Breaking Bad: DSM-5 Description, Criticisms, and Recommendations

The special issue on the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition, American Psychiatric Association, 2013) in the journal Psychological Injury and Law has considered its changes relative to the DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, text revision, American Psychiatric Association, 2000) from both a clinical utility and scientific point of view. Although the manual did not undergo wholesale change, the changes to diagnostic categories relevant to the area of psychological injuries (especially posttraumatic stress disorder, mild traumatic brain injury, and chronic pain) present both practical and forensic conundrums, complicating clinical and legal work in the area. The articles in the special issue number nine (including the present one), and involve ones on the major psychological injuries, as well as personality. Separate articles deal with forensics and ethics, with a final one considering forensic psychiatric work using the DSMs. The authors collectively indicate that the DSM-5 is rife with utility and scientific difficulties, although it still might be used in practice and for court in the context of careful, comprehensive assessments and critical analysis. More importantly, ongoing and future research should be considered in revising the DSM-5. Some of the articles review in depth the extant research on their topics and all make recommendations that are useful. The articles include those (in order in the special issue) by: Zoellner et al. (Psychological Injury and Law, 6, 2013); Biehn et al. (Psychological Injury and Law, 6, 2013); Schultz (Psychological Injury and Law, 6, 2013); Young (2013); Hopwood and Sellbom (Psychological Injury and Law, 6, 2013); Thomas (Psychological Injury and Law, 6, 2013); Gordon and Cosgrove (Psychological Injury and Law, 6, 2013); and an opinion piece by Frances and Halon (Psychological Injury and Law, 6, 2013), the chief chair of the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, American Psychiatric Association 1994).     

A Sensitivity Analysis of Egocentric Measures of Peer Delinquency to Latent Homophily: A Research Note

Objectives

Egocentric measures of peer delinquency, obtained through a census of a social network, have become the preferred operationalization for examining the relationships between social influence and delinquency. Studies regressing ego’s delinquency on the delinquency of nominated friend/s (i.e. alter/s) conclude that a statistically significant coefficient provides evidence of social influence. However, the inferences drawn from these studies may be biased by the introduction of artificial statistical dependence as a consequence of using social network data in a regression framework. Recent work (Shalizi and Thomas Sociol Methods Res 40:211–239, 2011) shows that latent homophily, or unmeasured confounding of observables, may lead to nonzero estimates of social influence, even if there is no causal significance. To examine this possibility, sensitivity analyses have been created (e.g. VanderWeele and Arah Epidemiology 22:42–52, 2011; VanderWeele Sociol Methods Res 40:240–255, 2011) to determine the robustness of an estimated coefficient to latent homophily.

Methods

In this research note, I examine the robustness of estimates for social influence from two articles (Haynie Am J Sociol 106:1013–1057, 2001; Meldrum et al. J Res Crime Delinq 46:353–376, 2009) using egocentric measures of peer delinquency.

Results

Findings indicate that for large, precise point estimates, highly improbable conditions are needed to explain away the effects of social influence. However, less precise point estimates (i.e. large standard errors) are more sensitive to latent homophily.

Conclusions

The analyses indicate that studies using egocentric measures should conduct sensitivity tests, particularly when the estimated effect is weak and/or has a relatively large standard error. Scripts written in the free programming language R (R Core Team R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, 2012) are provided for researchers to conduct such analyses.     

Early Intervention with Compensated Lower Back-Injured Workers at Risk for Work Disability: Fixed versus Flexible Approach

Low back pain (LBP), a leading cause of disability, has been linked with profound economic, personal, and social costs (Hills 2006; World Health Organization 2003). This significant effect propels research in identifying modifiable risk factors that protract LBP; these factors can be targeted in early intervention (EI) (Pransky, Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 49(3):249–251, 2007; Schultz et al., Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 17:327–352, 2007, Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 18(2), 140–151, 2008; White et al. 2013). This randomized controlled study evaluated the effectiveness of two approaches, fixed versus flexible, in delivering proactive, interdisciplinary EI with 63 workers within a workers' compensation interdisciplinary case management setting (i.e., WorkSafeBC, Canada). Off-work 4 to 10 weeks post-back injury, the workers were also at risk of protracted work disability (N?=?24 at high risk; N?=?39 at moderate risk). Fixed, protocol-driven, interdisciplinary, multimodal, clinical, occupational, and case management-based EI was compared with a flexible, individual need-driven EI with the same modalities as the fixed approach. Results showed a significant narrowing of the outcome gap between the two interventions. High-risk injured workers tended to benefit more from a fixed, protocol-driven approach, as shown in the pilot study (Schultz et al. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 18(2), 140–151, 2008). The results indicated that moderate-risk workers benefitted from a more flexible, need-based, individual, and low-intensity approach as compared with a fixed approach. The flexible approach for moderate-risk workers was also less costly and consumed fewer rehabilitation and health care resources. Recommendations for future research and practice included larger sample sizes, controllability of research interventions, risk for disability-EI matching, and conditions under which a flexible delivery of multimodal EI is more efficacious than a fixed approach, and vice versa.     

Ambiguous Measures of Unknown Constructs: The MMPI-2 Fake Bad Scale (aka Symptom Validity Scale, FBS, FBS-r)

The Fake Bad Scale (FBS; Symptom Validity Scale) has fundamental psychometric flaws, interpretive problems, and potentially adverse societal consequences that are not appreciated by Ben-Porath et al. (Psychological Injury and Law 2(1), 62–85, 2009a, b). The FBS was constructed without due consideration to scientifically based guidelines for scale development (Clark and Watson, Psychological Assessment 7, 309–319, 1995; Jackson, Psychological Review 78, 229–248, 1971; Nunnally 1978; Holden and Troister, Canadian Psychology 50, 120–130, 2009). After almost two decades in existence, its face, content, and construct validity have not been established in the empirical literature. Oft-cited discriminant studies that appear to support the FBS are premature because of the scale’s unestablished psychometric foundation. In addition, these studies have significant methodological weaknesses that preclude definitive conclusions about what the scale actually measures. We review these weaknesses and recent legal cases that challenge the scale. We recommend that the FBS’s validity and fairness be addressed in an independent scientific review by the Buros Mental Measurement Test Evaluation System, a non-profit center specializing in the evaluation of commercially available tests.     

Differentiating Parents with Faking-Good Profiles from Parents with Valid Scores on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory

Parental capacity assessments (PCAs) remain common during child abuse investigations, and “best practice” approaches to evaluations consist of using a comprehensive assessment (Budd et al. 2011). The Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP; Milner 1986) is one risk assessment measure used during PCAs, but results may be confounded by faking-good behavior. Currently, there is a small amount of literature examining the characteristics and implications of parents who fake good on the CAP. The present study examined differences between physically abusive parents with a faking or non-faking profile on the CAP by demographic information, psychopathology, behavioral observation data, and abuse recidivism. Parents differed significantly by IQ and depression scores, but no significant differences were found on any other variable including recidivism rates at posttreatment. Implications of study outcomes, and the emphasis for a multimethod approach to PCAs will be discussed.     

Guardianship for crime prevention: a critical review of the literature

Cohen and Felson??s (Cohen and Felson American Sociological Review 44(4):588?C608, 1979) routine activity theory posits that for a crime to occur three necessary elements must converge in time and space: motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of capable guardianship. Capable guardians can serve as a key actor in the crime event model; one who can disrupt, either directly or indirectly, the interaction between a motivated offender and a suitable target. This article critically reviews the literature on guardianship for crime prevention. Our specific focus is two-fold: (1) to review the way guardianship has been operationalized and measured, and (2) to review experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations and field tests of guardianship. Research on routine activities has had an uneven focus resulting in the neglect of the guardianship component (Reynald Crime Prevention and Community Safety 11(1):1?C20, 2009; Sampson et al. Security Journal 23(1):37?C51, 2010; Tewksbury and Mustaine Criminal Justice and Behavior 30(3):302?C327, 2003; Wilcox et al. Criminology 45(4):771?C803 2007). Evaluations of guardianship-related interventions demonstrate support for the theoretical construct; however, high-quality field tests of guardianship are wholly lacking. Implications for theory and research are discussed.     

Speed of Decision-Making as a Procedural Justice Principle

The uncertainty management theory (Lind and Van den Bos, Research in organizational behavior 24, 181–223, 2002; Van den Bos and Lind, Advances in experimental social psychology, pp. 1–60, 2002) proposes that perceived fairness decreases experienced uncertainty, and, thus, the importance of fairness is enhanced under higher uncertainty. For example, the six procedural justice principles (Leventhal, Social exchange: advances in theory and research pp. 27–55, 1980) can be seen to reduce uncertainty in the long run by producing higher quality decisions. However, the decision-making process itself also may cause uncertainty, especially when the process is prolonged. Thus, we bring the speed of the decision-making process into discussion as one justice principle. We suggest that people use speed-related information as heuristic information and substitute lacking procedures-related information by drawing inferences from the speed of the decision-making. We propose that the speed of decision-making has a twofold effect on perception of procedural fairness: very fast and very slow decision-making processes are perceived to produce more uncertainty than moderate time processes, and consequently, a moderate process is expected to be related with more positive fairness perceptions than very slow or very fast processes. The statement was further tested by examining the mediating role of procedural fairness perceptions in the relationship between speed and its one consequence, perceived legitimacy, with a survey sample (N = 846) in the context of Finnish forest policy. The analysis confirmed the hypotheses. The role of speed as a justice rule and its contribution to the uncertainty management theory is discussed.     

The MMPI-2 Symptom Validity Scale (FBS) is an Empirically-Validated Measure of Over-reporting in Personal Injury Litigants and Claimants: reply to William et al. (2009)

We respond briefly to Williams et al.'s (Psychological Injury and the Law 2:182–197, 2009) most recent effort to critique the MMPI-2 Symptom Validity scale, noting that the authors repeat many of the unfounded claims and conclusions of Butcher et al. (Psychological Injury and the Law 1:191–209, 2008) while ignoring and/or reflecting a misunderstanding of many of the points raised in our rebuttal. Rather than repeat our detailed responses to their initial review, we limit this comment to addressing new points Williams et al. (Psychological Injury and the Law 2:182–197, 2009) bring up and offer a succinct summary of the issues raised in this exchange.     

The Admissibility of the R-PAS in Court

The admissibility of the Rorschach has been a concern of forensic psychologists for many years. The focus of this debate has been the Comprehensive System, which is the most researched of the current Rorschach Systems available in the USA. However, recently, a new, competing system has been published: the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS; Meyer et al., Rorschach Performance Assessment System: Administration, Coding, Interpretation, and Technical Manual, 2011). Using Heilbrun’s (Law and Human Behavior 16:257–272, 1992) guidelines as a framework, we examine the admissibility of this new system according to the standards outlined in Daubert (1993) and Frye (1923). We conclude that we have reservations about the admissibility of the R-PAS in court at the present time, notwithstanding ongoing work on this system.     

Reentry Within the Carceral: Foucault, Race and Prisoner Reentry

Early research on prisoner reentry was largely practical and applied, oriented to policymakers responding to the myriad challenges presented by having millions of people leaving prisons and jails each year. More recently, scholars have drawn on critical theoretical frameworks to reformulate the problem as bound up with large-scale shifts in the nature of social control (Wacquant in Dialect Anthropol 34(4):605–620, 2010a), deep racial divisions (Nixon et al. in Race/Ethnicity: Multidiscip Glob Contexts 2(1):21–43, 2008), and transformations of the United States political economy (Hallett in Crit Criminol. doi:10.1007/s10612-011-9138-8, 2011). This paper continues the work of theoretical elaboration through two avenues: (1) examining the contribution that Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish can make to the conceptual development of reentry scholarship, and (2) reworking Foucauldian concepts and themes important to the study of reentry to account for their racialized characteristics.     

An Overview of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS)

We provide an overview of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS; Meyer, Viglione, Mihura, Erard, & Erdberg, 2011). After providing a general introduction to Rorschach-based assessment, the rationale and features of R-PAS are outlined. As part of this discussion, some of the ways in which R-PAS differs from the Comprehensive System (CS) (Exner, 2003) are delineated.     

Testing the Precision of Legal Translation: The Case of Translating Islamic Legal Terms into English

Legal translation is viewed as “a category in its own right” (Weston in An English reader’s guide to the French legal system. Berg, Oxford, (1991, p. 2). It is a kind of translation of the language used for specific purposes (Zhao in J Transl Stud 4:28, 2000). Legal translation requires accuracy in relaying the substance of the message, while respecting the form thereof as well as the genius of the target language (Zhao in J Transl Stud 4:19, 2000; Sarcevic in New approach to legal translation. Kluwer Law International, Hague, 1997, p. 52). As generally accepted worldwide, precision is deemed of paramount importance in legal translation. With this in mind, the present paper deals chiefly with the concept of how legal translation can correctly be tested in order to ensure precision and validity for application and implementation. The paper will argue that the main goal of legal translation and the major criterion against which the precision of legal translation should be tested is to reproduce the same legal effect in the target text as that conveyed in the source text regardless of the method(s) used in the translation process.     

Toward a Green-Cultural Criminology of “the Rural”

There are many connections between the various strands of critical criminology. Previously, we highlighted common issues between green and cultural criminology, while also noting some of the ways that each perspective could potentially benefit from cross-fertilization (Brisman and South in Crime Media Cult 9(2):115–135, 2013, Green cultural criminology: constructions of environmental harm, consumerism and resistance to ecocide. Routledge, Oxford, 2014; McClanahan in Crit Criminol. doi:10.1007/s10612-014-9241-8, 2014). In this article, we extend our analysis to consider green, cultural and rural criminologies through the exposition of several key issues, including “the rural” as local context in which exploitative global forces may exercise power; agribusiness and the food/profit chain; farming and the pollution of land, water and air; and finally, cultural/media images and narratives of rural life. We focus more specifically on this final intersectionality through an analysis of Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom (2010), analyzing his depictions of rural people, environmental activists, and the rural environment through the issue of mountaintop removal. We conclude our article by identifying several examples of key directions in which the intersectionality of green, cultural and rural criminologies might proceed, including trafficking and abuse of farmworkers, harms associated with the cultivation of quinoa, and a critical interpretation of media and popular narrative depictions of environmental issues within rural contexts.     

The Use of the Adult Attachment Scale with Domestically Violent Men

Empirical evidence highlights the utility of examining attachment styles in exploring the etiology of intimate partner violence perpetration, with insecure attachment styles regularly identified as underscoring domestically violent men. This study applied the 18-item self-report Adult Attachment Scale (Collins & Read, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(4), 644–663 1990) to 176 men entering a domestic violence perpetration counseling program. Factor analyses failed to result in the three factor model of the AAS. Subsequent item analyses indicated participants’ random and contradictory response style negated the possibility of any coherent factor structure. The results of this study caution investigators on the validity of self-report data with domestically violent men and offers both research and clinical/conceptual implications.     

Setting the Record Straight: Comment on Gurley,Piechowski, Sheehan,and Gray (2014) on the Admissibility of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) in Court

Gurley et al. (Psychological Injury and Law 7:9–17, 2014) express reservations about the admissibility of testimony based on the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) in court. They question whether there is sufficient evidentiary foundation in the underlying psychometrics and adequate general acceptance among psychologists for R-PAS-based testimony to meet either the Daubert or Frye criteria for admissibility and also raise doubts about how well it meets the criteria for the use of forensic tests proposed by Heilbrun (Law and Human Behavior 16:257–272, 1992). This invited comment addresses their concerns about the admissibility of R-PAS-based testimony and corrects some erroneous statements about the psychometrics of R-PAS and the pertinent empirical literature. Gurley et al. characterize R-PAS as being in competition with the established Comprehensive System (CS; Exner 2003), though we clarify that it is actually an evolutionary development from the CS and designed to be a replacement for it. We also point out how their conclusion that R-PAS-based forensic testimony may be hazardous or premature is based on an insufficient familiarity with the R-PAS scientific and professional literature, a misinterpretation of the Frye and Daubert evidentiary standards, and a mischaracterization of several of Heilbrun’s (Law and Human Behavior 16:257–272, 1992) criteria for the use of tests in forensic testimony.     

Residential Relegation of Registered Sex Offenders

This study builds on existing research (Hughes and Kadleck 2008; Mustaine et al. 2006a; Tewksbury and Mustaine 2006) that shows registered sex offenders are more likely to live in undesirable and socially disorganized communities. We extend such analyses to a geographically and demographically different community and employ more sophisticated measures of social disorganization concepts to assess the validity of the claim that registered sex offenders are relegated to socially disorganized communities. Data from Orange County, Florida, including measures of violent crime and the social disorganization concepts of concentrated disadvantage, residential instability and immigrant concentration are used to examine the distribution of residential locations for registered sex offenders. Results show that higher concentrations of sex offenders are found in communities with more concentrated economic disadvantage, more residential instability and higher rates of robbery and child sexual abuse. Implications of these findings for public policy are discussed.     

Assessing the Latent Factor Association Between the Dysphoria Model of PTSD and Positive and Negative Affect in Trauma Victims from India

The recent release of the DSM-5 comes with the division of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms across four symptom clusters (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). This division is based on the support garnered by two four-factor models; Emotional Numbing (King et al., 1998) and Dysphoria (Simms et al., 2002) and a five-factor model; Dysphoric Arousal (Elhai et al., 2011). Much debate centered on the validity of the Dysphoria factor as a non-specific factor of PTSD within the Dysphoria model. In line with this, we assessed relations between the four factors of the Dysphoria model (Simms et al., 2002) and positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) in natural disaster victims (N?=?200) from Leh, India, using the PTSD checklist (PCL-S) and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS short form). Confirmatory factor analysis was implemented to assess the best-fitting model for both the PCL (PTSD) and the PANAS (affect). Two optimal models (the Dysphoria model and a two-factor model for affect) were subsequently used to assess latent variable associations across constructs. It was hypothesized that differential associations between latent factors would be evident with the Dysphoria factor being highly correlated with negative affect compared to alternative PTSD factors. Significant correlations were found between factors of the Dysphoria model and NA (0.52–0.65, p?<?0.001). Comparing the association of pairs of PTSD factors with NA and PA, Wald’s tests revealed that no single PTSD factor was more related to NA than the other. Avoidance and Hyperarousal factors were correlated with PA. Results are discussed in line with literature questioning Dysphoria factor’s unique association with general distress.     

The Role of Overall Organizational Justice Perceptions Within the Four-Dimensional Framework

Given the recent interest in a global model of organizational justice, the purpose of the present paper is to examine the role of overall justice within Colquitt’s (J Appl Psychol 86:386–400, 2001) four-dimensional framework. In two studies (using a student and professional sample), confirmatory factor analysis results supported a five-factor model of justice. Analyses demonstrated that overall justice is likely an independent construct, can be predicted from the facet measures of justice, and is not a second-order hierarchical construct. In both studies, structural equation modeling indicated that overall justice partially mediated the relationship between the four dimensions of justice and both global and specific outcomes examined by Colquitt (2001) and Ambrose and Schminke (J Appl Psychol 94:491–500, 2009), respectively. Taken together, this research demonstrates that there is a need for both overall justice and the four justice dimensions in comprehensive models of organizational justice. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Neurocognitive Disorders in DSM-V: Forensic Perspective

Although determination of diagnosis of cognitive impairments constitutes one of the core objectives of forensic neuropsychological assessment, the diagnostic criteria for cognitive disorders provided by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR, American Psychiatric Association 2000) have been of low internal and external validity and limited utility. This paper reviews the evolution of diagnosis of cognitive disorders from current DSM-IV-TR to the proposed DSM-V (American Psychiatric Association 2010). The conceptual framework is tracked, along with the body of literature associated with the DSM-V proposal on Minor and Major Neurocognitive Disorders. The quality of evidence for internal and external validity is reviewed, as well as the fairness and utility of newly proposed diagnoses from both clinical and forensic perspectives. Significant conceptual, evidentiary, psychometric, assessment, and practical questions are raised related to the new classification, and recommendations are offered for improvement to the proposal of the DSM-V Work Group on Neurocognitive Disorders.