Preferences regarding therapists' history of personal therapy or suicidal ideation: A comparison of undergraduates and mental healthcare providers.

A majority of mental health care providers seek personal therapy (i.e., are prosumers), and many providers experience suicidal ideation. Although mental health care providers may have more awareness of mental health than undergraduates, stigma is prevalent across both mental health care professionals and within universities. Furthermore, suicidality is a particularly stigmatized aspect of mental health. Stigma may affect a client's willingness to work with therapists who are prosumers. Although client preferences have implications for treatment engagement, retention, and outcomes (Swift & Callahan, 2009, 2010; Swift, Callahan, & Vollmer, 2011), we are unaware of any research that considers clients' preferences regarding a prosumer therapist. The current study used a delay discounting paradigm to compare undergraduates' and mental health care providers' preferences of a prosumer therapist (i.e., with or without prior treatment history or prior suicidal ideation). We hypothesized that mental health care providers would be more accepting of a prosumer therapist, compared to undergraduates. Across both samples we expected a therapist with prior personal therapy to be more preferred than a therapist who has experienced prior suicidal ideation. Results were as expected, which may indicate a greater degree of mental health stigma among undergraduates compared to the mental health profession and greater stigma toward suicide in comparison to therapy experience in general. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessing Physical Pain Perception and Psychological Distress Tolerance through the MMPI-2-RF: A Comparison of Multimethod Measures.

While transdiagnostic factors are important domains in clinical assessment and treatment, there is little research to link such constructs to widely accepted and utilized broadband assessments such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, 2nd edition - Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF). A handful of studies suggest the ability of the MMPI-2-RF scales to capture variance in transdiagnostic constructs; however, this literature relies solely on self-report criterion measures, despite evidence that self-report and behaviorally-indexed correlates of psychopathology may measure varied aspects of the intended construct and can often yield differing results. The current study investigated MMPI-2-RF scales' ability to assess two widely examined transdiagnostic constructs, distress tolerance and pain perception, across both self-report and behavioral indicators. The sample included 115 undergraduate students who completed a valid MMPI-2-RF and multimethod measures of pain perception and distress tolerance. The results aligned with prior research in areas of internalizing symptoms, psychopathy, and suicide risk factors in self-report, but not behaviorally-based, assessment. Implications of this inconsistency, the association between clinical assessment and transdiagnostic constructs, and the heterogeneity of the distress tolerance and pain perception constructs are discussed.