Lorraine T. Benuto

Handbook of Adolescent Health Psychology

Context and perspectives in adolescent health psychology.- A biopsychosocial perspective on adolescent health and disease.- Issues of diversity in adolescent health psychology: exploring sociocultural influences on adolescent health.- Socioeconomic influences on health and health behavior in adolescents.- Public health approaches to adolescent health beyond disease and illness.- Epidemiology of adolescent health.- Disease prevention in adolescence.- Determinants of health-related behaviors in adolescence.- Psychosocial stress, emotion regulation, and resilience in adolescents.- Mental literacy, mental health, and adolescents.- Advances in measurements and utilization of health-related quality of life instruments.- The Effects of physical activity on the physical and psychological health of adolescents.- Adolescent sexual assault: prevalence, risk associates, outcomes, and intervention.- Intimate partner violence in adolescent romantic relationships.- Continuity of behavior and parenting from childhood through adolescence.- School performance.- Brain development and health implications in adolescents.- Puberty: its role in adolescent maturation.- Adolescent sexuality and sexual behavior.- Intervention effectiveness research in adolescent health psychology: Methodological issues and strategies.- Training issues in adolescent health.- Reforming the behavioral health delivery system for adolescents: why is it needed and what is psychologys role?.- Confidentiality and care of the adolescent patient.- Treatment adherence in adolescents.- Smoking in adolescents.- Adolescent substance abuse.- Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in adolescence.- Social and biological changes during adolescence that precipitate the onset of antisocial behavior.- Personality disorders in adolescence.- Deliberate self-harm in adolescents.- Eating disorders in adolescents.- Anxiety in adolescents.- Depression and suicide-related behavior in adolescence.- Adolescents with intellectual disabilities.- Pregnancy in adolescents.- Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the developing adolescent: influences of and strategies to reduce STI acquisition.- HIV among adolescents in the United States.- Obesity in adolescents.- Cardiovascular complaints in adolescence: clinical considerations.- Asthma in adolescents.- Endocrine disorders in adolescents.- Musculoskeletal injuries in adolescents: a sports medicine model.- Headaches in adolescents.- Chronic pain in adolescents: physiological and psychological bases for pain.

Analyzing Child Sexual Abuse Allegations

When children make allegations of sexual abuse, forensic professionals are often involved in attempts to develop a better understanding of these allegations. This article offers a model that can be used by forensic professionals to analyze allegations of abuse. The model seeks to either rule in or rule out plausible hypotheses that often surround abuse allegations. The ten dimensions are: (1) outcry analysis; (2) stake analysis; (3) parent/significant other suggestion analysis; (4) forensic interview analysis; (5) memory analysis; (6) analysis of the developmental sufficiency of abuse details provided by the child; (7) inconsistencies analysis; (8) logistical detail analysis; (9) fantastical details analysis; and (10) personological analysis.

Dimensions of Child Sexual Abuse Allegations: What is Unusual and What is Not?

Summit claimed via his child sexual abuse accomodation syndrome (CSAAS) that children often (a) recant; (b) make disclosures that are unconvincing (i.e., “illogical” and “incredible”); (c) make contradictory claims; and (d) make delayed claims. In this study, 97 substantiated cases of child sexual abuse were examined for both the key properties outlined by Summit and also for other key properties that have been discussed by experts. Results indicate that some of the key properties of CSASS (recantation and contradictions) are rare in substantiated cases. While delayed claims were common, the delays in this sample were generally shorter than proposed in CSAAS. Results also revealed that allegations rarely contained logistical implausibilities, impoverished details, a stake factor, strange elements in the context of the outcry, fantastical details, or reports of repressed memories.

Evidence-Based Practices for Conducting Therapy with Spanish-Speaking Clients

An astounding 35.8 million Latinos speak Spanish at home, and only 34% of Latino immigrants who reside in the USA speak English proficiently. One of the inherent challenges in the delivery of behavioral health services to Spanish-speaking clients (in addition to the limited number of providers who speak Spanish) is the paucity of tools and/or resources available to Spanish-speaking clinicians. This presents a serious limitation as most evidence-based interventions often include handouts and homework sheets as part of the treatment protocol. The editor and selected authors have set out to address the dearth of resources available in Spanish for those providers who do exist as well as (and primarily) for their Spanish-speaking clients. Thus, each chapter in this book provides an overview of the disorder and associated cultural factors (including prevalence of the disorder among Hispanics/Latinos); a discussion of a culturally variant presentation (if applicable) including a description of how the disorder might present with a Hispanic/Latino client, relevant cultural idioms of stress that are specific to the disorder, etc.; an overview of the “gold standard” treatment for the disorder (rooted in evidence-based principles) and a summary of the literature on this treatment with Hispanics/Latinos (if any); a treatment plan; and a series of handouts, tools, worksheets, informational sheets, etc. that can be used in sessions as part of the treatment plan.

Training Culturally Competent Psychologists: A Systematic Review of the Training Outcome Literature.

The purpose of this systematic review of the literature was to further understand the goals of cultural competency trainings and the procedures used to train psychologists, and to synthesize evaluations of the outcomes of these trainings. Seventeen training outcome studies were identified. Results from revealed a wide variety of training procedures including lecture, discussion, utilization of case scenarios, cultural immersion, role-play, contact with diverse individuals, self-reflection of interactions with clients, journaling, and service learning. Across studies, topics covered within training curricula included racism/discrimination, worldviews, cultural identity, general concepts about culture, biases, and information about the clinical/client interaction as it relates to cultural competency or diversity. Cultural competency training increased knowledge, whereas findings for changes in attitudes, awareness, and skills were mixed. Evidence-based training guidelines and practices are needed. Given the complexities associated with culture and the ample number of variables that can be classified as cultural (i.e., immigration status, language, acculturation), developing evidence-based training guidelines is a challenging task that may require a reconsideration of how cultural competency training is approached. Because there is not sufficient information to suggest that specific curricular methods or content produce reliable outcomes, the field should reconsider the foundation of cultural competency training using psychological science as a basis.

The Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale: Confirmatory Factor Analyses With a National Sample of Victim Advocates:

Secondary traumatic stress (STS) is a pattern of psychological symptoms that approximates the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and occurs in professionals who are exposed to individuals who have experienced trauma. While victim advocates are frontline health professionals who are trained to support victims of crime and interpersonal violence and are at risk for developing STS, they have been largely neglected in the extant literature on STS. The STS Scale (STSS) is a 17-item self-report questionnaire utilized to assess frequency of symptoms of intrusion, avoidance, and arousal, specifically related to providing services to victims of trauma. The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the STSS with a sample of victim advocates ( N = 135) using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results indicated that both a single-factor model and three-factor model were equivalent. This study represents a first attempt to validate a measure of STS among victim advocates, a unique and understudied population who are at risk for developing STS given their work with individuals who have experienced interpersonal violence. Establishing effective, easy to administer, and efficient measures of STS is important given that this population encounters secondary trauma on a regular basis in the context of their job. While additional theoretical work regarding the construct of STS is needed, the STSS did demonstrate high reliability with this population and thus can be used as part of the assessment of STS among victim advocates.

Examining the validity of parental alienation syndrome

ABSTRACT “Parental alienation syndrome” (PAS) is a phrase first coined by Dr. Richard Gardner. Since its inception several scholars have reviewed and criticized this construct, and it has never been accepted by the scientific community as a legitimate scientific construct, as a syndrome or as a mental disorder. Despite its general rejection as unscientific, the construct of PAS at times continues to be used in legal settings as if it has an adequate foundation within science, clinical, or forensic practice. This commentary briefly reviews past critiques of PAS and describes several additional problems that have occurred with the use of this construct.

Examining the Scientific Validity of Rape Trauma Syndrome

Rape trauma syndrome (RTS) was first described by Burgess and Holmstrom (1974) who argued that there was little information that described the physical and psychological effects of rape, associated therapy and provisions for protection of the victim from further psychological harm. Since then, there have been several critiques of RTS and empirical evidence exists that RTS is not generally accepted by the relevant scientific community. Despite this, RTS is still used in courts. As such, in this article, we comprehensively evaluated RTS and determined that it is vague and imprecise, its evidential status is questionable, it is inconsistent with the most common sequelae of trauma, it ignores important mediating variables and it may not be culturally sensitive. In light of these critiques, we recommend no further use of this model in courts or in clinical practice.

Contemporary Issues in Latino Communities

Latinos are a heterogeneous group with regard to nationality, immigration status, and language preference and proficiency. Latinos constitute the largest minority group in the United States. The bulk of the literature on Latinos places emphasis on Latino cultural characteristics (i.e., heavy emphasis on the family), yet this group faces many unique contemporary issues in this country. This chapter provides an extensive discussion on the contemporary issues that this group faces. These include issues regarding immigration status, acculturation, self-identification, language, poverty, discrimination, and access to healthcare.

Psychological and Investigative Pathways to Untrue Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse

When an allegation of child sexual abuse is made, law enforcement often immediately becomes involved and some kind of investigation regarding the child’s allegations is undertaken. O’Donohue, Benuto, and Fanetti (2010) previously proposed a systematic model of pathways to false allegations whereby they identified two major pathways to a false allegation of child sexual abuse: (1) the child is lying and (2) the child has a false memory due to his or her problems in information processing. In this chapter, we discuss this model alongside additional sub-pathways that could lead to a false allegation. In particular, we discuss in much more detail the possible role of child psychopathology in the genesis of false allegations.