AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF CHAD A. PONCINIE. For the Master of Science degree in Behavior Analysis and Therapy, presented on 21 June 2013. TITLE: AN EXAMINATION OF DELAY DISCOUNTING IN SEX OFFENDERS WITH DUAL DIAGNOSES MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Mark R. Dixon Discounting of delayed rewards by sex offenders with dual diagnoses was compared to discounting of delayed rewards by matched control non-offenders with dual diagnoses. All participants completed a hypothetical choice task in which they made repeated choices between 10 dollars/servings after a delay and an equal or lesser amount available immediately. The delay to the large reward was varied from 1 day to 2 years across conditions. Indifference points between immediate and delayed rewards were identified at each delay condition by varying the amount of immediate money across choice trials. Overall, those identified as sex offenders discounted the delayed reward more steeply than did the control non-offenders.

This thesis is about clients who are in treatment in therapeutic communities for drug addicts and suffer with a mental illness alongside drug addiction. The theoretical part summarizes the definition and description of dual diagnosis, the prevalence of people with dual diagnosis and discusses the possibilities of therapeutic approaches to clients with these specific demands. Finally, attention is paid to the theory of self-medication for symptoms of mental illness through addictive substances which supports the theoretical model of addiction as a result of reactions to psychiatric illness. The research was carried out at the research group, which was formed by all clients currently in treatment in two therapeutic communities for drug addicts in July 2015. The research was conducted as a quantitative design through non-standardized questionnaire. This research shows that from the total number of respondents, 79% had a psychiatric diagnosis in addition to substance abuse. Most often these were methamphetamine users and multiple substance users. From psychiatric disorders were most strongly represented personality disorders, depressive disorders and disorders from psychotic spectrum. With respondents who reported substance abuse to suppress psychopathological symptoms occurred reduction of most of...

Background: With the development of multidisciplinary addictology teams, the ability of an addictologist to reliably assess personality psychopathology can be considered an important prerequisite that significantly enters the process of treatment planning. Because the addictologist is often the first professional to come into contact with the client, verification of the accuracy of clinical judgment seems to be one of the key indicators of addictologist competence. Aims: Verification of the reliability and validity of the clinical assessment of personality psychopathology in master students of addictology based on the course on scoring the Structured Interview of Personality Organization (STIPO). Methods: 31 master students of addictology independently evaluated 7 protocols of the STIPO on the basis of recordings. The presented patients were unknown to the students. Data was collected as part of the STIPO scoring course. The resulting scores of students were compared with: 1. the expert scores of a clinical psychologist with many years of experience with the STIPO; 2. the scores of 4 other psychologists without previous experience with the STIPO who attended the course; 3. information on previous clinical experience and previous education of the students. The comparison of scores was performed by...