PS381; Contemporary Clinical Psychology

Assessment

• Large percentage engage in assessment

• Over a quarter of professional time devoted to assessment

• May focus on individual, couple, or family

• May address many different types of data

• Integrates diverse data

Clinical Supervision

• Almost half engage in supervision

• Model of supervision reflects model of supervisor

• Very little research on what makes a good supervisor

Work Where?

• Hospitals

• Community clinics

• Residential clinics

• Insurance companies

• Child protection agencies

• Prisons

• Private mental health practice

• Universities

*Higher than average suicidal rates for professionals that work with children*

Code of Ethics

• Set out principles that should guide all activities

• Includes issues such as boundaries with clients and trainees, advertising practices, duty to warn and report, response to impairment

• Requires psychologists to base their practices on scientific evidence, but it may noy address the specific issue you aare working with so you may need to make some inferences

• Ethics regulations change with times

Models of Training

• Practice based on scientific findings

• Require clinical skills

• Continuum -- Research producer to research consumer

• In Canada, all accredited training programs are university-based

• In US, PsyD is also offered in large free-standing professional schoold

• Science Practitioner -- PhD

  • Most common

  • Balance of science and practive

• Clinical Scientist -- PhD

  • Strongest focus on the development of research skills

• Practitioner Scholar -- Psy.D.

  • Clinical psychologist as a ‘research consumer’

Training

• Courses:

  • Statistics, research methods, core content areas of psychology; biological, cognitive, social psychology, and personality psychology

  • Assessment, intervention

• Practice:

  • Graduated exposure to clinical skills in a variety of settings

• Research:

  • MA + PhS or PsyD vs. Combined masters and doctorate

• Residency:

  • 2000 hours full-time in accredited setting

Freud

• Claimed the women who said they were sexually abused as children had actually just fantasized this

• May in part have been motivated by anger generated by his initial report of the high incidence of sexual abuse

  • Many of his clients were the daughters, nieces, and wives of his colleagues

• Claims that memories of child sexual abuse were falsely influences by the medical profession and other helping professions to discredit reports of child sexual abuse

• Dismissal of reports of childhood abuse had an extremely negative impact on the wellbeing of generations of children and adults

Carl Rogers

• Disguised the identity of clients and made transcripts of therapy sessions for research

• He shaped client behaviour by selectively providing empathy

• Did not prove that unconditional positive regard was essential for therapy

• Attitude of humility is essential if we are to make progress in clinical psychology