Chapter 6 centres clinical psychologists’ perspectives on and responses to ‘did not attend’ (DNA) policies. Patient non-attendance at clinical appointments has long been regarded as a key issue of concern within healthcare, and particularly so in light of pressures and targets to see more patients and more quickly. DNA policies are also an object of often latent concern by professionals and patients in relation to how they ostensibly improve access for some people through the potentially strategic exclusion of others. I analyse how clinical psychologists account for and navigate such policies, exploring how (in)formal rules around attendance can prompt the involuntary discharge of patients. DNA policies often provide space for clinical discretion, and are even sometimes elided by practitioners. Their negotiations can involve highly moralised configurations of both patient and professional subjectivities. These contribute to legitimising exclusion from services, as well as the expertise leveraged to do so.

In Chapter 5, I move to consider some of the challenges of waiting lists and associated targets that configure clinical psychology. Taking the position that targets operate as what Nikolas Rose calls a ‘technology of government’, the chapter indicates some of the affective and material consequences of their instantiation. In particular, I show how clinical psychologists rework processes of entry into therapy, and the aims and character of care, in order to meet – and sometimes accommodate – targets. While professional autonomy is often regarded as being constrained through these technologies of government, practitioners nevertheless find ways of performing autonomous action in a matter that can advantage some patients over others. I illuminate how shifts in psychological care in response to targets could recast clinical psychologists’ relationships to their work and with patients, with implications for the subjectivities that are (not) assembled through therapy.

Chapter 3 explores and historicises attempts to revise the 1983 Mental Health Act of England and Wales. I focus on the traffic between: first, clinical affirmations about the need to enhance access to treatment – increasingly understood to be psychological therapy – for people diagnosed with a personality disorder; and, second, political aims to detain criminal offenders living under this diagnosis for longer periods. The rewriting of the Act, and the significance of personality disorder among these, represent a key yet underacknowledged moment in the unfolding story of access to psychological care, while also demonstrating how improved access is not an unproblematic social good. The chapter demonstrates how legal and professional discourses contoured each other such that an understanding of personality disorder as treatable through psychological intervention was produced. This improved the accessibility of therapy for some people; however, this was often as a consequence of their involuntary confinement.

In this short Coda, I describe some of the ambivalences that come with an ethic of access. I reflect on the procedural and ethical challenges that can be propelled by ostensibly progressive healthcare initiatives, and consider what could perhaps be done about these. In light of the arguments made throughout the preceding chapters, I decline to advance discrete recommendations in what is already an overdetermined policy space. Rather, I urge an ethos of reconfiguration within mental healthcare that fosters variability and mutability in services through direct and ongoing engagement with communities. In so doing, psychological practitioners might be enabled to better comprehend, articulate, and serve the needs of those with whom they undertake therapeutic work.

In today’s climate, researchers may feel pressured to always adopt the most complex, cutting-edge research techniques. Although such techniques have advantages, they also have disadvantages. In this chapter, we walk the reader through each stage of the research process: developing research questions and hypotheses, recruiting participants, selecting a study methodology and associated statistics, and disseminating results. At each stage, we compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of what we call “Column A” approaches (i.e., relatively simple, tried-and-true research techniques) versus “Column B” approaches (i.e., newer and more complex techniques). We argue that the best overall solution, both for individual researchers and for the field as a whole, is to adopt a diverse mix of different techniques. Throughout, we consider how open science techniques might potentially aid in achieving a healthy balance between different approaches. We also suggest mechanisms whereby often-expensive Column B approaches could be made more widely accessible.

Relationship science has grown tremendously in the four-plus decades since its inauguration as a distinct social science discipline. Much has been accomplished. A deep, conceptually rich literature has begun to take shape; the field’s methodological toolbox has evolved to the point where specialized tools for studying relationships are well-known and accessible; and the importance of relationships for human health and well-being is firmly established. At the same time, further advances in knowledge and impact will require surmounting several headwinds. We outline these challenges, focusing on four general themes: the need for more cumulative, better integrated core organizing principles; fuller appreciation of the role of context and diverse relationship structures; continuing development of the field’s research methods; and the need to more effectively disseminate its findings into interventions and the public sphere. In our view, the field’s future influence will depend on its ability to meet and capitalize on these challenges.

Relationship satisfaction has major implications on individuals’ health and subjective well-being, and prominent theories in relationship research have assigned relationship satisfaction an important role. In this Handbook chapter, we first introduce conceptual perspectives on relationship satisfaction, showing that relationship satisfaction is a characteristic of both the individual and the relationship. We then provide an overview of the measurement of relationship satisfaction and discuss common affordances in its assessment. Next, we report empirical evidence on how relationship satisfaction evolves over time, showing that relationship satisfaction changes both normatively and depending on the eventual outcome of the relationship. We then report how relationship satisfaction is associated with different relationship-specific facets, such as perceptions, emotion regulations strategies, and communication styles. To conclude, we discuss a series of unresolved issues in the area of relationship satisfaction research and propose an agenda for future research, such as the usage of modern technologies.

In the present chapter, the authors offer a social exchange theory analysis of processes within intraracial versus interracial relationships. After commenting upon “the rise in intermarriage” (particularly within the United States during the past 50 years), the authors draw upon Levinger’s (1980) Acquaintance-Buildup-Continuation-Deterioration-Ending (ABCDE) model regarding stages of relationship development, highlighting several quantitative studies that examine social exchange processes at each transition or turning point between stages of intraracial and (especially) interracial relationships. Furthermore, the authors address implications of certain interdependence processes for the stability of intraracial and interracial relationships, as well as gaps in the evidence that is available concerning turning points within both types of relationships. Subsequently, the authors identify particular studies that serve as points of departure for suggestions about methodological changes and theoretical additions in future research on intraracial and interracial relationships. Finally, the authors provide examples of still-unanswered questions within the literature on interracial relationships in particular.

This chapter explores the accuracy of private transcription services when transcribing Black English and Standard American English. Courts and lawyers in the US regularly rely on transcripts from such services, but third-party verification of their accuracy, especially with respect to their quality when faced with nonstandard language varieties, is lacking. This study draws on experimental methods to contrast the quality of transcription services offered by transcribers and AI route. The quantitative results show that transcription by humans and AI resulted in more mistakes when transcribing Black English than when transcribing Standard American English. Furthermore, a qualitative analysis reveals that these mistakes often changed or obscured meaning in legally relevant ways. If these results are generalizable, many transcripts currently in circulation, and crucial both to justice at the trial level and appellate review, contain disproportionately more legally important mistakes for Black English speakers. Given that Black English speakers are a highly overrepresented population in the US criminal system, the chapter proposes ways of redressing transcription shortcomings.

In covert surveillance operations, police monitor the activities of suspected individuals to gather investigative information, which is then used by public prosecutors and judges in legal proceedings. This practice presents multiple challenges when suspects use different languages and intercept interpreters/translators (IITs) support the process of conveying intercepted communications from investigative stages to court proceedings. This chapter fills a significant knowledge gap regarding the activities, responsibilities and competences of IITs. The authors show how communication surveillance unfolds in three temporally staggered phases each involving different participants: (1) suspects’ original communication, (2) IITs’ translation in collaboration with police and (3) integration of written translations into legal documents by police, public prosecutors and judges. Communication in these phases undergoes significant shifts to extract core information crucial for judicial decision-making, while IITs remain invisible in the process. The chapter concludes with an imperative for a clearly defined delineation of roles and responsibilities for IITs within the criminal justice system.

Part I examines the birth of neo-socialism and the 1933 “neo-socialist schism” within the SFIO. The extant historiography of this schism tends to interpret it as the joint product of a doctrinal revision introduced by the neo-socialists and a separate tactical challenge by the party’s reformist wing pushing for a policy of socialist ministerial participation within bourgeois governments. The problem with this interpretation is that it treats neo-socialism as a coherent and ready-made doctrinal alternative to socialist orthodoxy, whereas the neo-socialists themselves initially conceived of their project as a “tactical,” and not “doctrinal,” challenge to the party leadership. Neo-socialism was not the driving force of the 1933 schism but emerged as a distinct doctrinal identity through the schismatic dynamic of the factional conflict over ministerial participation.

International Criminal Court (ICC) presents a unique blend of adversarial and inquisitorial legal traditions. By drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, this chapter explores the impact of ICC’s procedural blending on judicial interventions during witness examination.The common understanding is that ICC relies on the adversarial, party-led mode of presenting evidence – featuring examination-in-chief and cross-examination – but without the associated rules of evidence. Our study expands on this by demonstrating that the latitude provided by the ICC’s legal framework for judges to monitor and intervene in witness examination creates a field of tension for them, as they often oscillate between the roles of truth-finder and arbiter, to the point where the two seem to merge. By shedding light on the interactional accomplishment of these judicial interventions, our analysis illustrates how the ICC’s normative and procedural provisions are fleshed out in action, revealing the emerging tensions associated with judges’ dual role in questioning witnesses.

Relationship dissolution, or a breakup, is a common event rife with emotional and psychological consequences, and as such has increasingly become the subject of academic inquiry. Through an interdisciplinary approach encompassing empirical studies, theoretical models, and real-world implications, this chapter aims to offer a multifaceted understanding of breakup. To start, we will focus on defining breakups, considering that they are concepualized through various lenses: as a distressing life event, as a calculated decision, as a gradual process, and as an outcome metric for evaluating other relational constructs. Next, we will describe the most robust predictors of breakup, including characteristics of the partners, about the structure of the relationship, and about how the partners interact. We will next detail the process by which relationships end, how former partners cope with breakup, and what predicts post-breakup outcomes. Collectively, this chapter provides a sweeping review of the science surrounding relationship dissolution.