Reviews and analyzes statistics and theories on causes of increasing youth suicides. Emphasizes the importance of identifying suicidal adolescents, accepting their feelings, and providing appropriate intervention. Illustrates categories of youth suicides--the loner, the depressed, the psychotic, the crisis suicide, and as a means to communicate.…

Presents an integrated clinical approach, based on a developmental, structuralist framework, to classify adaptive and pathological personality organizations and behaviors in infants and preschool children. (Author/DB)

This study examined the naturalistic therapy experiences of 81 sexually abused girls, ages 6 to 16, and the relationship of these experiences to demographic factors. Results indicated strong effects for abuse experiences and child psychopathology on amount of therapy received. Ethnic or racial minority status was associated with different patterns…

Several measures of psychopathology were administered to 111 psychiatric inpatients (ages 13 to 17) including 46 patients who reported sexually abusive experiences. None of the scales was correlated with sexual abuse in either sex, and a history of physical abuse was the only characteristic that significantly correlated with sexual abuse for both…

Responds to criticism of a method for analyzing genuine and simulated suicide notes. Claims that the critique is based on an inflexible and unnecessarily limited model of scientific psychology as a purely theory-driven enterprise. Discusses problems associated with such a limited view and addresses methodological and logical criticisms. (RJM)

Evaluated the impact of chronic illness on the psychological functioning and social behavior of adolescent patients. A questionnaire was given to thalassaemics (n=90) and a control group (n=100) investigating coping strategies in stressful situations. Study supports hypothesis that chronic illness does not necessarily imply psychopathologies, but…

Scale-level factor analyses are reported for 2 self-report measures of psychopathology, the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90) and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI), using 130 psychiatric inpatients and outpatients. Used separately, the measures offer limited interpretability of scale profiles. Their combined use permits differentiation…

Examined the intersection between internalizing and disruptive behavior problems in 890 inner-city boys in grades 4 and 7 over a 3-year period. Found that internalizing problems were more associated with a diagnosis of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder than with a diagnosis of conduct disorder. (MDM)

Investigated whether religious affiliation (Hindu or Muslim) and gender were important factors in explaining difference in unhealthy eating attitudes of Asian adolescents living in United Kingdom compared with Caucasians. Muslim adolescents had most characteristic pattern of eating psychopathology. Muslim boys' eating attitudes were particularly…

Comprehension and Picture Arrangement Wechsler subtest scores were correlated with clinician ratings of social competence and hostility for 82 children at risk for psychopathology and 62 healthy children and 124 at-risk and 113 healthy adolescents. Results do not suggest that either subtest is sensitive to social functioning. (SLD)

Assesses sensitivity, specificity, and predictive value of official police suicide rates and compares them to those of municipal workers. Official police suicide rates had less sensitivity (83.3% compared to 92.3%) of actual suicides than municipal worker rates. Police suicide rates also showed a lower negative proportion than municipal worker…

Reported that parental alcoholism is prognostic of childhood behavior problems, both directly, through genetic and modeling effects, and indirectly, through parental distress and physical problems. It was hypothesized that the heightened rate of behavior problems in children of alcoholics could be traced to the combination of negative interactions…

Traditionally the identification of, and treatment for, eating disorders has been based on developmental psychopathology theory and research, thereby emphasizing risk factors and the elimination of maladaptive behaviors. This article seeks to reconceptualize the prevention of, and protective factors for, eating disordered behavior from the…

This study examined the structure, distribution, and correlates of a new measure of self-reported callous-unemotional (CU) traits in 1,443 adolescents (774 boys, 669 girls) between the ages of 13 to 18 years. The Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits was subjected to exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Exploratory…

This study examined responsivity of mothers with childhood-onset depression (COD) in relation to children's overt expression of positive and negative emotion. It was hypothesized that COD and control mothers would differ in contingent responsivity to their children's expression of both positivity and different types of negative emotionality. Using…