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PARAPSYCHOLOGY 43 conduct the intervention in a consistent and faithful Durlak, J. A. (1997). Successful prevention programs for chil- manner. In other words, the current emphasis on de- dren and adolescents. New York Plenum Press. Offers tailed program manuals dovetails with earlier efforts to numerous examples of paraprofessionals in prevention systematically train paraprofessionals in helping skills. programs. Gershon, M., & Biller, H. B. (1977). The other helpers: Para- These two developments are relevant for preparing pro- professionals and nonprofessionals in mental health. Lex- fessionals as well as paraprofessionals to implement dif- ington, MA: Heath. An extensive review of the use and ferent types of therapeutic and preventive interven- effectiveness of paraprofessionals. tions. Greenblatt. M., York, R., & Brown, F. (1955). From custodial to therapeutic patient care in mental hospitals. New York: Summary Russell Sage Foundation. Discusses the history of men- There is no question that the use of paraprofessionals tal hospital care. has increased the quantity and range of services avail- Karlsruher, A. E. (1974). The nonprofessional as a psycho- able to the general public. There never has been nor therapeutic agent: A review of the empirical evidence will there ever be a sufficient number of mental health pertaining to his effectiveness. American Journal of Com- professionals to meet. the need and demand for service. munity Psychology, 2. 61-77. Sobey, F. (1970). The nonprofessional revolution in mental Using paraprofessionals therefore increases the number health. New York: Columbia University Press. Examines of people who can be helped. In some cases, it would how over ten thousand paraprofessionals were used in be impossible to offer programs without paraprofession- federally funded research programs. als. For instance, there are hundreds of suicide preven- Task Force on Promotion and Dissemination of Psycholog- tion and crisis hot lines and call-in centers throughout ical Procedures. (1995). The Clinical Psychologist, 48, 3- the country that could not exist without paraprofes- 23. sional personnel. In addition, many prevention pro- Joseph Durlak grams now follow a model in which professionals func- A. tion in a consultative and collaborative relationship with local community residents (i.e., community gate- keepers and paraprofessionals) and it is the latter per- sonnel who are usually responsible for conducting the PARAPSYCHOLOGY is the branch of psychology that intervention (Durla.k, 1997). In summary, mental studies a group of phenomena collectively known as health care has been enhanced because paraprofession- psi, a term referring to the transfer of information or als have been used in different ways to extend and ex- energy that cannot be explained by known physical or pand the range of services customarily offered by pro- biological mechanisms. Psi phenomena include extra- fessionals. sensory perception (ESP), the acquisition of information without mediation by the sensory system(s), and psy- chokinesis (PK), action with mediation by the motor sys- Bibliography tem. ESP, in turn, is manifested by telepathy (thought transference), clairvoyance (perception of objects that Borck, L. E., & Fawcett, S. B. (1983). Learningcounselingand are not present in the sensory field), precognition (per- problem-solving skills. New York: Haworth Press. ception of future events), and postcognition (the percep- Christensen, A., &Jacobson, N. S. (1994). Who (or what) can do psychotherapy: The status and challenge of tion, as opposed to the memory, of past events). nonprofessional therapies. Psychological Science, 5, 8- Parapsychology is a branch of psychology because 14. Reviews the controversy surrounding paraprofes- the phenomena it studies are mental (e.g., perceptual) sionals and updates research findings. or behavioral in nature. It should be understood at the Danish, S. J., & Hauer, A. L. (1978). Helping skills: A basic outset that psi phenomena might well be explained in training program. New York: Human Sciences Press. An terms of normal processes. Thus, what appears to be example of a structured training manual. clairvoyance might simply reflect an individual’s high Durlak, J. A. (1979). Comparative effectiveness of parapro- degree of sensory acuity: what appears to be telepathy fessional and professional helpers. Psychological Bulletin, might reflect cues inadvertently transmitted by one per- 86, 80-92. Offers the conclusion that paraprofessionals son and unconsciously picked up by another; what ap- and professionals obtain comparable therapeutic out- pears to be precognition might merely be coincidence: comes. Durlak, J. A. (1983). Training programs for paraprofession- and what appears to be psychokinesis might be a prod- als: Issues and guidelines. In A. M. Jeger & R. S. Slot- uct of simple fraud. Most psychologists incline toward nick (Eds.), Community mental health: A behavioral- these sorts of explanations for ostensibly paranormal ecological perspective (pp. 445-457). New York Plenum phenomena. Press. Discusses effective training approaches for para- Parapsychologists, however. argue that at the very professionals. least the phenomena of psi represent anomalies of ex- 44 PARAPSYCHOLOGY perience, thought, and action: statistical deviations Carson, a television talk-show host who was himself from chance that cannot be explained in terms of an accomplished stage magician). Additional centers known processes or established theories. Whereas some for parapsychological research were established at the parapsychologists believe that psi phenomena might be Stanford Research Institute (now known as SRI Inter- understood in terms of some hitherto unknown sen- national), Princeton, and other institutions. At SRI, sory modality or physical force, others believe that psi Russell Targ and Harold Putoff conducted a series of constitutes evidence for paranormal processes that lie experiments on remote viewing, in which the “percip- outside the domain of normal science. ient” described his or her clairvoyant impressions of a Parapsychology has its origins in nineteenth- randomly chosen geographical site being visited by a century spiritualism, as represented by the work of target team. Helmut Schmidt, at Boeing Scientific Re- F. W. H. Myers (1843-I~OI),an English writer. Al- search Laboratories, tested volunteers’ ability to predict though Descartes’s dualism proposed that the mind is the output of a machine that generated random num- independent of the body, by the nineteenth century, vir- bers according to emissions from a radioactive source. tually all scientists had adopted some version of ma- At Princeton, Robert Jahn examined volunteers’ ability terialism, which holds that brain processes constitute to influence the output of a different kind of random the biological substrate of mental life. Spiritualism re- number generator based on electronically generated vived dualism by postulating the existence of soul (or, noise. All three researchers reported significant devia- in secular terms, mind) as a nonphysical entity that tions from chance, and thus significant evidence for psi. survived bodily death, and formed the basis for such A great deal of contemporary parapsychological re- fads as the Ouija board, mediums, and seances. In con- search employs the Ganzfeld technique, which resem- temporary psychology, spiritualistic concerns with the bles Rhine’s experiments with Zener cards. Ganzfeld, a soul, life after death, channeling, and reincarnation are term derived from Gestalt psychology, refers to a ho- represented by the field of transpersonal psychology mogeneous sensory field, without any imperfections or and research on so-called near-death and out-of-body boundaries. In the Ganzfeld experiments, participants experiences. relax in a reclining chair, translucent shields are placed In 1882. Myers founded the Society for Psychical over their eyes, and white noise is played through ear- Research in London: along with American psychologist phones. The general idea is that the Ganzfeld should William James and others, he also founded the Amer- increase psi effects by reducing distraction from the ican Society for Psychical Research in 1884. In this sensory environment. And indeed, Ganzfeld experi- context, psychical refers to the dualistic notion of a dis- ments conducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s by embodied mind to mental states, such as clairvoyance, the late Charles Honorton (then affiliated with the Psy- which have no basis in physical reality. In the early chophysical Research Laboratories in Princeton, New twentieth century, Stanford, Harvard, and other uni- Jersey) and others did appear to yield above-chance lev- versities administered funds specifically established to els of psi performance. However, a 1985 review by Ray study spiritualistic and psychical phenomena, initiating Hyman, a psychologist and skeptic of paranormal an era of credulous and skeptical ghost hunting by pro- claims, revealed a number of methodological problems fessionals and amateurs alike. with those studies. For example, many of the experi- At Harvard, J. B. Rhine (1895-1980) conducted psy- ments suffered from inadequate randomization of trials chical research with William MacDougall; in 1927,he or left open the possibility of contamination through and his wife, Louisa Rhine, moved with MacDougall to sensory leakage. In 1986.Hyman and Honorton issued Duke University. The Rhines eventually established the a joint communique setting