New directions for the education of clinical psychologists: The primary care setting, the VA's PRIME program, and the in-depth generalist model.

As part of this special issue on psychology in primary care settings, we describe the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA's) new approach to education for practice in the primary care setting and we concurrently address some general issues related to the education of clinical psychologists for practice in this setting. In this article we argue that the primary care psychologist, in parallel with the generalist in medicine, must have a strong generic background in clinical psychology in order to gain the broad range of clinical skills necessary to function effectively as an "in-depth generalist" (IDG) who is capable of addressing the variety of psychological issues that emerge in the primary care setting. The IDG model of professional practice, which we believe is best suited for primary care/managed care settings, requires extensive training in generic clinical skills and increased time devoted to its implementation at both the predoctoral and the postdoctoral levels.

Psychometric properties of Loevinger's Sentence Completion Test in an adult psychiatric outpatient sample.

Little research has been conducted on Loevinger's Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development in adult psychiatric outpatients. The measure is a promising method of assessing a construct of personality and character functioning that should be useful in research on psychopathology and in choosing treatment modalities. The data presented in this study address the question of the psychometric adequacy of the measure in this segment of the subject population. Specifically, estimates of interrater reliability, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability are presented for a sample of 42 adult outpatients. In addition, the relationship between total protocol ratings and item sum scores is explored.

Posttraumatic stress disorder: a thirty-year delay in a World War II veteran.

Some clinicians doubt the validity of a diagnosis of delayed posttraumatic stress disorder for Vietnam veterans. Precombat psychopathology, drug abuse, factitious symptoms, and malingering in pursuit of disability compensation are cited as alternative explanations for the syndrome. The authors discuss the case of a much decorated World War II veteran whose symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder first occurred more than 30 years after combat. They consider the alternative explanations for his symptoms to be inadequate.