Introduction to Clinical Psychology

The field of clinical psychology involves research, teaching, and services relevant to the
applications of principles, methods, and procedures for understanding, predicting, and
alleviating intellectual, emotional, biological, psychological, social and behavioral
maladjustment, disability and discomfort, applied to a wide range of client populations. (Resnick,
1991)

According to APA, the field of Clinical Psychology integrates science, theory, and practice to
understand, predict, and alleviate maladjustment, disability, and discomfort as well as to
promote human adaptation, adjustment, and personal development.

Clinical Psychologist
What are the following tasks being done by a Psychologist
Psychologists have extensive training in the psychotherapy and psychological principles
governing human behavior, in formal assessment of psychological functioning, and in scientific
research methods.

To do list: Assessment and diagnosis, Intervention or treatment, Teaching, Clinical Supervision

Research, Consultation, Administration

Assessment and Diagnosis

All practicing clinicians engage in assessment. They are licensed to administer, score and
interpret individual and group tests and projective techniques. They also use diagnosis to
identify the presence of psychological conditions, make important distinctions and communicate
results.

Intervention or Treatment
This refers to psychotherapeutic interventions that would help patients alleviate symptoms and
manage behavior.

Teaching
Clinical psychologists who have full or part-time academic appointments obviously devote a
considerable amount of time to teach.

Clinical Supervision
Becoming skilled in the intricacies of therapy and assessment techniques requires more than
just reading textbooks. It also involves seeing clients and then discussing their cases with a
more experienced supervisor.
Research
Clinical psychologists are in a unique position both to evaluate research conducted by others
and to conduct their own research. By virtue of their training in research, their extensive
experience with people in distress, and their knowledge of both therapy and assessment,
clinical psychologists have the ability to consume and to produce new knowledge.

Consultation
Consultation takes innumerable forms in many different settings yet the goal is to increase the
effectiveness of those to whom one’s efforts are directed by imparting to them some degree of
expertise.

Administration
These involve maintenance of client records,accomplished reports and research projects.

Where do they work?

In private practice, universities, assessment centers and clinics

On becoming a Clinical Psychologist

Step 1: Obtain your Bachelor's degree in Psychology
Step 2: Pursue aligned graduate studies in masters
Step 3: Grab your license for Psychologist!
Step 4: Continue your doctorate studies

CLOSELY RELATED MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

Psychiatrists
Psychiatrists are medical doctors that specialize in mental health. They are skilled to function
as physicians and they are licensed to prescribe medications.

Psychiatric Nurses
They work in close collaboration with the psychiatrist or the clinical psychologist, they implement
therapeutic recommendations.

Counselors
Traditionally, counselors work with normal or moderately maladjusted individuals. Their work
may involve group counseling or counseling with individuals. Their principal method of
assessment is usually the interview.

Social Workers
Professional social workers assist individuals, groups, or communities to restore or enhance
their capacity for social functioning, while creating societal conditions favorable to their goals.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

In the reform movements of the 19th century, the efforts of the major figures ultimately
resulted in improved care for the people with psychological disorders.

Philippe Pinel was a French physician who was shocked by the senseless brutality that was
the custom in 19th-century “mental hospitals,” He was instrumental in the development of a
more humane psychological approach to the custody and care of psychiatric
Patients.

William Tuke was an English businessman, who devoted himself to the establishment of
what might be called a model hospital for the humane treatment of the sick and
troubled.

In America , Eli Todd was laboring long and successfully to develop a retreat in Hartford for
the mentally ill. Like his European counterparts, Todd emphasized the role of civilized
care, respect, and morality. Through his efforts, it became less fashionable to regard mental
patients as incurable.

Dorothea Dix traveled from state to state for 40 years to campaign for better facilities
and more humane treatment for the insane and the mentally retarded. She created the first
mental hospitals across the US and Europe and changed the perception of the mentally ill.

HISTORICAL ROOTS OF DIAGNOSIS AND ASSESSMENT

The Beginning: 1850-1899

Francis Galton devoted a great deal of effort to the application of quantitative methods to
understanding differences among people. Pursuing his interests in sensory acuity, motor skills,
and reaction time, h e e s t a b l i s h e d a n anthropometric laboratory in 1882.

James McKeen Cattell turned his attention to reaction time differences among people to
Approach studies about intelligence. Cattell coined the term mental tests to describe his
measures.

Lightner Witmer became interested in variation in psychological skills among children. Witmer
began the current model of treatment in clinical psychology by opening the first psychological
clinic in 1896.

Emil Kraepelin divided mental illness into exogenous factors (curable) and those caused by
Endogenous factors (incurable). His descriptions and classifications of patients
were heuristic and have served to stimulate an enormous amount of discussion about
psychopathology.
Advent of the Modern Era: 1900-1919

For Intelligence tests, Alfred Binet was convinced that the key to the study of individual
differences was the notion of norms and deviations from those norms. Together with Theodore
Simon, they developed means of ensuring that children with cognitive limitations were
properly educated. It was the 1908 Binet-Simon Scale.

For personality testing, Carl Jung began using word association methods around
1905 to attempt to uncover unconscious material in patients.

For Intelligence tests, Charles Spearman offered the concept of a general intelligence that he
termed g.

Edward Thorndike countered with a conceptualization that emphasized the importance of

separate abilities.

The American Psychological Association was appointed by the Medical Department of the Army.
Its chairman was Robert Yerkes. The committee was charged with the task of creating a
system for classifying men according to their ability levels. It designed the Army Alpha test and
Army Beta test.

Robert Woodworth developed his Psychoneurotic Inventory in 1917. This was perhaps the first
questionnaire designed to assess abnormal behavior.

Between the Wars: 1920-1939

A major development in the intelligence testing movement occurred in 1939, when David
Wechsler published the Wechsler-Bellevue test for adult intelligence.

Projective testing occurred in 1921, when Hermann Rorschach described his use of inkblots to
diagnose psychiatric patients. Rorschach’s work proposed that when people respond to an
ambiguous test stimulus, they will reveal something of their responses to real-life experiences.

It was not until 1937, when S. J. Beck and Bruno Kopfler published their separate manuals
and scoring procedures that the Rorschach method really caught on.

Then, in 1939, L. K. Frank coined the term projective techniques.

Christiana Morgan and Henry Murray of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). This
test requires the person to look at ambiguous pictures and then make up a story to describe the
activities, thoughts, and feelings of the people in those pictures.
In 1 9 3 8 , Lauretta Bender published her BenderGestalt test, which has also been used as a
projective measure of personality. Complex questions such as “Is this patient’s level of
functioning a product of constitutional intellectual limitations, or is a ‘disease process’ such as
schizophrenia eroding intellectual performance?”

World War II and beyond: 1940-present

In 1943, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory ( M M P I ) appeared. It is an objective

self-report test whose major function, initially, seemed to be attaching psychiatric
labels to patients.

In 1 9 4 9 , Wechsler published another individual test ; t h e Wechsler Intelligence Scale for

Children. Later, in 1955, The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale ( a revision of the
Wechsler-Bellevue Scale) appeared.

Late 1950s, a movement termed radical behaviorism began to assert its influence. Those who
adhered to this orientation held that only overt behavior can be measured .

The first edition o f the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSM-I) appeared in 1952. Given the substantial postwar needs that funded
the work involved in creating the first DSM, its focus was predominantly on psychopathology in
adulthood, including postwar symptoms and acute psychosis.

HISTORICAL ROOTS OF INTERVENTION

The Beginning: 1850-1899

Jean Charcot gained a widespread reputation for his investigations of patients with
hysteria—patients with “physical symptoms” that did not seem to have an identifiable physical
Cause.

In 1880, Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud began treating a young patient named “Anna O,”
who was diagnosed with hysteria through catharsis.

Advent of the Modern Era:1900-1919

Clifford Beers has been important in the history of clinical psychology. He was hospitalized in
the wake of several severe depressions. While hospitalized, he passed into a manic phase and
began recording his experiences in the hospital. When he was free from his manic-depressive
symptoms, he was released. However, this release did not weaken his resolve to write a book
exposing the abuses in the hospital care of the mentally ill.
In 1900, Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams. With this event , the psychoanalytic
movement was in full swing. Concepts such as the unconscious, the Oedipus complex, and the
ego became part of the mainstream of Psychological language , and sexuality became a focus
within the psychological realm.

Between the Wars: 1920-1939

Adler’s de-emphasis of the role of sexuality, and his concomitant emphasis on the structure of
family relationships, seemed much more congenial to American mental health professionals in
the field.

Play therapy is essentially a technique that relies on the curative powers of the release of
anxiety or hostility through expressive play.

Group therapy also began to attract attention. By the early 1930s, the works of both J.

I n 1 9 2 0 , John Watson described the famous case of Albert and the white rat, in
which a young boy was conditioned to develop a neurotic-like fear of white,
furry objects

World War II and beyond: 1940-present

At first, the role of psychologists was ancillary and often mainly involved group psychotherapy.
But increasingly, they began to provide individual psychotherapy, performing well in both the
short-term goal of returning men to combat and in the longer term goal of rehabilitation.

Clinical psychologists began to temporarily reduce their emphasis on the assessment

of intelligence, ability testing, and the measurement of cognitive dysfunction and
became more interested in personality development and its description.

In 1958, Joseph Wolpe introduced systematic desensitization, in behaviorism it is a technique

based on conditioning principles; the behavior therapy movement was now more firmly
entrenched than ever.

Aaron Beck began developing what would ultimately become one of the mos t e ff e c ti v e
psychological treatments for psychological problems—cognitive therapy. Although the
initial focus for cognitive therapy was depression, it is now used effectively to treat a
range of conditions.

HISTORICAL ROOTS OF RESEARCH

The Beginning: 1850-1899

Wilhelm Wundt, a German, is usually credited with establishing the first formal
psychological laboratory, in Leipzig in 1879

In that same decade, an American, William James, also established a laboratory,

and in 1890, he published his classic text Principles of Psychology.

Advent of the Modern Era: 1900-1919

Ivan Pavlov was lecturing on the conditioned reflex. His work on conditioning left an
important legacy for clinical psychology.

Between the Wars: 1920-1939

Clinical research was still in its infancy. Much of the noteworthy work was in the area of test
development—for example, the 1939 publication of the Wechsler -Bellevue test and all the
personality testing work of the 1930s.

World War II and beyond: 1940-present

One of the real pioneers in therapy research was Carl Rogers (1951). His use of his recordings
to study the process of therapy opened windows to an activity that had long been shrouded in
mystery.