The family life cycle seminars: An innovative health care psychology program.

Abstract

Psychologists are presented as having the skills, but perhaps lacking the confidence, poise, and authoritative stance, to design, implement, and evaluate innovative programs in various medical settings. The latter characteristics are needed if psychologists are to interface with their medical colleagues and, operating from a good data base, build credibility when proposing a new program. Although not the only means, a literature review provided the data base for the Family Life Cycle Seminars, an innovative program meeting both academic and nonacademic needs in a university family practice department. It is concluded that health care psychologists, the logical professionals to provide new directions in medicine, should step forward and design innovative programs that will ultimately best serve the public.The time is ripe for psychologists to make their presence known in medical settings. I am reminded of a major shortcoming, noted by Drotar (Note 1), that psychologists have not been trained to manifest poise, confidence, and, to some extent, an authoritative stance with regard to their expertise. Obviously, such qualities are necessary if psychologists are to interface effectively with medical colleagues. Indeed, if psychologists are to offer innovative programs such as the one described herein, they need to demonstrate their capabilities to establish credibility. I submit that psychologists, perhaps more than any other professionals, not only have the capabilities to demonstrate expertise in medical settings but are the logical persons to implement innovative programs in these settings.Although I will limit my discussion to an innovative program in a family practice department, I think many of the concepts have generalizability across the various medical specialties. A good portion of training in psychology is scientifically based; for example, powers of analyzing research articles, observing behaviors, and gathering and analyzing data are all part of our psychologists' armamentarium. Such assets would make psychologists the most logical persons to do needs assessments regarding the establishment of innovative programs. Moreover, most of us have received instruction in curriculum development, program design, and evaluative procedures, so we can employ these tools to develop innovative programs in any setting. Yet for the most part, we allow ourselves to be dictated to. I was no exception. Let me share a brief scenario as to how I fell into this trap as well.My training was in interviewing skills, individual and group therapy, self-awareness, psychodiagnostics, and research (with all the accoutrements alluded to above). Therefore, when called upon to teach interviewing skills, self-awareness, and brief counseling skills to future family doctors, I readily accepted. What were family doctors ? I had no idea. Philosophically, I thought they were in essence the same as general practitioners. My ex-father-in-law was a general practitioner; therefore, I knew them well. Eagerly I began teaching interviewing skills and s...

A preventive health paradigm for health care psychologists.

“…3. Changing health care provider attitudes and behavior is the goal of certain preventive health psychology interventions such as training medical students, nurses, and physicians (Authier, 1979;Bibace & Walsh, 1979;Burns & Cromer, 1978;Zuckerman, Carper, & Alpert, 1978). By sensitizing health care providers, especially primary care personnel, to psychosocial factors that influence their patients' illness and behavior and by increasing providers' interviewing skills and capacity to provide appropriate support, psychologists can make important contributions to patient health and effective health care.…”

Training family physicians in behavioral aspects of primary care: The psychologist's role.

“…Tapp, Krull, Tapp, and Seller (1978) have advocated training residents in behavior modification techniques. Authier (1979) has developed a series of family life cycle seminars to move residents into thinking about the family as a developing unit undergoing crises across the life cycle. Although such approaches have provided physicians with skills consistent with the underlying cpncepts of family medicine, they have not directly addressed the need to integrate medical, psychological, and social levels in the assessment and treatment by family physicians.…”