Bruce A. Thyer

Florida State University | FSU · College of Social Work

In this article, I discuss how Chinese social work scholars can enhance their ability to publish their research in English language journals successfully. I describe the processes of developing sophisticated skills in writing research as one of gradual shaping, initially beginning with smaller-scale contributions to journals and only attempting to...

Already registered with the Selective Service as a conscientious objector due to his long-held religious convictions, Ted Studebaker volunteered to serve for 2 years in Vietnam, where he coordinated community organization projects in a small village of Di Linh. Toward the end of his 2-year tour of duty, in 1979 he was killed by Viet Cong troops who...

In this chapter on combat social work and preparing the next generation for social injustice combat, the editorial team summarizes and discusses the lessons and the fundamental questions posed and answered throughout this book. They address the ethics of war by examining the issues of service, social justice, and the importance of human relationshi...

Polytrauma, or injuries sustained across multiple body locations or systems, has been acknowledged by the Department of Veterans Affairs as an issue of significance for combat veterans of the conflicts commonly referred to as the “war on terror” due to the large number of service members surviving the combat arena who have sustained such injuries....

Social workers have a long, proud history of service in most branches of the United States military. The experiences of social workers and other human service professionals of all military ranks have an important, often profound, and lasting impact that informs not only their practice within the military but throughout their career long after they...

Decision-making among child welfare professionals is complex, influencing children and their families. The primary aim of this study was to examine how removal decisions of case managers are affected by family structure, given the intersectionality of family structure and race using an experimental case vignette design. The non-probability convenie...

Pseudoscience in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy - edited by Stephen Hupp March 2019

Pseudoscience in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy - edited by Stephen Hupp March 2019

Pseudoscience in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy - edited by Stephen Hupp March 2019

Many MSW-level social workers make the decision to earn a doctoral degree in social work or a related field. A large number of so-called predatory doctoral programs lack rigor or much academic substance and are ultimately of little value in advancing one’s career. This article describes the characteristics of legitimate social work doctoral program...

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between perceived ageism and depression in later life and to clarify the mechanism underlying this relationship by examining the mediating effects of self-perception of aging and purpose in life. The Health and Retirement Study surveys were used for this secondary analysis of data. The sample...

The names of faculty employed by the 76 member social work programs of the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work were retrieved via a web-search. This resulted in a list of 2204 social work faculty. Their individual H-Indices were then obtained, using either the Publish or Perish software, or via manual calculations from Go...

Cambridge Core - Health and Clinical Psychology - Pseudoscience in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy - edited by Stephen Hupp

We examined outpatient social work service utilization and associated costs among patients with combat-related polytrauma who received services at a veterans’ hospital in the southeast United States between 2007 and June 2011. This is a retrospective cohort study of a purposive sample of 265 service recipients using secondary data extracted from th...

Research in health care settings and on health care interventions should be undertaken using the highest quality standards that can be used to reduce error and bias. This editorial reviews and recommends some ofthe newer (and not so new, but still rare in social work) methodological refinements being widely adopted in health care settings around th...

The purpose of this review is to collect and report the findings of published studies that report the incidence of diagnosed alcoholics who, without formal treatment, achieved a state of full remission. Potential studies were identified through searches of electronic bibliographic databases. Studies were selected for review if they met the followin...

Children, youth, and families served by child welfare professionals should be provided with services that are reasonably well-supported by scientific evidence, when such knowledge exists. A number of clearinghouses and databases have been created in recent years that list a wide array of child welfare, mental health, substance abuse, family, and ed...

We sought to identify differences in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among a sample of HIV positive individuals receiving case management services in northern Florida. Our study consisted of 97 individuals receiving HIV case management that included 56 males (57.7%) and 81 African Americans (83.5%) who were 47.05 years old (SD = 9.33). HRQoL...

Using a cross-sectional descriptive survey, we assessed the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of 97 people living with HIV/AIDS receiving case management services in the Big Bend area of northern Florida. There is only one AIDS service organization and only one Ryan White Program–supported HIV/AIDS medical care provider in the region. Improvem...

The National Association of Social Workers requires social workers to obtain continuing education (CE) after they receive their social work degrees. A large and profitable industry that has emerged catering to this need for CE that is particularly focused on the needs of licensed social workers. Quality control mechanisms in place to monitor the co...

Abstract: Exposure to traumatic events sufficient to result in symptoms is a common phenomenon within the general public. Extrapolation of this observation to clinical social work students in training is reasonable, though unsubstantiated, at a time when this area of practice is expanding. Untreated trauma symptoms in students have the potential to...

Postmodernism continues to have a detrimental influence on social work, questioning the Enlightenment, criticizing established research methods, and challenging scientific authority. The promotion of postmodernism by editors of Social Work and the Journal of Social Work Education has elevated postmodernism, placing it on a par with theoretically gu...

The author traces the history of the original DSW degree in relation to the Ph.D. which was viewed as the more respected, rigorous, and traditional degree, essentially replacing the DSW in social work doctoral programs. Following the trend of practice doctorates in the health care field, beginning with the Psy.D. in Psychology, the DSW as a practic...

A strong theme in the social work literature contends that randomized experiments are an impractical, inappropriate, unethical, and rarely undertaken research method for use in social work. In a test of this claim, the author undertook a review of the English-language published literature and prepared a provisional bibliography of primary social wo...

The purpose of this article is to describe a new approach to practice for social workers, providing financial education services to their clients through the use of personal-finance video games. Addressing the financial concerns of individuals and families has long been part of social work practice. However, video games designed for educational pur...

The chapter begins by dissecting the definition of mental disorder offered in the latest edition of the diagnostic manual, incisively pointing out its flaws and shortcomings. These flaws are of two kinds. First, there is the DSM’s overreach in what it“counts” as a mental disorder-e.g., enduring conditions with a clear biological etiology such as Do...

The language used by the National Association of Social Workers in defining the practice of clinical social work explicitly states that psychodynamic theory (PT) is an intrinsic component of the field. While PT does remain an important influence within the field, the majority of practice theories, models and perspectives now employed by clinical so...

Quality doctoral education is critical to the intellectual health and growth of the evidence-based foundations of the social work profession. Most social work doctorates are research focused but, unlike the MSW and BSW practice degrees, lack formal accreditation. Thus, quality control remains the sole prerogative of individual programs and their ho...

The h-index for all social work and psychology tenured or tenure-track faculty in the top 25 social work programs and psychology departments as ranked by U.S. News and World Report in 2012 and 2013, respectively, were obtained, permitting comparison of the scholarly influence between members (N = 1,939) of the two fields. This involved N = 970 soci...

Adolescent recidivism rates remain high in the United States despite the fact juvenile crime has declined since the 1990’s. Wilderness therapy (WT) is an emerging treatment approach for adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system. This review examines outcome studies utilizing a wilderness therapy program in an effort to reduce adolescent r...

Twenty years ago I suggested that behavior analysts could effect a quiet and covert takeover of the American Psychological Association (APA). I gave as precedents the operation of similar initiatives in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Darwinian-inspired X-Club, and the psychoanalytically-oriented Secret Ring. Though a conscientious prog...

Multidisciplinary practice has become an accepted approach in many education and social and health care fields. In fact, the right to a multidisciplinary assessment is enshrined in the United Nations Convention of the Rights for Persons with Disabilities. In order to avert a ‘one size fits all’ response to particularly heterogeneous diagnoses, such...

Past efforts aimed at promoting a better integration between research and practice are reviewed. These include the empirical clinical practice movement (ECP), originating within social work; the empirically supported treatment (EST) initiative of clinical psychology; and the evidence-based practice (EBP) model developed within medicine. The presenc...

At the National Bridging the Research and Practice Gap Symposium to discuss evidence-based practice (EBP) in social work, 150 participants attended five breakout groups to address real practice setting applications. These participants from social work academia and practice communities addressed issues and looked for solutions to promote research–pr...

A community-based prompting intervention for safety belt promotion was field tested at two parking lots on a large university campus. The intervention involved a coed displaying a flash card that read, “Please buckle up —I care” to unbuckled drivers of vehicles exiting the parking lots. If the driver buckled up, the “flasher” flipped the card over...

The International Federation of L'Arche is made up of intentional, ecumenical, faith-based communities where people with and without developmental disabilities live together. Data on the worldwide federation offers an understanding of L'Arche communities that celebrate and encourage diversity and solidarity. Characteristics of clients and assistant...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Due to advances in military field medicine, combat-injured service members are surviving at much higher rates than in prior conflicts. Service members are returning home with polytrauma injuries, disabilities, and rehabilitation expectations that present new challenges for coordination across the continuum of care. In order...

Social work researchers usually focus their attention on practice-related issues such as descriptive studies of common client problems and issues, surveys of clients or targeted groups, case studies, explanatory investigations aimed at coming closer to a clearer understanding of the causes of psychosocial work problems or, to a lesser extent, the s...

Abstract Objectives: We review outcome studies regarding the effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Method: Studies were identified through electronic bibliographic databases and manual searches of article reference lists. Results: A total of 8 studies met eligibility criteria, consisting of three ran...

The h-index is a relatively new measure of scholarly productivity, and is a simple tabulation of the number of articles (h) a given author has published which have been cited at least h times. For example, a scholar with an h-index of 10 has published ten articles which have been cited in subsequent articles at least ten times. The h-index for all...

The current review provides a summarized synthesis and evaluation of studies addressing the effects of music therapy (MT) alone or MT added to standard care on mental health among adults. Potential studies were identified through electronic bibliographic databases and manual searches. Studies were included for review if (1) the study methodology in...

Gitterman and Knight (2013) expand upon the original model of evidence-based practice (EBP) by proposing an approach they label evidence-guided practice (EGP). They justify this by highlighting some supposed limitations of the original EBP model and by presenting some additional features to amend EBP into EGP. I attempt to show that the limitations...

Reviews the book, Dissemination and Implementation of Evidence-Based Psychological Interventions edited by R. Kathryn McHugh and David H. Barlow (see record 2012-08911-000 ). This book represents the latest contribution by David Barlow and his colleagues, spanning a 40-year effort aimed at promoting the better integration of science with the practi...

Loss of a loved one is a common experience. For the bereaved to grieve is a natural expression of the loss, and mourning is the process through which one must pass in order to adapt to the reality of the loss. For various reasons, for some the mourning process becomes complicated, and the bereaved gets “stuck” in the process and fails to return to...

Quasi-experimental research designs are the most widely used research approach employed to evaluate the outcomes of social work programs and policies. This new volume describes the logic, design, and conduct of the range of such designs, encompassing pre-experiments, quasi-experiments making use of a control or comparison group, and time-series des...

The original process model of evidence-based practice (EBP) is described, and contrasted with the empirically supported treatments (EST) initiative which designated selected interventions as meeting some evidentiary benchmark (e.g., supported by two-well-designed randomized controlled trials). EBP does not utilize lists of ESTs, and designating a g...

While considerable attention has been focused in recent years on evidence-based practice, less attention has been placed on clinical social workers' choice to use ineffective or harmful interventions, referred to in the present paper as Novel Unsupported Therapies (NUSTs). The present study surveyed 400 Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSWs) acro...

State licensure pass rates are a commonly used indicator of professional academic program quality. To date, social work education has largely ignored the existence of the crucial LCSW examination and of its importance to MSW graduates seeking careers in clinical practice. This information should become more transparent and carefully considered by M...

Nationwide, the percentage of faculty who are tenured (or in tenure-earning positions) is declining, with proportionate increases in the amount of instruction provided by adjunct and other part-time instructors, including doctoral students. These trends are mirrored within academic social work and have given rise to some concerns about the potentia...

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to review the current empirical research regarding the financial effects of participation in Individual Development Account (IDA) programs. Methods: Peer-reviewed outcome studies identified through electronic bibliographic databases and manual searches of article reference lists are reviewed. A total of 1 ra...

• Summary: This article describes how a reliance upon social and behavioral science research is the feature distinguishing modern professional social work from prior non-professional efforts at providing social care. A number of formal efforts that attempted to more closely link science and practice are described, including the empirical clinical p...

The authors administered to 59 first-year MSW students the practice test for the clinical-level examination developed by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB); the latter is used by most jurisdictions to qualify individuals to practice as licensed clinical social workers. To assess the practice test's validity, the authors blanked out actual...

Differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) was used to reduce aggression and other inappropriate actions in a 26-year-old man with moderate mental retardation employed at a vocational center. Initially high baseline levels of inappropriate behavior were reduced by implementing contingent praise and a sticker system used to earn points neede...