Before COVID-19, most therapists had concerns about telepsychology, and only treated patients in person. During the COVID-19 lockdown, patients still needed therapy, but in-person therapy sessions became unsafe. The current study measured how many therapists are using online therapy before vs. during COVID-19, how much training they have received, and their knowledge about legal restrictions on using telepsychology. A sample of 768 U.S.A. mental health professionals completed a 29-item online survey. Results show that before COVID-19, most therapists only saw their patients in person (e.g., at the therapists office), but during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all therapists used a wide range of telecommunication technologies to communicate with their quarantined patients, including texting, telephones, video conferences, and even virtual reality. According to within-subject related samples comparisons, 39% of survey respondents used telepsychology before COVID-19, vs. 98% during COVID-19 (χ2 = 450.02, p < 0.001). Therapists reported high treatment effectiveness using telepsychology (7.45 on 0–10 scale). However, overall, on a 0–10 scale, therapists reported a significant increase in feeling burned out during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mean = 3.93 (SD = 1.93) before vs. 6.22 (SD = 2.27) during the pandemic (Z = −18.57, p < 0.001). Although the APA ethics guidelines encourage therapists to use telepsychology with their patients during the crisis, gaps in respondents' knowledge identify a need for increased specialized training and education. Although the current study showed that virtual reality is rarely used by the therapists surveyed, virtual reality is a promising new telepsychology technology. Billions of dollars are currently being invested in mass producing immersive virtual reality systems. In the future, as networked immersive Virtual Reality becomes more widely available, therapists and patients in physically different locations will be able to “meet” in a shared computer-generated world designed for therapy sessions, potentially including group sessions. Telepsychology and virtual reality have the potential to be increasingly valuable tools to help therapists mitigate the consequences of COVID-19. Research, development and training is recommended.

Heurísticas são regras gerais de influência utilizadas pelo decisor para simplificar seus julgamentos em tarefas decisórias de incerteza. Com o intuito de entender as regras heurísticas no julgamento e na tomada de decisão, realiza-se uma revisão teórica, que prioriza as pesquisas de Tversky e Kahneman, englobando as heurísticas de ancoragem, disponibilidade e representatividade.

ResumoEste estudo apresenta uma revisão teórica sobre a compreensão da morte nas diferentes etapas do desenvolvimento humano com o objetivo de contribuir para o trabalho de psicólogos hospitalares. Foram realizadas consultas a artigos indexados na língua portuguesa, além de livros de autores importantes. Foi possível observar que a morte é compreendida de maneira distinta durante as fases do desenvolvimento humano, sofrendo influência de alguns fatores, tais como: cultura, informações e experiências com a situação. Os autores propõem que a compreensão da morte pode ser vista em um continuum. Além disso, um quadro no qual foram incluídos os principais aspectos da compreensão da morte é proposto com vistas a facilitar o entendimento dos resultados deste estudo. Palavras-chave: Morte, Desenvolvimento humano, Psicologia hospitalar.

This study aimed at investigating differences in the performance of the young elderly and oldest old in tasks evaluating cognitive flexibility/inhibition (Stroop test), selective attention/working memory (Digit Span Subtest), premorbid intelligence/semantic knowledge (Vocabulary Subtest), and decision making (Iowa Gambling Task -IGT). Twenty healthy individuals were divided into two groups: 10 young elderly (M = 62 years, SD = 2.1) and 10 oldest old (M = 80 years, SD = 3.3), both with high educational level (M = 14 years of study, SD = 2.5). Results showed that the groups were only different in terms of decision making. There was also a difference in the learning process of each group; the young elderly reached more favorable scores in the IGT.

While it is well documented that anxious individuals have negative expectations about the future, it is unclear what cognitive processes give rise to this expectancy bias. Two studies are reported that use the Expectancy Task, which is designed to assess expectancy bias and illuminate its basis. This task presents individuals with valenced scenarios (Positive Valence, Negative Valence, or Conflicting Valence), and then evaluates their tendency to expect subsequent future positive relative to negative events. The Expectancy Task was used with low and high trait anxious (Study 1: N = 32) and anxiety sensitive (Study 2: N = 138) individuals. Results suggest that in the context of physical concerns, both high anxious samples display a less positive expectancy bias. In the context of social concerns, high trait anxious individuals display a negative expectancy bias only when negatively valenced information was previously presented. Overall, this suggests that anxious individuals display a less positive expectancy bias, and that the processes that give rise to this bias may vary by type of situation (e.g., social or physical) or anxiety difficulty.