Men more likely to call EAP about relationship issues
Gender differences were front and center in a new study released by the Chicago-based EAP giant ComPsych. One surprise: Men outpaced women in the number of calls to EAP and work-life resources when it comes to relationship counseling. The percentage compared to women was 22% to 18%.
The data should be used to customize employee assistance programs based on gender, age and occupation, ComPsych CEO Richard Chaifetz said.
The study also concluded that workers in the retail industry had the highest percentage of calls related to behavioral disorders, such as depression. On the other hand, employees working in the health care business called more often about stress and anxiety.
Men and employees in their 20s were more likely to seek help for alcohol or chemical dependency issues–and those in the construction industry were most likely to call about these problems.
Managers, meanwhile, were more likely to call EAP and work-life professionals about employees in their 50s and 60s due to performance issues, absenteeism or interpersonal problems.
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The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is unhappy about with upcoming release of the DSM-5.
In a post on the NIMH website written by NIMH Director Thomas Insel, the DSM-5 was referred to as “at best, a dictionary” of mental health disorders, “creating a set of labels and defining each.”
Insisting that “patients with mental disorders deserve better,” Insel said that the NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project, launched two years ago, will “transform diagnosis by incorporating genetics, imaging, cognitive science, and other levels of information to lay the foundation for a new classification system.”
He said diagnoses must be based on biology, not just symptoms.
“As long as the research community takes the DSM to be a bible, we’ll never make progress,” Insel told The New York Times on May 6. “People think that everything has to match DSM criteria, but you know what? Biology never read that book.”
The DSM-5 is the first major revision of the diagnostic manual by the American Psychiatric Association since 1994.
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Congress, the White House and the media have spent much of the year talking about gun control–and why we need it or don’t need it. But a new California State Senate bill offers a possible alternative to the hot-button political issue by requiring additions to the school curriculum regarding violence.
The bill would introduce materials into the grades 7-12 curricula to discuss the “risks, harm and danger associated with violent behavior,” according to a supportive article in the May issue of the National Alliance of Professional Psychology Providers (NAPPP) newsletter, The Clinical Practitioner.
Senate Bill 552 hasn’t received much press, though, and its prospects are unknown.