General, Articles
New APA guidelines for girls and women put focus on strengths
By Janine Weisman
The empowering #MeToo hashtag didn’t exist yet when the American Psychological Association (APA) issued its first practice guidelines for treating girls and women in 2007. Now, the updated version of these APA guidelines acknowledges the strength and resilience many girls and women possess to overcome adversity from the effects of sexism, oppression, discrimination, and prejudice. Released in May, the new APA guidelines follow the release of recommendations for treating boys and men published last year. Previous guidelines for psychological practice include those for working with racial and ethnic minorities, older adults, LGBT clients, and people with disabilities. “We don’t mean to [More]
Researcher Nicole Overstreet, Ph.D., focuses on concerns of women, marginalized groups
By Catherine Robertson Souter
Until recently, medical and psychological research was done with a “one-size-fits-all” approach – white men around the age of 35 made up the majority of research subject pools and findings were then extrapolated to apply to women, other ethnic groups, children and the elderly. Researchers began to question standard practices as concerns rose around the over-medication of children by using much larger test subject prescriptions. Also playing a role was the realization that symptoms of the same illness may differ between men and women and that certain treatment regimens work differently for different ethnic populations. There’s been a shift towards [More]