Journal of Projective Psychology and Mental Health: Volume 27, Number 2, July 2020 Editorial |
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| 1. Editorial: Assessment of Depression: Which are the Prominent Mental Health Instruments in Research Studies? Chris Piotrowski (Email: cpiotrowski@uwf.edu), Pages 63-67. Historically, the assessment of depression has garnered a central role in evaluation of mental health (Brantley et al., 2004; Cusin, et al., 2010; IsHak et al., 2002; Piotrowski, 1996). Indeed, a perusal of 2 popular texts on psychological assessment (i.e., Hunsley & Mash, 2008; Maruish, 2000) finds several chapters on the issue of depression in children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. Noteworthy, several modern scales purporting to assess depression levels have gained the attention of clinicians and assessment faculty. For example, instruments like the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS; Young et al., 2019), and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS: see Turk et al., 2015) may offer alternative avenues for the efficient, brief assessment of mood states. A careful review of rankings of the most popular tests reported in ‘test usage’ studies, over the past 50 years, indicates that symptom-focused scales in the area of depression have been quite prominent (see Archer et al., 1991), including usage at psychology internship sites (Piotrowski & Belter, 1999). Piotrowski and Lubin (1990) found the following instruments highly ranked by clinical-health psychologists in the assessment of depression: the MMPI, Beck Depression Inventory, Profile of Mood States, the Zung Self-Rating scale for Depression, the CES-D; the Children’s Depression Inventory and the Geriatric Depression Scale were used moderately. More recently, a national survey of professional psychologists found that symptom-specific measures, including the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), were the most frequently used tests (Wright et al., 2017). It would be of interest to examine the level of clinical acceptance of various measures of depression over the past few decades. One approach would be to determine the magnitude of usage of depression assessment instruments most noted by researchers in the mental health field. To that end, the current exercise involved an online search in the database PsycINFO. The main keyword was ‘depression’ which needed to appear as a term in the Title of published articles. In order to appreciate changes over time, this analysis was performed across 3 timeframes (1920-1989; 1990-2004; 2005-2020). The issue was not in the total number of articles, but in the ranking of the top tests which were the most emphasized across research studies. Aggregated results of these analyses, with a listing of the top assessment instruments cited across thousands of studies are presented in the paper. 2. Presidential Address: “Advances in Projective Psychology: Techniques and Applications” Bankey L. Dubey, President SIS, pages 68-70. (Delivered by Dr. Bankey L. Dubey, Global Director, Dubay Healing Center 7490 Coon Club Road, Medina, OH-44256 Email: bldubey@gmail.com, during 9th SIS International Conference, SGT University, Gurugram Delhi (India) pages 68-70. As most of you are aware, Herman Rorschach introduced the first inkblot test “The Rorschach Inkblot test” in 1921 with 10 inkblots cards followed by “Holtzman Inkblot test” in 1956 with two series each with 45 cards. Then in 1980 Wilfred A. Cassell introduced the 20 card Somatic Inkblot test called SIS-I. He then introduced the 62 image SIS-II in CD and Booklet form. These tests have attracted immense interest from research scholars with twelve PhD’s already awarded and many more in the pipeline. Five of these twelve PhD’s have happened under the guidance of one superhuman. I will take a moment to recognize this superhuman, Dr. Rakesh Jain. In 1994, the SIS Journal of Projective Psychology & Mental Health was launched by the SIS society. The journal has started its 27th year and is going strong under the leadership of Dr. Naveen Gupta, Editor in Chief and Director of Hindustan Institute of Management & Computer Studies, Farah, Mathura. The Somatic Imagery test measures certain important personality traits such as productivity, imaginative ability, controlled emotionality, good adjustment, group conformity, interpersonal relationship, team building, sharing common view of things, self/ego states, erotic fantasy, pessimistic attitude, aggressive expression and suspicious attitude. The instrument measures these traits in high and low scores. It is an agile personality assessment tool that can be used by Clinical Psychologists, Counsellors, School Psychologists, Mental Health Practitioners and HR Professionals. I would like to share our plan in future. We have launched the Dubay Healing Center under the leadership of Anand Dubey with the mission of raising the level of mental health education and intervention worldwide. The Dubay Healing Center team is utilizing the latest techniques in artificial intelligence to categorize, score and interpret patient and client responses using established norms. A large data warehouse is bringing documented/published cases from research to real life practice and thus providing an invaluable aide to diagnostic practices and practitioners. A whole new generation of computer savvy psychologist can utilize the DHC system to learn projective techniques and raise the rates of therapeutic intervention worldwide. 3. Understanding Rorschach Research: Using the Mihura (2019) Commentary as a Reference, Jason M. Smith, Carl B. Gacono, Patrick Fontan, Ted B. Cunliffe, & Anne Andronikof, pages 71-82. Mihura‘s (2019) recent commentary on Smith et al.‘s (2018) article, ―A Scientific Critique of Rorschach Research: Revisiting Exner‘s Issues and Methods in Rorschach Research (1995)‖ raised several issues surrounding our internal validity criteria and our approach to validating Rorschach research. Mihura also conducted additional statistical analyses that failed to address important, critical issues. In this article, we further clarify the importance of refining internal validity criteria for Rorschach research and Rorschach meta-analytic studies (our 2018 article). We offer this information and analysis to guide the Rorschach consumer toward a better understanding of how to assess the validity of Rorschach data and empirical findings. Criticisms of our criteria for evaluating Rorschach research (inter-rater reliability, IQ/Education level, Rorschach Responses, Lambda/F%, sample size) and our recommendation to include descriptive data for critical variables in all published Rorschach studies contradict accepted standards for Rorschach research. Mihura stated that ―the associations between the Rorschach and self-report measures were not used to determine the validity of Rorschach variables‖ (p. 171) in her meta-analyses. Consequently, we applied our methodological criteria to only Mihura‘s externally assessed criteria studies (removing self-report studies; 67%) and found that 91% had three or more problems related to internal validity (13 had counter-intuitive findings). In addition, other central issues related to meta-analyses, application/validation studies, and counter-intuitive findings regarding the Rorschach were discussed. 4. Co-Morbidity of Sleep Disorders in Veterans with PTSD: An Integrated Synopsis of 109 Studies (1995-2020), Chris Piotrowski, pages 83-97. Sleep disturbances are a prominent feature of PTSD, quite evident in the veteran population. The scope of published literature on the PTSD-Sleep nexus is rather voluminous; yet reviews on this body of scholarship, from a bibliometric perspective, are rather nonexistent. The current study aims to provide a synthesis of this select literature using a bibliometric content analysis approach. To that end, the dataset was targeted on primary research, i.e., peer-reviewed articles indexed in the database PsycINFO. The search was limited to studies where the focus was on the combined topics of sleep disorders and PTSD (in veteran populations only), evident from the Abstract of individual articles. This procedure yielded 109 articles spanning 1995-2020. The author reviewed and summarized each study to garner the main findings of the investigation. The aggregate findings were then integrated into a summary report, based on the consensus of the analysis. The main conclusions were: In terms of investigatory focus, the most prominent topics were nightmares, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and insomnia; several subject areas exhibited moderate levels of research attention, i.e., sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, TBI, combat or blast exposure, and sleep-related body movements. Furthermore, depression and pain represented 12% of the dataset of articles. Noteworthy, nearly all studies noted the efficacy of Cognitive-Behavioral and Imagery Rehearsal approaches in the treatment of Sleep-PTSD symptomatology. Overall, this body of scholarly literature confirms the poly-morbidity of conditions involving the PTSD-Sleep nexus in veteran populations. 5. Psychological Trauma and Resulting Physical Illness: A Review. Rachana Kumari and Anjana Mukhopadhyay, pages 98-104. People who have experienced psychological trauma have higher rates than the general population of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses including cardiovascular disease, neuroendocrinal functioning, reproductive system and gastrointestinal disorders. There are numerous studies showing that individuals who are exposed to a traumatic event have an increased likelihood of poor self-reported health, morbidity (as indicated by physical exam or laboratory tests), utilization of medical services, and mortality. The aim of this review is to examine the relationship between psychological trauma and physical health. A review of the current research findings show a link between exposures to traumatic events (such as war, disasters, motor accidents, domestic violence, crime and sexual assault) and subsequent physical health. 6. Somatic Imagery Test (SIT) as a Measure of Trauma Resolution in a Case of Abortion. Nicole Compagnoni & Bankey L. Dubey, pages 107-111. This case was selected to illustrate the use of Somatic Inkblot test (SIT) in a woman who had been traumatized by abortion almost 6 months before. She expressed how she was feeling happy after knowing she has conceived and wanted to become a mother. It was a kind of forced decision on her. The Somatic Images helped in understanding her craving for affection from her mother, deprivation of maternal pleasure after abortion, disturbed interpersonal relationship with her partner, sexual conflict, and depressive thoughts. Her responses changed after psychotherapy, and she showed improvement. Significant SIT responses on Pre- and Post-therapy are discussed to illustrate the healing power of SIT. 7. Therapeutic Intervention through Somatic Imagery Test - A Case Study. Shubhika Singh & Bankey L. Dubey, pages 112-115. The Somatic Imagery Test (SIT- online version) was administered to a 54 years old female to understand her personality and inner cry, if any. The inkblot images were helpful to bring out high dissatisfaction and poor interpersonal relationship with her partner, mild depression and suppressed hostility with lots of unprocessed unconscious material that aided the process of therapeutic intervention. The responses were analyzed using content analysis and psychoanalytical interpretation. 8. Sensitivity of SIS-II scoring system in detecting specific delusion in patients with Schizophrenia: Preliminary Observations Shivani Singh & Satyadhar Dwivedi, pages 116-119. The present study was an attempt to differentiate SIS-II responses between delusion of infidelity and other delusions in patients with schizophrenia. The sample comprised of 5 patients having delusion of infidelity and 5 patients having other delusions drawn from inpatient department of Institute of Mental Health and Hospital, Agra. The Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), Scale for Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and SIS-II (62 image Booklet Form) were administered for gathering relevant information. The findings revealed that there is no significant differences in statistical analysis but mean scores are showing difference between the scores which patients with delusion of infidelity and other delusion obtained on eleven categories. 9. Analysis of Psychological Interventions for Insomnia Co-morbid with Depression. Vikas Sharma and Padmakali Banerjee, pages 120-123. Insomnia and depression independently and co-morbidly are major challenges of modern life and exert a considerable impact on the mental health of individuals. Insomnia is a frequent complaint in the cases of depression and adds to the distress associated with it. It is therefore important to understand the relationship between these two separate clinical conditions. The present article attempted to examine the two conditions from psychological management perspective based on available research literature. The research indicated that the two conditions are frequently interrelated. There is a robust research evidence for the management of insomnia by using the cognitive and behavioral therapy for insomnia and studies have examined the transfer of benefits to associated conditions like depression and anxiety. However, more research needs to be conducted to further explore the linkage and common causative factors underlying insomnia and associated psychiatric condition like depression. |
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