Patient requests in primary health care settings: development and validation of a research instrument.

The development of the Primary Care Patient Request Scale and factor analytic and validation data from four diverse clinic samples are reported. The factor analysis yielded five plausible request dimensions: Treatment of Psychosocial Problems, Medical Explanation, Supportive Communication, Test Results, and Ventilation and Legitimation. The construct validity of the instrument was tentatively supported by the ability of the factor scales to discriminate consistently among the nature of the presenting complaint, the type of primary care clinic, and the marital status of the patient. Establishment of the clinical and research utility of the Primary Care Patient Request Scale awaits further efforts at cross-validation.

Keeping the faith: Psychosocial correlates of activism persistence into middle adulthood.

This study was conducted to determine certain ideological, personological, lifestyle, and familial correlates of activism persistence into middle adulthood. Almost 15 years following their arrest for participation in the Free Speech Movement, 30 former Berkeley activists responded to a political activity scale and measures selected to tap variables in each of the contextual domains. Although persisters did not differ from nonpersisters with respect to most lifestyle dimensions, they were distinguished by more radical beliefs, stronger repudiation of Protestant ethic values, and a stronger family legacy of social concern. The results provide more support for theories of activists' adult development based on notions of generational continuity, rather than generational rebellion.

Transition or transformation? Personal and political development of former Berkeley Free Speech Movement activists.

Former Berkeley Free Speech Movement activists' sociopolitical status, self and ideal self constructions, perceptions of parents' child-rearing practices and moral reasoning were compared with an assessment made 11 years earlier following the Berkeley Sproul Hall sit-in. Activists were found to be less politically active, more tempered in their political radicalism, more pragmatic and personally reactive in their self and ideal self conceptualizations, more critical in their perceptions of parental relationships, and stable in their level of moral development. While activists appear to have made some important life transitions, an argument is made for their continued distinctiveness as a generational cohort both politically and psychosocially.

Community control or control of the community? The case of the community mental health center.

This paper analyzes the powerful professional and social forces arrayed against community control. True community control is seen to be in danger of being compromised and co-opted by the mental health establishment. A radical and untried proposition, the implementation of community control, awaits broader institutional and political reform.

Community control in the hands of the liberal reformer: a reply.

Community control has been criticized as being quixotic, reductionistic, and incompatible with the demands of an industrial society. Alternatively, liberal reformers seek to ameliorate the ills of the mental health system through existing political channels, enlightened administrators, and an informed public. Although heralded as a more balanced and therefore more comprehensive critique, the liberal analysis employs an equilibrium model which ultimately favors the conventional power structure. Despite the potential vulnerability of community control, less radical approaches ultimately guard rather than seriously dispute professional hegemony.