The Stilwell Conscience Interview

This is a semi-structured interview. All initial queries should be asked verbatim. Afterwards the interviewer can develop the dialogue in any way that helps the subject share the meaning of his/her moral life

Trauma, Moral Development, and Conscience Functioning

Our model of moral development--which we refer to as conscience development-- incorporates the ways in which individuals come to apply moral value or moralize their attachment, emotional, cognitive, and volitional behavioral systems. The end result is a working model--a dynamic conceptualization within the mind commonly known as the conscience

The Conscience Celebration: A Story About Moral Flourishing

This is a serialized book with a new episode appearing approximately every two months. Neither morally didactic (i.e. it is not a book of virtues); nor a "How To" book about moral reasoning with Kohlbergian dilemmas; nor a workbook on values clarification. This book is intended to be informative to children about what they and their peers are experiencing, in common and diverse experiences, as their consciences develop. It is a secular, psychoeducational book about conscience development and functioning. As such, it provides tools to discuss moral development the way educational videos assist teacher, parent and child with discussion of sexual development and sexuality

Retrieval of Life Affirming Values and their Incorporation into a Suicidality Prevention Plan

Abstract. This article is intended primarily as a companion piece to provide additional background and illustration for a submission by the same authors to The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. It is also the second in a series appearing in Conscience Works to characterize recently employed techniques to render psychiatric treatment of children and adolescents in a conscience sensitive manner. It consists of a progressive Case Presentation interwoven with Discussion points, which together demonstrate the retrieval of life affirming values in the context of suicidality management and the incorporation of these values in an overall suicidality prevention plan

Conscience Sensitive Psychiatric Diagnosis of Maltreated Children and Adolescents

The sequelae of maltreatment are conceptualized according to the DSM IV multiaxial system expanded for heuristic purposes. Axis I and Axis IV are expanded to take into account important variables of maltreatment. Differential Axis I diagnoses are identified with special emphasis placed on PTSD, Dissociation, Depression and Disruptive Behavior Disorders. Axes II and III are heuristically expanded to call attention to developmental psychopathology, particularly in the domains of conscience, and associated putative neurobiological sequelae of maltreatment, indicating a pathway to the psychobiology of conscience. Conscience sensitive assessment of maltreated children is illustrated with two case vignettes and selected conscience drawings. A ‘transaxial,’ conscience sensitive approach to DSM nosology is recommended as a corrective. There will likely be additional implications for the psychobiology of conscience as neuroimaging and assessment of conscience functions in health and psychopathology become more refined.Support for this and other work by the I.U. Conscience Project conducted in collaboration with Pleasant Run Inc. has been generously provided by Mr. and Mrs. Jim Irsay and The Indianapolis Colts, The Moore Foundation and other individual anonymous donors

Progress in conscience-sensitive psychiatry: assessment, diagnosis and treatment planning

Study of the relationship between episodic or continuous moral malfunctioning and psychopathology is an undeveloped field in child and adolescent psychiatry. An empirically derived theory of conscience provides a normative base from which to launch such studies. This work reviews five normative stages of functioning within five domains of conscience: conceptualization, moralization of attachment, moral-emotional responsiveness, moral valuation, and moral volition. Current professional guidelines for the doctor-patient relationship, psychiatric assessment, diagnostic categorization, and treatment planning address conscience functioning sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, and sometimes not at all. A case report is provided to illustrate progress already made in conscience sensitive clinical psychiatry. Further advances may begin with consideration of proposed hypothetical models, comporting with recent research, which describe progressive impairment involving both delay and deviancy in conscience functioning