No abstract

This article reviews the interpersonal-psychological theory of attempted and completed suicide and describes its applications in suicide risk assessment, crisis intervention, and skills-based psychotherapies. Three components are necessary, but not sufficient, for an individual to die by suicide: (1) the acquired capability to enact lethal self-injury, (2) a sense that one is a burden on others, and (3) the sense that one does not belong to a valued social group. We suggest that therapeutic interventions should focus on ascertaining the presence of these components and work to amend the cognitive distortions, negative interpersonal response styles, and ineffective coping behaviors that serve to maintain suicidal urges.

This study assessed whether timeliness of case assignment predicted 2 types of patient termination: nonattendance to therapy before intake but after completing the application process and premature termination once therapy had begun. The patients in this study represented all adults applying to an outpatient clinic for therapeutic services over a 5-year period (N ϭ 313, 142 male). Results indicated that the timeliness of case assignment was a significant predictor of whether a patient attended intake, with those enduring a longer delay in case assignment more likely to not pursue therapeutic services. Timeliness of case assignment was not related to premature termination from therapy. Potential moderators, including patient ethnicity, gender, age, personality disorder diagnosis, and symptom severity, did not affect the relationship between the variables of interest.

The present study examined whether therapist access to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) predicted favorable treatment outcome, above and beyond other assessment measures. A manipulated assessment design was used, in which patients were randomly assigned either to a group in which therapists had access to their MMPI-2 data or to a group without therapist access to such information. Illness severity, improvement ratings, number of sessions attended, and premature termination were indicators of therapy outcome. Results indicated that therapist access to the MMPI-2 data did not add to the prediction of positive treatment outcome beyond that predicted by other measures in this setting. Findings from this initial study suggest that, compared with other resources, perhaps in clinical settings with an emphasis on diagnosis-based and evidence-based treatment, the MMPI-2 may not provide incrementally valid information. However, these effects warrant replication across different settings and samples. Guidelines for future studies are discussed.

Does realism characterize good mental health or maladjustment? In this paper, it is argued that illusory views of social reality, even if self-enhancing, represent a feature of mental distress (not health). Two studies of unselected undergraduates and their same-sex roommates were reported. In Study 1, 466 undergraduates completed a measure of depressive symptoms, and provided global self-ratings; their roommates provided ratings of them. A curvilinear relation between self-other discrepancies and depressive symptoms was detected, in which discrepancies of any kind (even if self-enhancing) were associated with higher depressive symptoms. Using a similar design, Study 2 (N = 143) replicated this finding and extended it to other symptoms and to longitudinal analyses. It is concluded that illusory views of interpersonal reality (even if self-enhancing), far from bolstering adjustment, represent a pattern of attitudes that typifies maladjustment. Is it not clear too that through self-knowledge men come to much good, andthrough self-deception to much harm? For those who know themselves, know what things are expedient for themselves and discern their own powers and limitations. And by doing what they understand, they get what they want and prosper: by refraining from attempting what they do not understand, they make no mistakes and avoid failure. And consequently through their power of testing other men too, and through their intercourse with others, they get what is good and shun what is bad.