American Psychological Assn.

Advances in clinical cognitive science; formal modeling of processes and symptoms.

Keeping the fact in mind that their work affects the lives of human beings, the contributors of these nine papers explain their research in applications of quantitative cognitive science on charting abnormalities amongst groups and individuals and show how to apply the same techniques to other research, assessment and practice. Contributors describe multinomial processing tree models that measure cognitive deficits, a model-based storage -retrieval analysis for developmental dyslexia, cognitive models for evaluating decision processes, models for visual attention and category learning in amnesia, striatal damage and normal aging, a mathematical approach toward understanding differences in memory-search facilitating stimulus encoding with an emphasis on schizophrenia, quantitative models of cognitive processing in studying cognitive aspects of psychopathology, quantitative response time technologies for measuring cognitive-processing capacity, speech perception neural network simulation in normal neurodevelopment and auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia, and an application to long-term mood-rating time series in the complex dynamics of depression. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Childhood mental health disorders; evidence base and contextual factors for psychosocial, psychopharmacological, and combined interventions.

Brown (psychology, pediatrics, Temple University) brings together nine other authors, selected for their nationally recognized reputations as experts in their respective fields, to review current literature on the effective use, sequencing, and integration of psychotropic medications and psychosocial interventions for children and adolescents. A comparative examination of the risk-benefit ratio of psychosocial and pharmacological treatments, and a discussion of the appropriateness of medication use, are part of the information presented. Disorders addressed include ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, mental retardation, schizophrenia, and elimination disorders. Acknowledging the complexity of these disorders and the need to individualize treatment, the book is intended as a basic yet comprehensive framework for mental health providers. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Directory of unpublished3 experimental mental measures; v.9.

Researchers constantly search for noncommercial test instruments, and this lists those that are recently developed or recently used. It does not evaluate the instruments but gives enough information for researchers to make a preliminary judgment, giving basic test properties and, when possible, additional sources from which researchers can obtain technical information. The compilers consulted 34 professional domestic journals but did not include measures published only in dissertations. The 24 categories include achievement, adjustment, aptitude, attitude, behavior, concept meaning, creativity, development, family, institutional information, motivation, perception, personality, preference, problem solving and reasoning, status, trait measurement, values and vocational interest or evaluation, and each entry includes a purpose, description (number of items, time required, and format), statistics (reliability and validity) and source. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Medical adherence and aging; social and cognitive perspectives.

One of the changes expected as the medical industry deals with the aging of the population is that older people will take a more active role in setting and striving to achieve health goals, coordinating their medical regimes, researching and making decisions about their treatment, and integrating new technology into their lives. Cognitive and social psychologists and related professionals explain how their fields can contribute to understanding and facilitating the new behavior. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Medically unexplained illness; gender and biopsychosocial implications.

Johnson (psychology, University of North Carolina) overviews features and treatment of the most common medically unexplained illnesses seem in primary care: irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and multiple chemical sensitivity. She looks at the ways in which they are aggravated by psychosocial factors, including childhood abuse and stress, and searches for clues as to why medically unexplained illnesses strike women in overwhelmingly disproportionate numbers. She surveys recent research on how psychological, social, and physiological factors may interact and contribute to the development of symptoms, and presents therapy examples to demonstrate how this knowledge can inform practice. Although the book is aimed at psychologists and healthcare professionals, the material is presented in a style accessible to general readers as well. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Pedophilia and sexual offending against children; theory, assessment, and intervention.

Contrary to popular belief, not all sex offenders who target children are pedophiles, and not all pedophiles commit sexual offenses. Seto (psychiatry, criminology, University of Toronto, Canada) addresses key concerns and questions in dealing with these clinical populations. He synthesizes the latest theory and research on detecting pedophilia, the causes of pedophilia and sexual offending, risk assessment of offenders, and what can be done to reduce sexual offenses against children. He demonstrates how this knowledge informs current treatment practices with case examples, sample interview questions, assessment tools, and online resources. The author is a psychologist with the Law and Mental Health Program at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Self-criticism and self-enhancement; theory, research, and clinical implications.

Chang (clinical psychology and Asian/Pacific Islander American studies, U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor) assembles 14 chapters that consider self-criticism and self-enhancement as not necessarily bad or good. Contributors, who are based in North America and Europe, take a complex perspective on the concepts, focusing on the costs and benefits of self-criticism and self-enhancement and going beyond the simple, binary understanding of them. They consider the concepts as multifaceted variables that have different outcomes in different contexts and that they are frameworks for understanding and changing human behavior. They analyze popular ideas of self-enhancement as good and self-criticism as bad and vice versa, cultural differences, and how perspectives can change within different contexts and conditions. Clinical implications are discussed as well. Author and subject indexes are both provided. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)