Attitudes of Mental Health Professionals towards Telepsychology during the Pandemic: A Pilot Study.

OBJECTIVE: This pilot study investigated mental health professionals' attitudes towards remote psychological consultations and internet-based interventions. METHODS: An online survey in Italian and English was administered to a sample of 191 psychologists and psychotherapists to collect detailed information about their professional experience providing online psychological interventions a year and a half after the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. RESULTS: The results did not reveal a statistically significant association between the participants' theoretical approaches and the number of patients treated via the online modality. Overall, most of the participants found advantages to the online setting but also noted critical issues regarding privacy and the ease of integrating new technology into their clinical practice. CONCLUSIONS: According to the participants, despite the challenges that must be addressed, telehealth is a viable psychological therapeutic option that is destined to grow in importance in the near future.

Individual and contextual predictors of young Ukrainian adults' subjective well-being during the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is accompanied by horrific losses among civilians. This study investigates various individual (hope, optimism, resilience, post-traumatic growth, and coping strategies) and contextual predictors (experience of life under occupation, actively hostile home environment, and frequent moves) of subjective well-being among the youth living in Ukraine. A total sample of 593 students from several universities participated in the study using surveys that contained questions about sociodemographic characteristics, life satisfaction, hope, optimism, personal post-traumatic growth, resilience, and coping strategies. Data were analyzed using JAMOVI software. The level of dissatisfaction with their own lives was 34.7%; most of the respondents had a higher incidence of minimal/mild hopelessness (88.7%) and high/moderate level of optimism (60.9%). The majority of participants had moderate and high levels of post-traumatic growth (51.9% and 6.7%, respectively) and resilience (46.0% and 14.5%, respectively). Optimism, hope, resilience, post-traumatic growth, using emotional support, and life in occupation predicted life satisfaction among the study sample.

Toward a new predoctoral model: Education and training in clinical psychopharmacology.

A ubiquitous research finding in regional and national studies is that at least 40% of persons with mental disorders cannot access mental health services, and pharmacotherapy in particular. The American Psychological Association's (APA) designated programs for the provision of education and training in clinical psychopharmacology can be of great help in alleviating this national need. We address key developments relevant to the foundation of a predoctoral model of clinical psychopharmacology education and training. To this end, an overview of the Master of Science in Clinical Psychopharmacology (MSCP) program at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP) is presented. TCSPP is now enrolling its eleventh consecutive cohort of MSCP students, many of whom are doctoral students who are concurrently attending various APA accredited Health Service Psychology (HSP) programs. We provide two predoctoral routes for completing MSCP training: (a) a route allowing for the creation of concentrations in clinical psychopharmacology in Health Service Psychology (HSP) doctoral programs, providing up to half of MSCP coursework; and (b) a joint doctoral PsyD or PhD/MSCP program meeting APA accreditation and designation standards integrated into a 5-year curriculum to impart HSP graduates with the competencies to provide both psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. We conclude with a discussion about the future direction of predoctoral clinical psychopharmacology education and training. Given its emphasis on neuroscience and interdisciplinary health care, such curricular models may help to address the nation's immediate mental health care needs, while serving to enhance the sustainability of HSP education and professional practice in the 21st Century. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).