Neuropsychological assessment in prisons: ethical and practical challenges.

Cognitive deficits, substance abuse, and mental illness are common among prisoners. Thus, for many prisoners, neuropsychological evaluations may be indicated to assess the degree of impairment and how these impairments may affect their behavior in the prison environment. However, many neuropsychological tests were not designed for or normed on prisoners. This article highlights the unique ethical and practical challenges to providing neuropsychological services to incarcerated individuals. Specifically, it discusses (a) limits to confidentiality, (b) issues related to informed consent, (c) how prison conditions may compromise the validity of testing, and (d) the impact of third-party observation of the evaluation. Recommendations and suggestions for resolving some of these difficulties are offered.

An analysis of suicidal ideation in a college sample.

Two studies were designed to develop and validate a model of current suicidal ideation. In Study 1, students that reported past suicide attempts (n = 48) were compared to controls (n = 49) on nine variables previously linked to suicidal behavior. In the resulting model, borderline personality characteristics and social support were found to correlate with current suicidal ideation, supporting a mediating model. In Study 2, the Borderline/Social Support (BTSS) model was validated in an independent sample. Implications for risk assessment, prevention and treatment of suicidal college students are discussed.

The function of self-harm behavior in a forensic population.

This article examines the functions of self-injurious behavior (SIB) in forensic populations. The cases of four individual offenders who have engaged in SIB are presented. These cases depict the four main functions of self-harm behaviors including (a) suicidal intent, (b) manipulation of the environment, (c) emotion regulation, and (d) a response to psychotic delusions or hallucinations. Assessment and treatment implications are discussed.

Defining hypnosis as a trance vs. cooperation: hypnotic inductions, suggestibility, and performance standards.

We compared participants' responsiveness to a standard administration of a hypnotic suggestibility scale (CURSS; Spanos, Radtke, Hodgins, Bertrand, Stam, & Moretti, 1983) that defined the ability to experience hypnosis in terms of cooperation (SI; standard induction, N = 27) with a version of the same scale administered with all references to cooperation removed (CR; cooperation removed, N = 34) and with a version of the scale with the "induction" removed (NI; no induction, N = 35). In a fourth condition, participants were informed that the ability to experience hypnosis depended on their ability to achieve an altered state of consciousness or "trance" (AS; altered state, N = 33). Removing instructions for cooperation had an effect on objective (CR < SI) but not on subjective hypnotic responding. Removing the hypnotic induction had no appreciable effect on any dimension of hypnotic responsivity. Consistent with predictions derived from performance standards theory (Lynn & Rhue, 1991), participants who received the altered state set responded to fewer suggestions than did participants who received the standard induction (SI). Estimates of suggestions passed that were assessed before and after test suggestions were administered were, respectively, weakly to moderately correlated with objective and subjective measures of hypnotic suggestibility.