Measuring Mental Health Values

Mental Health Values of Psychotherapists: How Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Psychoanalysts, and Social Workers Conceptualize Good Mental Health

“…The finding that neither professional group membership nor theoretical orientation was associated with unique patterns of mental health values is difficult to attribute to measurement insensitivity because in other studies significant MHVQ differences have been found between ethnic groups and between the sexes (Bjork, 1988;Tyler et al, 1983;Tyler et al, 1989). It seems more likely that either mental health values are stable and change little during the course of one's professional education or that trainers from different disciplines or theoretical orientations do not differ systematically in their treatment of mental health values.…”

“…All respondents were mailed a copy of the MHVQ, a 99-item instrument designed to yield scores for the eight dimensions for conceptualizing healthy emotional adjustment described in the previous section. The construction of the MHVQ is described elsewhere (Tyler et al, 1983). Briefly, the eight MHVQ scales were factor derived from an initial heterogenous pool of 236 items contributed by samples of psychiatric inpatients, mental health center directors, and college students who were asked to identify traits indicative of whether "an individual's personal adjustment is good, bad, average, etc.... " Two different samples of college students were used to construct and then cross-validate the final 99-item eight-factor version of the MHVQ.…”

“…Of potential concern to psychotherapists is the possibility that significant value differences may exist, and may go undetected when the therapist and client are of different sexes or are from different cultural traditions. Gender differences with respect to mental health values have been reported in several studies <Bjork, 1988;Tyler et al, 1983;Tyler et al, 1989). Suan and Tyler (1990) found several differences in mental health values between Caucasion and Japanese American college students.…”

“…Particularly relevant to this interest are "mental health values," members of the subset of all possible values that refer specifically to healthy emotional functioning (e.g., "to express emotions freely is indicative of good mental health.") Recently Tyler, Clark, Olson, Clapp, and Cheloha (1983)developed the Mental Health Values Questionnaire (MHVQ). In contrast to attempts to map the domain of mental health values by focusing on theoretical arguments about what should constitute healthy emotional functioning (Blatt, 1974;Jensen & Bergin, 1988;Fine & Nichols, 1980;Schultz, 1958;Vaughan, 1971) the MHVQ was empirically designed and constructed to measure the full range of conceptual dimensions likely to be used in appraising someone/s emotional adjustment.…”

Mental Health Values and Response to Alcoholism Treatment

“…Given the paucity of empirically established relationships between such traits and psychopathology, these disagreements typically reflect value differences rather than disputes about empirical fact (Tyler, Clark, Olson, Klapp, & Cheloha, 1983). Indeed, an important subset of the realm of values may be a set of "mental health values" that refer specifically to what constitutes healthy emotional functioning (e.g., "to be emotionally reserved is to be neurotic").…”