In "Diving in Where Angels Fear to Tread: Pre-Requisites to Evidence-Based Interventions," John Raven poses a crucial question if the current education system guarantees a high quality of future citizens. He proposes an analytical diagnosis of this complex phenomenon of wasting individual talents and social energy due to shortcomings and…

Although there is no end of ethics courses offered at colleges and universities, many believe that neither the professoriate nor their institutional leaders has ever been collectively and authentically committed to shaping the moral formation of students. A considerable literature has emerged over the last decade alleging a widespread…

In her rich and wide-ranging paper, Nancy Snow argues that there is a virtue of generativity--an other-regarding desire to invest one's substance in forms of life and work that will outlive the self (p. 10). By "virtue" Snow means not just a desirable or praiseworthy quality of a person, but more precisely, as Aristotle defined it, a…

Recent publications in the "Journal of Youth and Adolescence" present a variety of topics exploring adolescents' mental functioning in the twenty first century. Conceptually, many of the articles address the intriguing, though rarely explicit, question of developmental continuities and change from adolescence to adulthood. Such…

Comments on the original article, "The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy," by J. Shedler. As Shedler noted, some researchers have reflexively and stridently dismissed psychodynamic therapy (PT) as ineffective without granting outcome studies on this modality a fair hearing. We applaud Shedler's efforts to bring PT into the scientific…

Responds to the comments by H. N. Garb (2007) and A. M. Ruscio (2007) on the current authors' original article "Plate tectonics in the classification of personality disorder: Shifting to a dimensional model" (2007). Unable to respond to all of Garb's and Ruscio's concerns given space limitations, the current authors attempt to respond to key…

Comments on the original article "Plate tectonics in the classification of personality disorder: Shifting to a dimensional model," by T. A. Widiger and T. J. Trull (2007). Widiger and Trull raised important nosological issues that warrant serious consideration not only for the personality disorders but for all mental disorders as the Diagnostic…

Scott O. Lilienfeld is a professor of psychology at Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Lilienfeld is founder and editor of the journal, "Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice," and is past president of the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology. He has been a member of 11 journal editorial boards, including the…

Comments on the original article "Plate tectonics in the classification of personality disorder: Shifting to a dimensional model," by T. A. Widiger and T. J. Trull. The purpose of this comment is to address (a) whether psychologists know how personality traits are currently assessed by clinicians and (b) the reliability and validity of those…

Based on comments by Kagan (1982), Rothbart (1982), and Plomin (1982) in response to an article on difficult temperament by Thomas, Chess, and Korn (1982), the author concludes that the study of temperamentally difficult children has a favorable prognosis. (Author/MP)

Reviews personality disturbances associated with traumatic brain injury. Attempts to clarify terms and review empirical findings. Notes that longitudinal prospective studies that use appropriate control groups are needed. Suggests future research may benefit by considering long-term effects of early agitation following traumatic brain injury and…

Examines some of the methodological issues in the assessment of temperament and raises questions about the desirability of labeling infants as having "difficult temperaments." (Author/MP)

Responds to Thomas, Chess, and Korn (Merrill-Palmer Quarterly; v28 n1 p1-20 Jan 1982) by arguing that empirical and theoretical considerations call into question the assumption that parent reports of their own child's difficult temperament are essentially measures of characteristics residing within the child. (BJD)

Places the current controversy concerning the adequacy of parental ratings of temperament into the larger perspective of personality issues, which have been hotly debated for the past two decades. (Author/MP)

Argues that the dichotomous nature of poetry may lend itself well to the complementary structural deficits of well-defined borderline personality disordered patients. Suggests that the emotive aspects of the poem may permit the patient to engage in the work, whereas the more rational, structured aspects of the poem facilitate personality…