The Politics of Primary Prevention

Primary prevention is the only effective strategy for reducing the future incidence of mental/emotional problems. But arguments about methods of reducing the rate of future problems have begun to raise questions that are more political, ideological and ethical than they are methodological. Prevention efforts may focus on safe strategies like individual behavioral change programs or alternatively on stronger non-voluntary group-mandated programs. Another dimension currently under debate is whether programs should be aimed at reducing risks for specific ldquomental diseasesrdquo or at efforts at fostering social competence to resist susceptibility to stress generally. Still another more general issue is the relevance of early childhood trauma like abuse and neglect in producing later emotional problems. Political conservatives favor the organic (biological, genetic) approaches to prevention that do not require social change while radicals argue for reducing social class inequalities and reducing poverty, exploitation and injustice

The Radicals Made Us Do It! Or Is Mental Health a Socialist Plot?

In this book, E. F. Torrey\u27s (see record 1996-98866-000) message is that all serious mental illnesses are now known to be diseases of the brain. Deinstitutionalizing large numbers of seriously mentally ill people from public mental hospitals over the past 30-some years has led to the current crisis. Torrey believes that the spectrum concept of mental health--the idea that there is a continuum from normal mental health to serous mental disturbance--reflects socialist, or at least, liberal views

The Boulder Model\u27s Fatal Flaw

The author argues that the Boulder model contained a fatal flaw that has distorted and damaged the development of clinical psychology ever since. It is suggested that the uncritical acceptance of the medical model, the organic explanation of mental disorders, with psychiatric hegemony, medical concepts, and language was the fatal flaw. The author contends that after World War II, psychologists were needed to provide psychiatric services for the vast number of veterans needing interventions for mental and emotional disorders. He maintains that by placing psychology graduate students in psychiatric settings for training and service, psychologists lost their students to the invalid, ideological tattered, often incompetent psychiatric worldview. In addition, the author suggests that there are major political differences between a medical/organic/brain-defect model to explain mental disorders and a social-learning, stress-related model

Speak No Evil?

Responds to comments by T. P. O\u27Brien and P. Cox (1997), and M. L. Perla (1997) regarding the author\u27s (G. W. Albee, see record 84-09296) article on prevention science. Albee discusses the problems in Perla\u27s call for more public visibility for prevention programs using social marketing principles, and disagrees with O\u27Brien and Cox\u27s argument for the separation of science and politics

Fifty Years of Clinical Psychology: Selling Our Soul to the Devil

An account of the post-World War II development of clinical psychology based on the personal experiences and observations of the author is presented. Acceptance of the medical—organic explanation of mental disorder and devotion to one-on-one psychotherapy paid for by health insurance has led clinical psychology to its present state of desperation, grasping at drug-prescription privileges as a way of surviving by further embracing the invalid medical would. Alternatively, only acceptance of the public health strategy of primary prevention, striving for social justice, and thorough grounding in social learning theory will guarantee survival of the field