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Empirical Methods and Psychology Essay

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A debate rages in psychology. It is not one of the usual kind, dwelling on a specific aspect of the mind or a new drug, but a controversy dealing with the very foundations of psychology. The issue is determining how psychologists should treat patients and on what psychologists base their choices. Some feel that they must be empirically-supported treatments, treatments backed by hard data and scientifically supported. Others feel that this standard for treatments is much too confining for the complex field of psychology and that many good treatments cannot be backed by hard data. The American Psychological Association President Task Force on Evidence-Based Treatment came out with a plan for psychology that effectively maintains a high …show more content…

Unfortunately, a human can be biased on incorrect without any knowledge of it. Data-backed treatments help to eliminate error on the part of the clinician. Backing psychology with scientific studies also benefits psychology itself. P. C. Kendall (1998) asks what would happen if this was not the case. “To what category would the professional practice of clinical psychology be assigned: to philosophy, psychic reader, advisor?” Patients who need psychological treatment want to go to a psychologist who they know will help them. In fact, to stay relevant in the modern health care climate, “evidence-based clinical practice will become essential” (Sanderson 2003). Empirically supported treatments provide a higher standard of care for patients. Opponents of EPBB dispute that this data-backed plan removes the psychologist from the process of treating the patient. Mahrer (2005) argues that “[t]here is almost no wiggle room left for psychotherapists who try to cling to their own preferred ways of doing psychotherapy. The good old days are over.” Perhaps to Maher, unsupported therapies from past times are good, but most psychologists and patients would disagree.
Even so, the second facet of EBPP ensures that the clinician plays an active role. As the APA Taskforce states, there is a large difference between an expert in a field and a novice (APA Task Force 2006). An analogy can be drawn to chess. A novice chess player feels overwhelmed

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