5.2.3 - The use of case studies, to include an example study:

Question 1

AO1 - Case Studies

x6

Answer 1

• Case studies involve studying individuals or small groups with some kind of unique characteristics or experience in depth.
• In clinical psychology case studies may be of people with rare symptoms or individuals taking part in a specific therapy, they are used to find out details about something rather than for building cause and effect understanding
• Often the evidence gathered will be qualitative, allowing an in depth analysis of the group being studied eg talking to patients about the symptoms they are experiencing
• Researchers use a variety of different research methods to gather information on the group eg clinical interviews and case histories and this data can be triangulated to draw conclusions such as a clinical diagnosis.
• Case studies can give real insight into what those who suffer from mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, often have to endure.
• It will mean that a full understanding of the patients problems eg hallucinations, can be assessed and all the factors that may have an affect on them eg stress are taken into account.

Question 2

AO1 - Lavarenne

x6

Answer 2

• The aim was to use the group to provide a firm boundary so that members of the group could interact and participate even if themselves had fragile ego boundaries.
• The case study reported on one specific session with six patients present, where the group members were facing a break of more than seven days before their next meeting.
• All the members of the group were on drug therapy.
• they wanted to develop a sense of connectedness in its members and the leader role was to be there and to bear the illnesses of the group with them so they did not feel alone.
• the key theme was that the leaders noted in this session was that of fragile ego boundaries; a breakdown in the line that people draw between the real and the unreal, or their own thoughts and those of other people.
• Data was included on each of the six members of the group eg Dillon’s limited tolerance to personal space and closeness indicated his fragile ego boundary as he would struggle to cope with people staying over his house over Christmas and suggested that he would cope by going for a walk or shovelling snow

Question 3

AO3 - Strengths

x2

eg lavarenne

Answer 3

• One strength of case studies is that they are good at finding out detail and depth about an individual or small group and such detail means rich data to draw conclusions from. Therefore it is useful in clinical psychology as it can provide very good insight into the behaviour of patients that is hard to find through any other research method, eg in Lavarenne, the leaders made lots of detailed notes on what happened during and after the session and the data came from the group itself allowing valid conclusions to be drawn
• Another strength is that case studies have strong ecological validity eg in Lavarenne, the patients were in their natural Thursday group setting and the data was not interpreted by researchers as what happened was written up as a case study. Therefore it is useful in clinical psychology as the individuals acted and spoke in the group in the same way that they would do normally in everyday life so the conclusions drawn are valid

Question 4

AO3 - Weaknesses

x2

eg lavarenne

Answer 4

• One weakness of case studies is that the focus is only on one individual or small group which means that generalising the findings to others is not possible. Therefore the sample is limited as case studies don’t represent the wider population eg in lavarenne there were only six patients with schizophrenia attending a ‘Thursday group’ and are unlikely to represent all patients with psychotic illness so the usefulness of the results is questionable
• Another weakness of case studies is that the data collected is often qualitative and is then based on the interpretation of the researcher and so it is a subjective and unscientific research method eg in lavarenne there is a concern that the memory of the group leaders may be inaccurate as they didn’t record the sessions or they may have interpreted data wrong. Therefore it isn’t useful in clinical psychology as conclusions interpreted in a subjective way can lead to unreliable results if different reseachers view the data differently