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
In today 's society, there is a great deal of research and practice about evidence based practice. Most of this is highly sought upon in the field of psychology, where evidence and decision making is key to accomplishing new ideas of treatments for people who retain psychiatric problems. The meaning of evidence-based practice in psychology is that it involves making very educated and supported decisions based on punctilious, unambiguous, and astute evidence (Rousseau & Gunia, 2016). With evidence-based practice, it assists in raising and deriving the issue of what evidence really is, the strength of the evidence, and how practitioners can improve the quality of their evidence (Rousseau & Gunia, 2016). Evidence is a major factor because it may either enhance or hinder the practitioner 's ability to make decisions and construct their practices on patients (Rousseau & Gunia, 2016). Evidence-based practice began in the 1980 's with the goal to combine the practices of scientific evidence with physician education and clinical practice. The issue with this was that medical schools did not have the ability to teach their own specific approaches to clinical problems (Rousseau & Gunia, 2016). As an effect to this cause, three main issues quickly arose about the effectiveness and quality of evidence-based practice. First, since other fields were advancing growth in
Methods used in psychological research are used to obtain quantitative or qualitative data. Quantitative data is more often than not derived from methods such as experiments and statistics analysing data using surveys, questionnaires and interviews. Qualitative data tends not to be aimed at finding exact measurements in its findings, but is more concerned with evidence collection and analysis through practices such as observation and ethnography (using observations through involvement in activities over a period of time) (Brownlow 2011).
In Psychology 101, you learn about a personal fable; something that I have not lost. I have always wanted to change the world that I was destined for greatness and teaching elementary school students gives me that power. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
This essay examines the advantages and disadvantages of using a method primarily for gathering research on human subjects that can be examined for later use. It will give a basic outline of the methods of investigation, their uses and their suitability. I will also look at the scientific method as a whole and examine the criticisms of this method using the writings of Hume and Popper.
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) was initially a movement in medicine, dating back to early 20th century (Spring, 2007). It was described as a careful decision making process about the care of individual patients using best available evidence by Sackett, Rosenberg, Gary, Haynes, and Richardson (1996). Greenhalgh (2010) gave a similar definition but with more emphasis on the mathematical assessment of the potential benefit and harm. By now, EBP has been widely adopted by many health disciplines, including psychology. In 2005, the American
While reading chapter eight, there were somethings that stood out to me. I noticed that there are many definitions to the term emotionally disturbed. According to the DSM-5 classification depends primarily on the way that people behave or feel. There are two pervasive dimensions of disordered behavior; externalizing behavior, this involves striking out others, and internalizing behavior, this involves mental or emotional conflicts. A child could have both of these.
The main concern for those who oppose the idea of granting prescription privileges, stems from the fear of misdiagnosing and potentially putting a patient at risk due to the inadequate training (Long, 2015). This assumption of inadequate training is due to the difference in medical education and experience between psychologists and physicians. Consequently, due to these differences, many argue that this is enough evidence to show that psychologists are not sufficiently capacitated to prescribe medication (Long, 2015). Several often dispute that the requirements set by the states that currently permit psychologists to prescribe medication, are not enough and require more training in order to master the complexities of drug interactions (Long, 2015). Although it is true that most psychologists, typically do not concentrate on courses that are heavily relevant to a medical treatment, they do have a heavy focus on mental health disorders and how to handle
Researchers cite potential hypotheses for the decline such as 1) poorly trained therapists; 2) inexperienced psychotherapists; and 3) the placebo effect, meaning that the ‘newness’ of the technique has worn off (Pretzer, 2015), but suggest that more research is needed to confirm the substantial decline in clinical outcome measures.
The gap between scientist and practitioner seems to be increasing due to the increase in unsubstantiated treatment techniques. This increase contributes to be one of the primary concerns for clinical psychology because these unsubstantiated treatment techniques are being implemented in practices when they lack scientific research. In the majority of these cases, these questionable treatments or practices lack critical evaluation. Additionally, self-help programs that produce books, manuals, and audiotapes (or even talk show hosts on television) promise solutions or offer advice to complex life problems without proper scientific validation. The issues and concerns with these emerging questionable practices branches into the psychological assessment and diagnosis of a patient as well. While statistical formulas are superior to clinical judgment, most practitioners continue to use their sole judgment and interpretations based on assessment instruments that are questionable from a scientific perspective. While some of these questionable practices may actually be effective, the claimant is responsible for the burden of proof. However; in other cases, these questionable cases can be ineffective and produce harm to clinical patients.
There are many different kinds of ways that people and animals learn. People can adjust the way they learn to the different situations in which they are learning and what they have to learn. One form of learning is known as conditioning. Conditioning emphasises the relationship between stimuli and responses. The two types of conditioning found are Classical conditioning and Operant conditioning. Learning may occur in different ways. Psychologists have distinguished between different types of learning, these being Observational Learning and Insight Learning.
When I started this class this pass September I had a little knowledge of psychology. In my junior year of high school I took Psychology as an elective class. I really enjoy it alot, it amaze me how much there was to know about our brains. This September I came with the feeling that this psychology class was going to be way different from my psychology class from high school. And that my knowledge from my class before wasn’t going to be useful at all. But I was wrong, this class has actually been better than my other class. Because it has help dust off some of the concepted that I had learn before. But it has also made gain more knowledge about psychology that I didn’t knew before. For example the next concepts are the ones that had impacted me the most: critical thinking and the eight essential, implicit learning, short term and long term memories. I chose these concept because they have not only taught me more about psychology, but they have made a big impact on me.
* Predict: Offering predictions (or hypotheses) about how a given condition or set of conditions will affect
However, the results of many clinical trials promulgate its inefficacy and unreliability, with high relapse rates and a dependence on therapist competence.13
Even though the psychodynamic school of thought has been largely engaged by many, it has various drawbacks. According to Berzoff et al., this theory relies on the childhood experiences that many can’t recall. Berzoff et al. indicate that the theory takes a lot of time in the therapy session that many people may not be willing to give. According to Ahmed (2012), the long term application of this theory may never yield results. In this case, this theory does not fit a client that has immediate needs.
This research article was taken from the Association for Psychological Science (APS) Journal. This specific issue had a total of ten articles, and while they are covering different topics and studies, some of them do focus on similar ideas. Psychology is all about the study of the mind, and how it has different parts intended for unique functions. It seems like a good portion of the articles for this specific journal deal with emotions and how the body interprets them. One article deals with the stress of different generations, while another deals with an individual’s willpower against sugar. There is an article about self-esteem and how that varies during a lifetime, as well as an article on cooperation. The article that will be specifically discussed in this research paper also has to deal with how the body interprets things when it comes to a stressful situation, such as a crime. It looks at how reliable eyewitness testimony is after traumatic events, specifically in regards to lineups.