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Although the vast majority of people with mental illness (PWMI) are not violent, Americans tend to think they are more dangerous than the general population. Because negative media portrayals may contribute to stigma, we used time-series analyses to examine changes in the public's perceived dangerousness of PWMI around six mass shootings whose perpetrators were reported to have a mental illness. From 2011 to 2019, 38,094 U.S. participants completed an online study assessing implicit and explicit perceived dangerousness of PWMI. There were large, upward spikes in perceived dangerousness the week of the Sandy Hook mass shooting that were relatively short-lived. However, there was not a consistent pattern of effects for other events analyzed, and any other spikes observed were smaller. Effects tended to be larger for explicit versus implicit perceived dangerousness. Sandy Hook seemed to temporarily worsen perceived dangerousness of PWMI, but this pattern was not observed for other mass shootings.

Abstract: One exploratory study (N = 10,335) and one preregistered replication and extension study (N = 6648) evaluated implicit and explicit beliefs in the effectiveness of psychotherapy versus medication, and whether these beliefs vary as a function of demographics, mental health difficulties, and treatment experiences. Data were collected from a sample of visitors to a mental health research website who completed the Therapy vs. Medication Effectiveness Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT demonstrated evidence of convergent validity with two measures of explicit therapy versus medication effectiveness beliefs. Across both studies, individuals held greater implicit and explicit beliefs that therapy is more effective than medication, and individuals who were Black (versus all other races, excluding "other/unknown") and who had experienced past (versus current) mental health difficulties had stronger implicit and explicit beliefs in the effectiveness of therapy versus medication. More work is needed to understand how these differences in beliefs arise, as well as to evaluate the clinical utility of this novel measure., (Copyright © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

COVID-19 presents significant social, economic, and medical challenges. Because COVID-19 has already begun to precipitate huge increases in mental health problems, clinical psychological science must assert a leadership role in guiding a national response to this secondary crisis. In this article, COVID-19 is conceptualized as a unique, compounding, multidimensional stressor that will create a vast need for intervention and necessitate new paradigms for mental health service delivery and training. Urgent challenge areas across developmental periods are discussed, followed by a review of psychological symptoms that likely will increase in prevalence and require innovative solutions in both science and practice. Implications for new research directions, clinical approaches, and policy issues are discussed to highlight the opportunities for clinical psychological science to emerge as an updated, contemporary field capable of addressing the burden of mental illness and distress in the wake of COVID-19 and beyond. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Implicit cognitive processing is theorized to have a central role in many forms of psychopathology. In the current review, we focus on implicit associations, by which we mean evaluative representations in memory that are difficult to control and do not require conscious reflection to influence affect, cognition, or behavior. We consider definitional and measurement challenges before examining recent empirical evidence for these associations in anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, posttraumatic stress, depressive, and alcohol use disorders. This examination is framed by a brief review of the ways that prominent models of psychopathology represent biased implicit processing of disorder-relevant information. We consider to what extent models reflect more traditional automatic/implicit versus strategic/explicit dual-process perspectives or reflect more recent dynamical systems perspectives in which mental representations are iteratively reprocessed, evolving continuously. Finally, we consider the future research needed to better understand the interactive and temporal dynamics of implicit cognition in psychopathology.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) plays an enormous role in establishing the agenda for mental health research across the country (its 2016 appropriation was nearly $1.5 billion; NIMH, 2016a). As the primary funder of research that will lead to development of new assessments and interventions to identify and combat mental illness, the priorities set by NIMH have a major impact on the mental health of our nation and training of the next generation of clinical scientists. Joshua Gordon has recently begun his term as the new Director of NIMH and has been meeting with different organizations to understand how they can contribute to the grand challenge of reducing the burden of mental illness. As a group of clinical psychological scientists (most representing the Coalition for the Advancement and Application of Psychological Science), he asked what we saw as key gaps in our understanding of the burden of mental illnesses and psychological disorders that psychosocial research could help fill. In response, we first present data illustrating how funding trends have shifted toward biomedical research over the past 18 years and then consider the objectives NIMH has defined in its recent strategic plan (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, & National Institute of Mental Health, 2015). We then note ways that advances in psychosocial research can help achieve these objectives. Critically, this involves integrating psychosocial and biomedical approaches to efficiently relieve the suffering of millions of Americans who struggle with mental illnesses and psychological disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

We propose a four-level, recursive Research-Practice Integration framework as a heuristic to (a) integrate and reflect on the articles in this Special Section as contributing to a bidirectional bridge between research and practice, and (b) consider additional opportunities to address the research-practice gap. Level 1 addresses Treatment Validation studies and includes an article by Lochman and colleagues concerning the programmatic adaptation, implementation, and dissemination of the empirically supported Coping Power treatment program for youth aggression. Level 2 translation, Training in Evidence-Based Practice, includes a paper by Hershenberg, Drabick, and Vivian, which focuses on the critical role that predoctoral training plays in bridging the research-practice gap. Level 3 addresses the Assessment of Clinical Utility and Feedback to Research aspects of translation. The articles by Lambert and Youn, Kraus, and Castonguay illustrate the use of commercial outcome packages that enable psychotherapists to integrate ongoing client assessment, thus enhancing the effectiveness of treatment implementation and providing data that can be fed back to researchers. Lastly, Level 4 translation, the Cross-Level Integrative Research and Communication, concerns research efforts that integrate data from clinical practice and all other levels of translation, as well as communication efforts among all stakeholders, such as researchers, psychotherapists, and clients. Using a two-chair technique as a framework for his discussion, Wolfe's article depicts the struggle inherent in research-practice integration efforts and proposes a rapprochement that highlights advancements in the field., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.)

This study examined implicit and explicit measures of bias toward mental illness among people with different levels of mental health training, and investigated the influence of stigma on clinically-relevant decision-making. Participants (N = 1539) comprised of (1) mental health professionals and clinical graduate students, (2) other health care/social services specialists, (3) undergraduate students, and (4) the general public self-reported their attitudes toward people with mental illness, and completed implicit measures to assess mental illness evaluations that exist outside of awareness or control. In addition, participants predicted patient prognoses and assigned diagnoses after clinical vignettes. Compared with people without mental health training, individuals with mental health training demonstrated more positive implicit and explicit evaluations of people with mental illness. Further, explicit (but not implicit) biases predicted more negative patient prognoses, but implicit (and not explicit) biases predicted over-diagnosis, underscoring the value of using both implicit and explicit measures.