Pseudoscientific Techniques In Clinical Psychology

Described as being a bio-psycho-social-spiritual and evidence-based model, the “A Levels-of-Explanation Approach” seeks to give science its due diligence much as the Bible does to Christianity, only from a slightly different vantage point. Because “good science” should be empirically-based and easily replicated so too does Meyers wish this approach to do likewise. As part of this approach, Meyers includes many of the already used techniques utilized in modern psychology such as treatment plans, assessments, and diagnoses. His contribution is that they should be performed at the same level and with the same critique as any of the other “hard” sciences. Additionally, a spiritual element is included that involves prayer, forgiveness, and charity

Clinical psychologists treat those whose thought patterns and behaviours are a threat to their own wellbeing and potentially a threat to others. By using techniques such as observation and interviews, clinical psychologists will assess a patients problem and use this information to provide suitable treatment. Treatments through this pathway require the patients cooperation to both analyse and manage their condition (Health Careers, 2016). Whilst conducting treatments with

Many doctors are reactive when it comes to treating their patients treating the symptoms as they come, and don’t focus on teaching their patients ways to avert the onset of disease. “Health psychology can be applied as preventive treatment or as treatment for a pre-existing illness.” (Fogel). Health psychologists have the opportunity to treat the physical needs of

Cohen’s article is a reminder to be careful when reviewing research. This article shows how not all research is true and people put their faith into what they want the research to mean. It is damaging to the progression of psychology as a science if researchers do not claim something as significant for being true. We do this by claiming something is significant because that is what NHST says, and

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

Write a three- to four-page article review in which you discuss methodological issues unique to psychological research and analyze basic applied psychological research relevant to the treatment of mental disorders. In your paper, you will discuss

The first point Klein (2014) made was that research evidence is not always a completely reliable, and therefore shouldn’t be trusted. This is an invalid argument for several reasons. It is true that research has limitations due to a number of reasons: the nature of the research questions, funding restriction, random sampling availabilities, ethical restrictions, and limitations of statistical techniques. Science is not perfect, some studies are less reliable than others, and we will never be certain if the conclusions are true or not, but what is the better alternative? Without EBP, the clinical decisions can only be based on some novel ideas or / and clinical observations, but they are often wrong. Prefrontal lobotomy, a surgical procedural that cuts off neural connections in the prefrontal cortex, was based on a novel idea; it was thought to be effective in managing undesirable symptoms of patients with mental disorders, and it seemed to work as some patients did have reduced symptoms. However, it improved some of the patients’ symptoms but left profound long-term damage to most of the patients. Those patients had personality change, inability to function in the society, apathy, lost of initiation and inhibition (Freberg, 2010; Szasz, 2007). No research evidence will ever be completely

Additionally human medical research studies often targeted those who came to public teaching institutions desperately seeking free medical treatment and who generally looked up to doctors and experimenters as experts in the field who were there to help them. While this motivation may seem logical, it is often faulty as many human medical research studies throughout history demonstrate that the motivation of medical researches is often not the care of those currently suffering from a particular condition but the future returns on the cures or medical treatments that may be discovered during the study (McKie). As with many such unethical studies, the participants often do not give consent and are not informed of known dangers to the procedure, medications or lack of treatment. The use of individuals who are poor, uneducated, and lack medical insurance in combination with prestigious university research institutions and the white coated, well-educated researchers motivated by discoveries of cures on the scientific frontier results in abuses of individuals.

Through the course of time, mental illnesses have always been in existence due to varying factors and causes. However, as time has passed, the perceptions and available treatments for mental illnesses have also changed as new technology was developed. By looking at the treatments and perceptions of mental illnesses in the early 20th century, we can learn how to properly treat and diagnose not only mental disorders but also other conditions as well as show us the importance of review boards and controlled clinical trials.

The biomedical model of health takes into account the physical or biological quality of life and is widely used in the Western medicine approach to health (Gurung, 2104). A basic assumption of this model is that the mind and body connection is irrelevant. Many advances in medicine have occured because of the biomedical model of health. In using evidence-based medicine it has been possible to evaluate the results of clinical and pharmaceutical research in order to make strides in medicine (Ashton, 1999). It takes advantage of algorithmic treatment options. Even though this approach may be more difficult for a psychiatrist to utilize when diagnosing and treating a patient, this model has radically shaped psychotherapy research and psychiatric medication (Deacon, 2013). The biomedical approach lends itself more readily to research because of its quantitative nature and it is less subjective than the biopsychosocial approach when measuring emotions and culture.

Currency: this article was received 12th June, 2010 and accepted for publication 29th July, 2010. The research study was current and it cited up to date references in the body of the text (which ranged from 1990-2009). Although, references are best cited within the last 10yrs however, in this study, some of the cited journals which were older than 10yrs include 1990 – 1, 1993 – 1, 1996 -3, 1997 – 1, 1998 -2. A total of 8 references were older than 10yrs out of 46 references cited. The results and findings were also analysed based on other findings in other studies outside of Iran.

In this article, one of the more noticable warning signs of Pseudoscience is the overreliance on anecdotes. One of the trends of pseudoscience is the dependence on evidence

I believe that the art of psychotherapy is more important than empirically validated treatments (EVT). I feel that the art of psychotherapy lies in the common factors, which include the therapeutic relationship, client and therapist factors (e.g., personality), helping clients deal with problems, and hope or expectancy factors (Reisner, 2005). Although I do believe that empirically validated treatments may enhance the therapeutic process, the treatments themselves are by no means the most important or fundamental aspects of therapy. There appears, at least to me, to be much more of an art involved in developing the relationship with the client and understanding the client’s perspective. It takes art and skill of a therapist to examine,

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

There is a definite gap between theory and practice. This is due to a knowledge transfer problem, which means that knowledge created through research isn’t necessarily in a format that can be used effectively by practitioners (Van de Ven & Johnson, 2006). This paper attempts to bridge the gap between the available information in the form of research and use by practitioners by stressing the need for relevance of research to the current business environment (Van de Ven & Johnson, 2006). The reason this article is so effective is that it addresses the fact that research must also confront problems that practitioners are currently experiencing in their work environments. This scholarly article also focuses on the development of research that tells practitioners exactly what they should do based on the problems that they are currently experiencing (Van de Ven & Johnson, 2006). This gap between theory and practice can also be bridged through the use of marketing engineering (Lilien, Rangaswamy, Bruggen & Wierenga, 2002).