American Journal of Occupational Therapy

This article compares and contrasts psychoanalytic and cognitive-behavioral approaches to anger intervention. Related research is discussed and a cognitive-behavioral model of anger intervention is presented. The model views anger as an affective stress reaction consisting of four factors: physiological arousal, antagonistic cognitions, environmental stimuli, and behavioral reactions. The article also examines occupational therapy assessment and treatment goals on the basis of the cognitive-behavioral model and recommends stress management activities and techniques for helping clients control the factors that mediate their anger

The emphasis on systematic methods of demonstrating accountability in health care is affecting the delivery of human services at all levels, from hospitals and community centers to individual private practitioners. New procedures are being proposed to meet the accountability demands encountered by therapists. Several recently developed methods for documenting clinical change in patient status are presented, and the relationship of this documentation to traditional research methods is briefly explored. A clinical illustration of the procedures is provided along with a discussion of advantages and limitations.

A nationwide study, from which the data in this article were taken, suggests that most physical dysfunction and psychosocial Level II fieldwork placements for occupational therapy students represent a financial benefit to the sponsoring institution. This article provides the occupational therapy educator or fieldwork site supervisor with a method for estimating the amount of financial benefit one may anticipate from the assignment of a student to a physical dysfunction or psychosocial Level II fieldwork placement. Time-consuming data collection and interpretation are not necessary to perform this analysis. A formula to predict the fiscal outcome is described. Step-by-step instructions guide the user in applying the formula to a given physical dysfunction or psychosocial Level II fieldwork situation.

This study investigated the hypothesis that purposeful activity is an intrinsic motivator. We hypothesized that subjects would take longer to perceive themselves to be working hard and would have a higher heart rate increase when working on a product-oriented activity than when working on a non-product-oriented activity. Fifteen subjects sanded a cutting board that they could keep and a piece of wood that they could not keep until they reached a rating of 15( hard) on the Borg Rating Scale of Perceived Exertion. No significant differences were found in the subjects’ heart rate increase or in the time it took subjects to perceive themselves as working hard. Subjects reported significantly more enjoyment in sanding the cutting board than in sanding the wood, and significance increased further upon completion of the sanding board. Ex post facto, when subjects were categorized into three groups depending upon the degree of liking for each activity, it appeared that the degree of liking may be important in predicting exercise effort. Implications for practice and further research are discussed.

This study used the information-processing approach to conceptualize planning and problem-solving abilities and to expand the theoretical and empirical data base of Claudia Allen’s cognitive disability model. The congruent validity of the Allen Cognitive Levels (ACL) test as a measure of cognition, specifically of the fluid information-processing abilities that underlie learning, was investigated. Criterion measures used were subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–Revised edition (WAIS–R). Forty adult psychiatric patients participated in the study. Spearman r coefficients showed moderately high correlations between the ACL test and the WAIS-R subtests measuring fluid abilities, and Performance scale IQ. These results indicate that Allen’s model and test can be useful in guiding occupational therapy planning when expected outcomes depend on the patient’s learning potential.