Examination of Clinical Psychology

Examination of Clinical Psychology

PSY/480

March 4th, 2013

Examination of Clinical Psychology

According to Plante (2011), “Clinical psychology focuses on the assessment, treatment, and understanding of psychological and behavioral problems and disorders” (p.1), by attempting to use principles of psychology to better understand, predict, and alleviate “intellectual, emotional, biological, psychological, social, and behavioral aspects of human functioning” (p.1). This field of clinical psychology is rapidly growing and the most widely looked at and used. The history of clinical psychology, the role of research and statistics in this field, and the differences between clinical psychology and other fields of psychology are highly important in discussing clinical psychology. These aforementioned items will be covered in this paper.

History of Clinical Psychology

Clinical psychology is nothing new, and has in fact been around since the before the Greeks. For centuries people who were accused of abnormal behavior were badly mistreated, had supernatural herbs induced into them to try and cure illnesses, holistic approaches from the Greeks were used and influenced other medicinal purposes, moons and suns were thought of as the reason to people’s behavior, and more (Plante, 2011). People were locked up in asylums, killed, tied up by ropes, and exorcisms and trephination occurred.

Though all this horrible treatment was occurring to patients and the mentally ill, Philip Pinel and Dorothea Dix were two very popular names to have more humane treatment than what was being given at the time. In 1900 Clifford Beers had been hospitalized because his brother had committed suicide and it was a lot to bear, and he was subjected to degrading treatment and physical abuses (History of the Organization, n.d.). He too wrote a book that was soon to change mental institutions and clinical psychology. Philip Pinel developed “moral treatment” where patients were given sympathy and...