Hi Don: > I don't know what kind of IRB you have at your school, but I can't imagine > the proposal getting past any of ours. Think about it for a minute. I do understand what you are saying. And I certainly hope that this kind of research would not get past an IRB. That is not the point I was trying to make. I was trying (and perhaps poorly) to make the point that our knowledge is based upon more than just the randomized clinical trial or prospective research design. There are some studies that we will not be able to conduct because of the ethical or practical limitations. Some on this list have suggested (either explicitly or implicitly) that if we don't have the experimental design to show a particular conclusion, then we can't reach the conclusion. I would argue against that line of reasoning. I would also agree with Sherry Ferguson and some others that we don't necessarily need scientific evidence in order to believe something. I am not in favor of the widespread proliferation of handguns and, even if scientific research were to show that owning handguns did not increase the rate of unitentional injuries or homicides, I would still choose to not own a handgun. I would also not allow anyone in my household to own a handgun. The same thing goes with aggressive or salacious television programming. Regardless of what the research shows, I am still not going to let my school-aged child watch Natural Born Killers or Sex in the City on HBO. We make decisions in life on more than just the results of the experimental research study. Hopefully we do not stick our heads in the sand and ignore the results of psychological and medical research, particularly those results that are consistent across studies and time. But most if not all of us also have sources of values other than scientific research. Thank you for providing the meta-analysis references. I will look them up. > So, where does this leave us? The way I see it we have data that suggests > that there are strong factors that affect violent behaviour (economic > disparity, guns, etc.) and weak or non-existent factors (TV, video games, > rap music, etc.). What advice should you give to parents? Well, If a > client came to me inquiring if s/he was being compulsive about > disinfecting the toilet on a daily basis I would not enter into the > discussion if I noticed that the house was on fire. I'm not sure if you are understanding my point on this one. Parents may have very little that they can do to reduce economic disparity in our country or to reduce the gun rate (other than not owning one themselves). When parents come to therapy they are often greatly concerned about their children and families. To suggest to them that they should first work on reducing world poverty or the spread of handguns is disrespectful and dismissive of their concerns. Good metaphor about "toilets" (television watching) and the larger "fire in the house" (economic disparity and handguns). You are right that if a parent is focusing exclusively on violent television programming as the only source of the child's behavior problems, then it would be unethical if we ignored that the larger fire in the house. To extend your metaphor, however, I would suggest that economic disparity and handguns is not the "fire in the house," but rather the "deteriorating condition of the community" in which the house is located. I would suggest that the "fire in the house" might be a permissive or authoritarian style of parenting. It might be the level of overt verbal or physical conflict between the parents. It might be the lack of consistent discipline. It might be the substance abuse of one of the parents. It might be problems between the child and his or her siblings. It might be academic problems the child is experiencing. The list goes on. I am all in favor of anyone going out into the broader community to address the more pervasive societal problems that impact individual and family behavior (such as economic disparity or handguns). But when parents come into therapy, they first and foremost want to know how to stop the fire in their house, not how to fix societal problems. If they are focusing only on cleaning their toilets, I will certainly help them to address the fire in the house. A related point is that just because we don't have any empirical data showing a causal relationship between television wathcing and aggressive behavior, it does not mean that on an individual level there is no causal relationship. Therapists should certainly inform parents about the current scientific research, and we need research to guide our thinking, but we also need to think scientifically and identify specific causal factors on an individual basis. In medicine, we know from randomized clinical trials that nortriptyline is an efficacious treatment for certain types of neuropathic pain. Even though we have the scientific data to show this, we also know that some individuals do not respond to nortriptyline. We can use this research to guide us, but we will still need to evaluate individual situation on a case-by-case basis. Thanks for your thoughts! Rod
<<winmail.dat>>
--- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
