APA

Last week, I presented a poster at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, which took place in San Diego. Poster presentations are always fun because I get to meet others who are interested in similar areas of research. I was even awarded an APA Student Travel Award in order to participate in the convention.

This particular poster reported the results of an analysis of hopelessness, dysfunctional attitudes, and suicide ideation among community-dwelling older adults. As expected, hopelessness and dysfunctional attitudes were positively associated with suicide ideation. Perfectionism emerged as an important component of dysfunctional attitudes. 

The APA recently posted tips for first-time teachers, aimed at graduate students who are starting to teach undergraduate psychology courses. The story also includes a link to the Society for the Teaching of Psychology's website.

The APA Office on Aging recently updated their on-line resource guide for Depression and Suicide in Older Adults. It features empirical journal articles, books, book chapters, and several links to resources for consumers.

I've gotten a few questions recently on how one becomes a geropsychologist. While there are many paths leading to a career in geropsychology, here is one of the most efficient routes:

1) Get a bachelor's degree in Psychology: if not Psychology, another social science (e.g., Sociology) or physical science (e.g., Biology) is also helpful, as long as you take enough Psychology classes to get a basic, broad understanding of the field.

2) Get a doctorate degree in Psychology: if you'd like to go into clinical work, you'll need to complete a program in Clinical or Counseling Psychology. With a bachelor's degree, these programs usually take 5 - 6 years to take classes, write a dissertation, and complete one year of internship. The internship year is typically the last year of one's program and involves full-time clinical work.

3) Get a post-doctoral ("post-doc") position: In order to gain enough supervised clinical experience to be eligible for licensure or additional research experience (and rack up publications), many people choose to do a post-doc. Depending on what your goals are, this could take 1 - 3 years to complete.

Some people (myself included) decide to work or get a master's degree before entering a PhD program. This can add several years to the process, but is often very valuable experience.

Division 12 II of the American Psychological Association (APA) has a lot of useful information for students in geropsychology. APA Division 20 has a comprehensive list of graduate programs that provide specialization in adult development and aging.

Dr. Ken Pope has compiled a cross-disciplinary list of over 100 links to complete copies of codes, guidelines, and standards for psychotherapy and assessment.

A substantial literature has documented that sexual abuse relates to suicidal behaviors but relatively less is known about resilience to suicide, especially cognitive deterrents to suicide.

The present study investigated the effects of a history of sexual victimization on reasons for living. Female participants (N = 138; M age = 24.4 years, SD = 7.3 years; range = 18 to 53 years; 79% Caucasian) completed the Sexual Experiences Survey (SES) and the Reasons For Living (RFL) Inventory. According to SES responses, participants were classified into 5 mutually exclusive groups: no victimization, sexual contact, sexual coercion, attempted rape, and rape. ANOVAs showed that degree of sexual victimization had a significant effect on the RFL Total scale and 2 subscales (Survival and Coping Beliefs; Moral Objections). The general pattern was that mean RFL scores in the no victimization group were significantly higher than the mean scores in the sexual coercion and rape groups.

An implication is that having a history of sexual victimization, especially sexual coercion and rape, limits one’s later reasons for not committing suicide. Bolstering these modifiable deterrents to suicide should be part of suicide prevention efforts among at-risk women.

The current issue of the monthly APA Monitor features geropsychology as one example of an area where psychologists are currently in demand. The main article describes an overview of what geropsychologists do and provides a few helpful links for finding out more about psychology and aging.

Also featured in this issue is Merla Arnold, Ph.D., who describes her work in assisted living settings.

We received news this week that our Ph.D. program is accredited by the American Psychological Association. UCCS now has the first official Clinical Psychology doctoral program with a curricular emphasis in geropsychology!

As a Research Assistant at Lighthouse International, I worked on a support group intervention study. The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a telephone support group in reducing symptoms of depression in individuals caring for an older relative or friend with vision impairment, an often overlooked population.

I was the facilitator of the support group sessions and led two groups with five participants each. In the start-up phase of the project, I created many of the materials used in the program, which covered topics such as enhancing communication, dealing with emotional issues, and handling stressful situations. My colleagues and I presented the results of this study at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association (APA) in August 2007.