Marshall Shearer

Getting affairs in order: influences of social support and religious coping on end-of-life planning among open-heart surgery patients.

Abstract Despite growing interest in end-of-life issues, little research has been done concerning end-of-life plans made by patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD), a disease that constitutes the highest mortality in the United States. Even less information is available on patients who undergo major cardiac surgery, a life-altering procedure with some risk of death, in terms of their engagement in end-of-life planning (EOLP). This prospective study enabled the contributors to explore EOLP among 309 middle-aged and older open-heart surgery patients, using survey data from three sequential interviews. A hierarchical logistic regression model shows that older age, higher education, greater social support, and negative religious coping were positively related to the likelihood of engaging in EOLP. Minority race was inversely related to EOLP. Findings suggest the potential role for social workers in helping cardiac patients to access social spiritual resources, and to consider engagement in EOLP.

Training Dual Sex Teams for Rapid Treatment of Sexual Dysfunction: A Pilot Program

In this chapter, the authors describe the training program for sex therapists developed by the Reproductive Biology Research Foundation in 1971. A number of the difficulties that were encountered as the program progressed are described. The relationship between the cotherapist trainees and the relationship between the trainees and their staff supervisors were both crucial elements in the training process.

The principal is often overlooked

The role of the school principal in the psychiatric evaluation of one of his pupils is important, but often overlooked. With all referrals, except perhaps the withdrawn child, he has made some effort to improve the situation. The nature and extent of this involvement varies greatly, and knowledge of it is often essential to therapeutic planning. Countertransference is a phenomenon principals are not trained to be aware of, but which is especially important to recognize. The uses of the psychiatric consultant by a school district are discussed. Perhaps the greatest impact the consulting psychiatrist can have on mental health in the schools is the open recognition he gives the teacher and principals that their intuitive approach to the vast majority of the problems of their charges is sound and helpful.