Age differential and marital status between partners as risk factors for domestic violence and child abuse have not been sufficiently investigated for clinical interventions purposes. This essay will attempt to provide information on potential risk factors and will propose a Risk and Safety tool tailored to such potential risk factors.

Writing articles on the Internet is an excellent way to get free advertisement and, coupled with a link to your web site, it can give you the opportunity to increase your client base and get new referrals. Here we'll show you what categories are the most popular in our web site, and what key phrases bring people to therapist-psychologist.com

Pica, or the ingestion of inedible items, is a constant risk for some members of the developmentally disabled population. Within this population, two subsets of patients engaging in pica behaviors is evident: The severely to profoundly mentally retarded (lower functioning individuals), and the mildly to severely retarded with a co-occurring psychiatric diagnosis (higher functioning individuals).   This essay will present this writer’s personal observations of pica behavior during the course of 3+ years observing inpatient populations with developmental challenges. However, this writer has not employed formal research methodology to validate the hypotheses here to be offered.

The Internet has become an important place where potential clients actively search for mental health professionals. The questions I hear over and over again relate to why no referrals seem to come from Internet directories for clinicians. This is a fair question that needs clarification. Probably, you will not find the information I am about to disclose anywhere else because companies that handle significant amounts of Internet traffic also have a monetary incentive for not disclosing it.

The purpose of this study was to identify and compare the differences and similarities between male and female suspected offenders of intimate partner homicide (IPH). The California Vital Statistics and Homicide Data [CVSHD], 1990-1999 (Jason, 2002), was used for this study. The CVSHD contains data from victims of homicide in California from 1990 to 1999. The understanding of intimate partner violence and intimate partner homicide were explored using four different theoretical approaches. Consistent with previous research, the results of this study suggest that suspected offenders involved in the killing of an intimate partner are more likely to be male.

The results also indicate that IPH is for the most part a male-to-female and female-to-male event. The primary weapons of choice used to perpetrate the intimate partner homicide by both genders were handguns, but women were more likely than men to use knives or other kind of stabbing instrument. Based on population percentages, it was determined that those identified as boyfriend/girlfriend were at the highest risk for IPH. Secondly, African-Americans were found to be overrepresented as both suspected offenders and victims of IPH.

African-American females were more likely to be the offenders compared to African-American males. This study was concluded by discussing the implications of these findings, and by identifying several areas for future research, including the effects separation and legal divorce may have on intimate partner homicide.

This link will take you to the full study (more than 90 pages long). The file is a PDF file.

This study is indexed by The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). ICPSR is part of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. ICPSR is the world's largest archive of digital social science data.

What makes a good therapist? This is the eternal question that many people ask, from the potential client to well-known therapists.