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Background: Challenging behaviour of clients influences emotional wellbeing of staff; this in turn affects levels of staff engagement and avoidance within interactions with clients. The main goal of this study was to investigate to what extent levels of staff engagement and staff avoidance are related to challenging and desirable client behaviours and clients' initiatives for contact. Method: Participants were 8 support staff and 3 clients. Staff and client behaviours were measured within moments of interaction in natural settings using systematic observational data. Results: The results showed that general levels of staff engagement, avoidance, and client behaviours seem to be related. However, individual, sequential analyses do not support these relationships. Conclusions: Future research should take a more individual and intrapersonal view of staff behaviour and staff--client interaction into account, in order to obtain a detailed and realistic image of individual patterns in interactions between support staff and clients.

The emotional intelligence profiles, gender differences, and adaptive success of 380 Dutch nurses caring for people with mental retardation and accompanying severe behavior problems are reported. Data were collected with the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory, Utrecht-Coping List, Utrecht-Burnout Scale, MMPI-2, and GAMA. Absence due to illness and job change were measured across a 2-year period. A clear relation between emotional intelligence and adaptive success was detected at an .01 level of significance. A negative correlation was found between emotional intelligence and both burnout and psychopathology. Emotional intelligence did not appear to be related to absence or job change. Based on these findings, training programs for nurses can possibly help to avoid employee burnout.

In the introduction to his Allgemeine Psychopathologic, published in 1913, Karl Jaspers stated that psychology has little value for the psychopathologist because it focuses on all kinds of interesting matters, [...]

The primary care psychologist (PCP) in the Netherlands has 30 years of experience. The PCP is a generalist who, in close cooperation with the family physician and other providers of primary health care, has a mindset and manner of working that is largely determined by the context in which the PCP works. The specific attitudes and role of the PCP are described. The PCP provides services for a clearly delimited geographic region and is responsible for the provision of brief psychological help from a biopsychosocial perspective. In addition to psychological assessment and the provision of stepped care, the PCP also devotes considerable attention to prevention and health promotion. An orientation toward the community and the empowerment of clients stands central. The various tasks of the PCP are described in detail, and an educational curriculum for the specific 1-year training of the PCP is outlined. Lessons for other European countries and the United States are deduced from the Dutch experience. Keywords: primary care psychologist, time-limited psychological help, stepped care, empowerment, family physician DOI: 10.1037/a0015743

Objective: More empirical research is needed to disentangle the phenotypes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and cluster C personality symptomatology (CCPD), as both show similarities in their clinical presentation. We explored personality and psychopathology dimensions as conceptualized in contemporary dimensional taxonomies (i.e., hierarchical taxonomy of psychopathology; HiTOP) in adults with ASD without intellectual disability operationalized by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF). Method: Applying secondary analytic processes using clinical data, we crossexamined the MMPI-2-RF profiles of adults with ASD (n = 28) compared to adults with Cluster C personality disorders (CCPD; n = 28) and a control group (n = 28) by conducting nonparametric tests and assessing effect sizes. Results: The profiles of the ASD and CCPD groups evidenced to be similar, and both average clinical profiles diverged from the average control group profiles by elevated levels of demoralization, internalizing, and somatization symptomatology. There were small differences between the average profiles of adults with ASD and adults with CCPD. Additional research using dimensional measures of psychopathology could elucidate the dimensional phenotypes of ASD and CCPD. Conclusions: Based on the results in this study, the MMPI-2-RF may not meaningfully discriminate between the two clinical presentations, with the exception of various externalizing scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]