| ||Minding Your Mind || | Understanding Bias In Mental Health
Professionals Reviewed and revised on October 17, 2012 By
Michael Craig Miller, M.D. Harvard Medical School A study
published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
in 2007 showed that personal and professional biases can affect
first impressions and the label used by mental health
professionals to diagnose a person's mental disorder. (Bias
occurs when personal preference interfere's with a person's
ability to make an impartial judgment.) Who is making the
diagnosis may matter. To avoid bias, the best approach may be to
see a diagnosis as part of a process that occurs over time
rather than as something based on first impressions and set in
stone. Back to top How the Study Was Done Nearly 1,400
psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers a
representative professional sample participated in the study.
Researchers mailed each of them one of three fictional case
studies describing a troubled teen. Symptoms were typical of
someone wi