively with others.

To portray these deficits as advantageous in routine situations underestimates the seriousness of their difficulties. More importantly, it can cause managers to have unreasonable expectations for ADHD employees who, as a group, will not be able to live up to the billing promoted by the 'ADHD as an asset' stance. Rather than receive accommodations that truly address the impact of their disorder, employees with ADHD will instead be expected to perform even better than others in situations they are ill-suited to manage.

Sam Goldstein, PhD
Salt Lake City, Utah
Russell A. Barkley, PhD
Worcester, Mass.
Michael Gordon, PhD
Syracuse, N.Y.

Keep up the diversity

As an African-American psychologist, I was very pleased to see the pictures and stories of fellow African-American psychologists in your July article on 'Psychologists brave new career ventures.' I may be getting carried away, but I even enjoyed seeing the African-American male in the advertisement about more life insurance on page 17. It is so important for up-and-coming as well as seasoned ethnic minority psychologists to see and read about those like them. Please keep the diversity of ethnic images coming.

Carlton H. Oler, PhD
Huntsville, Ala.

The wrong message

The August 'Newsline' on the effectiveness of abstinence versus safe sex sends the wrong message to our professionals and the youth we serve. First, the title of the article is misleading and does not accurately represent the findings of the research. One is left with the impression that abstinence is not a worthy goal. Furthermore, while the journal authors did not comment on the psychological and emotional ramifications of sexual intimacy outside of committed relationships for adolescents who are still in the process of forming their identity, I am concerned that the professionals writing in our paper ignored this as well. In addition, the editorial accompanying the publication, which criticized governmental policies promoting abstinence, provided an opportunity for our field to utilize our skills to more thoroughly analyze the problem and offer solutions. However, instead of reviewing the data to make recommendations on how abstinence programs could be improved and their effectiveness sustained, the reader was left with the impression that the authors? criticism was the only opinion. It is time that we as professionals fight for the global physical and psychological health of our clients, rather than settling for mere physical safety, at the expense of meeting their developmental needs.

Frank J. Moncher, PhD
Augusta, Ga.

Too much hype

The August front page article on school shootings is misguided hype! It suggests that there is a 'plague' of homicidal youth violence in the schools for which psychologists lack a plausible explanation. First, there is no epidemic. The number of shootings by youth in the U.S. schools has declined over the past six years as documented by Vincent Schiraldi of the Justice Policy Institute. A child has a one-in-a-million chance of being shot at school. The hype about dramatic school shootings that creates the misperception that there is a huge wave of such killings only serves to distract us from where the big problems are. More than 90 percent of children who are killed are killed by an adult and are killed in their homes. Second, Dr. Seligman had just offered a very reasonable explanation for this salient phenomenon which included the challenging of over inflated self-esteem in already aggressive youth, spurred on by the easy accessiblility of guns and the exploitive media coverage leading to copy-cat crimes. So finally, here is our APA news source failing to investigate or challenge, but merely repeating the false perceptions from the lay media, feeding the media frenzy and misdirection our attention from the big picture. We can do better.

Henry Steinberger, PhD
Madison, Wisc.

I am surprised at the sensationalistic approach on the article of the August 1998 article on school shootings. Like the lay media, the Monitor, too, looked for a way to develop a 'profile' of young assassins. How ironic that the president?s theme for the APA Annual Convention was 'Promoting strength, resilience and health in young people' but the article neglected any mention of prevention. Perhaps we need to truly show leadership and admit that there is no one profile. Rather than take a deficit model approach of looking at 'at-risk' youth, we should advocate for what we can do for all kids! No one kid should feel alienated or angry enough to commit such heinous acts. As psychologists, we need to remind ourselves and the public that kids need adult mentorship; connection to school, friends and family; and feelings of self-worth. By reaching out to all kids, we avoid the pervasive I-don?t-care attitudes, which enabled those shooters to act.

Rob Weisskirch
Fullerton, Calif.