Contributions of clinical psychology to Military neuropsychiatry in an army psychiatric hospital

Abstract

Holistic viewpoints in the study of personality involve the study of the organism as a whole with realistic emphasis on constitutional factors in development. American psychology has largely neglected constitutional approaches to personality because of the popularity of Behaviorism and objective psychology. The purpose of this paper has been to stress the importance of constitutional psychology and to present a system of constitutional analysis with practical diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic implications. The significance for clinical psychology of the biological facts conveniently described by the concept of constitutional inadequacy is that no complete understanding of any individual organism is possible without objectively measuring and evaluating constitutional status. This implies more than classification according to constitutional type and should involve a comprehensive evaluation of all constitutional factors which may exert a determining effect upon adjustment. and Clinical psychology on a mass scale in beginning during this war. Its achievethe United States Armv had a verv late ments have nevertheless been noteworthy and have been accepted and re-* Since separation from military service, Jules D. Holzberg is with the psychological laboraTeicher and Joseph L. Taylor are with the Vetera-Administration. spected by the psychiatric profession. tories at Connecticut State Hospital; Arthur One of the early programs of clinical psychological services was developed at

A systematic review of the psychology literature addressing hospital practice.

“…More consistent was the discussion of the training of psychologists for hospital practice. Several papers provided a description of internship programs as a part of a broader practice case description (Holzberg, Teicher, & Taylor, 1947; Quarrick, Jacobs, & Trick, 1971; Shakow, 1939) with others commenting on the internship landscape, noting large numbers of hospital-based internships (e.g., 60% of total U.S. internships; Enright et al, 1990; Tanney, 1983) and improvements in the quality of hospital-related trainings through the 1990s (Tovian et al, 2003). These papers, however, stood alongside concerns that the numbers of hospital internship opportunities were declining due to budget constraints (Bernard, 1992; Schmaling, Giardino, Korslund, Roberts, & Sweeny, 2002) and broad concerns about the lack of adequate training for hospital practice (DeGood, 1979; Olson et al, 1988).…”

Validation of the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank for college screening.

“…The present test is a modification of the one used earlier by Rotter and Willerman [6], which was modified from forms used by Shor, Hutt, and Holzberg [7,3,2] at the Mason General Hospital. 2 The 40 items and instructions are presented in Figure 1.…”

“…T HE use of the incomplete sentences technique for personality assessment was given decided impetus by its application in the armed services [2,3,7,8,9]. 1 The version used by Rotter and Willerman [6] indicated relatively high validity for determining the degree of mental disturbance in patients in an AAF Convalescent Hospital, and their study demonstrated that it was possible to have both objective scoring and certain advantages of the projective techniques.…”

A note regarding the use of the Sentence Completions Test in military installations since the beginning of World War II.

“…This apparently was the first form of Shor's adaptation. In a later publication Holzberg and others [4] described the use of this test among other projective techniques used as an aid to neuropsychiatry, listing the Rorschach, Thematic Apperception, Personality Projection Sheet, Bender-Gestalt Design, and Drawing a Man and a Woman. The "Personality Projection Sheet" referred to in this article is the previously termed "Self-Idea Completions Blank," containing the same sentence beginnings with a few minor changes.…”

“…Morris I. Stein [9] recently published a report of a study utilizing a sentence completions test which he claimed to be an adaptation of the version prepared for the Office of Strategic Services Assessment Program mentioned above (OSS). 4 A study of Stein's adaptation reveals that the test consists of quotations from the source he gave, filled in with numerous items from the Rohde-Hildreth test substituted for the sentence beginnings which had been used during the war, but now are no longer suitable. Since the OSS version of Sentence Completions contains fifteen items quoted verbatim, or in slightly modified form, from the Rohde-Hildreth test, and over fifty items in which the significant ideas were used in a more structured form, the Stein adaptation is heavily loaded with material from the same source.…”