Chapter 2: Contemporary Clinical Psychology

Question 1

What are 4 areas that clinical psychologists may devote professional time to?

Answer 1

1. providing psychological services
2. conducting research and providing clinical training
3. consulting with other professionals and agencies
4. all of the above

Question 2

what are two aspects that clinical psychology focuses on?

Answer 2

1. science based practices

2. professional ethics

Question 3

what are the top 2 activities that clinical psychologists are involved with?

Answer 3

assessment and research

Question 4

what does assessment activities involve? and what do they focus on?

Answer 4

they involve evaluating the psychological functioning of an individual or relationship

the nature of the assessment activities depends on the purpose of the assessment

it plays an important role in the planning, monitoring and evaluation of an intervention

Question 5

Why is assessment important on a clinical level?

Answer 5

because it shares the primary goal of aiding the understanding of the person’s current level of psychosocial functioning

Question 6

What are some types of assessment methods that clinical psychologists combine for assessment?

Answer 6

interviews, self report measures, observations, performance or skill tasks, and reports from informants other than the patient

Question 7

Why is diagnosis formation important in assessment process?

Answer 7

diagnoses provide a concise statement about the nature of a person’s disorder or dysfunction

Question 8

What is the breakdown of the psychological services that psychologists spend time in?

Answer 8

40% of psychologists spend time providing psychological interventions

85% to individual therapy
27% to marital/couples/family therapy
20% to group therapy

Question 9

What are some ways clinical psychologists discuss current stressors related to the clients problems and interpersonal relationships and relationship patterns?

Answer 9

1. identifying challenging thoughts
2. relating thoughts to feelings
3. focusing on affect by validating or labelling emotions
4. gathering information
5. guide or directing the client

Question 10

What is the most popular single orientation among clinical psychologists? how is it compared to psychodynamic approaches?

Answer 10

Cognitive- behavioural therapy is very popular

compared to psychodynamic clinicians, CBT clinicians are more likely to spend time providing psychoeducation by informing clients about the nature of the presenting problem as well encouraging client to ask questions and engage in activities and coping skills

psychodynamic clinicians were most likely exploring clients childhood experiences to relate the reactions and to explore dysfunctional patterns of behaviour and relationship expectations

Question 11

What is primary prevention?

Answer 11

involves prevention of a disease or disorder before it occurs

Question 12

what is secondary prevention?

Answer 12

designed to reduce the recurrence of a disease or disorder that has already developed and been diagnosed

Question 13

what is tertiary prevention?

Answer 13

refers to efforts to educe the overall disability that results from the disease or disorder

Question 14

what are two things that preventative activities focus on?

Answer 14

reducing risk factors or enhancing protective factors

Question 15

what are risk factors? and what are examples?

Answer 15

they are part of an individual’s life circumstances that increase the likelihood of the development of a disorder

examples (i.e. in children and adolescence) include: inconsistent discipline, conflict in family and parental psychopathology

Question 16

what are protective factors? how are prevention factors often displayed?

Answer 16

individual or environmental characteristics that lessen the likelihood of eventually developing a disease or disorder
often displayed in group/community settings and can be also done one on one

Question 17

what is the role of clinical psychologists in prevention?

Answer 17

they help develop, implement and evaluate prevention programs which are then delivered to the public by mental health professionals like nurses, counsellors or social workers

Question 18

What is a clinical consultation?

Answer 18

the provision of information, advice and recommendations about how to best assess, understand or treat a client

Question 19

what is organizational consultation?

Answer 19

services to an organization focused on developing a prevention or intervention program, evaluating how well an organization is doing in providing a health care or related service, or providing an option on policies on health care services set by an organization

Question 20

What are the 4 categories that consultation to agencies falls under?

Answer 20

1. Needs assessment –> required to determine the extent of an unmet health care need in an identified population
2. Program development –> program implemented by psychologist to educate the target population about the available services that were set out in the needs assessment (i.e. the services that are needed within that population to meet health care needs)
3. Program evaluation –> involves determining whether or not the program was successful in achieving its goal. Assess the extent to which the program was carried out as intended and extent to which the program objectives were met
4. Policy consultation –> focuses on determining whether an agency’s policy is congruent with its mission or is consistent with professional standards or scientific evidence

Question 21

What first clinical experience that graduates get under supervision called?

Answer 21

called a practicum and is required for the pHD

mainly supervised by clinical psychologists in academic settings

Question 22

What clinical experience do grads get after their practicum?

Answer 22

internship or residency where they are supervised for one year and are working in settings like hospitals, workers comp boards, or community agencies and are mostly supervised by clinical psychologists in service settings

Question 23

what is the role of the supervisor in research for graduate students?

Answer 23

they assist graduate students in understanding the research literature in chosen area and then conceptualizing the research that the student will conduct as part of his or her degree.

supervisor will go over interpretation, design and measurements

Question 24

What are some of the administrative roles of clinical psychologists?

Answer 24

in private practice it involves: book-keeping, and supervise of personnel

in institutional settings like hospitals and universities it involves contribution to the overall running of the institution by serving on committees and assuming management positions

Question 25

What do clinical psychologists have to do in order to come up with an in-between of purely scientific evidence and intuition when dealing with a unique case?

Answer 25

they take a systematic, questioning, and self critical approach to determining the relevance of a service and then monitoring its effects to determine whether the outcome is primarily beneficial or harmful

Question 26

What kind of example does carl rogers provide on research?

Answer 26

he follows an intuition based on research

he provided researchers with the transcripts of his therapy sessions to see the significance of unconditional positive regard and its link to positive client outcomes and found that he actually employed empathy, acceptance and defectiveness as reinforces of selective client behaviour and shaped client behaviour over the course of therapy

Question 27

When were ethical codes in psychology introduced?

Answer 27

after WW2 in the Nuremberg war crime trials

Question 28

What is the concept of informed consent and why is it so important to address?

Answer 28

its an ethical principle to ensure that the person who is offered services or who participates in research understands what is being done and agrees to participate. It is applied to both patients and to research participants

Question 29

What are the 4 ethical principles in the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists that psychologists MUST follow?

Answer 29

1. Respect for the dignity of persons –> psychologists should not practise, condone, facilitate, or collaborate with any form of unjust discrimination
2. Responsible Caring –> psychologists should select interventions that are relevant to the needs and characteristics of client and that are likely to be effective based on established theory or empirical/scientific evidence
3. Integrity in relationships –> psychologists have ethical obligation to ensure that their services are not effected by their own distress
4. Responsibility to society

Question 30

What are some of the main ethical points that the Canadian code emphasizes that aren’t emphasized much in other ethical codes?

Answer 30

1. empirical methods were used to incorporate knowledge of Canadian psychologists into the code
2. an explicit model of ethical decision making is embedded in the code instead of ones that rely on absolute or prescriptive standards (concrete)
3. code uses differential weighting of the 4 ethical principles so that respect for the dignity of persons is given greater weight in decision making than principle responsibility for society

Question 31

What are three models that guide the training of clinical psychologists?

Answer 31

1. scientist-practioner model
2. clinical-scientist model
3. practitioner-scholar model

Question 32

What is the scientist-practitioner model?

Answer 32

grad students must develop and demonstrate competencies in research and psychological service provision
- they demonstrate competency in research by undertaking original research which they write up to defend in an oral examination (PHD). clinical skills are learned during practicum training and enhanced further in internship year. This model students should be capable of producing research and using empirical evidence to guide their clinical services

Question 33

What is the clinical-scientist model?

Answer 33

a model in which primary goal is to have grads who are quipped to contribute knowledge base of psychology and related disciplines

they are heavily emphasized on research kills and follow McFall’s manifesto

Question 34

What is the practitioner-scholar model?

Answer 34

emphasizes training in the clinical skills that most clinical psychologists need in service settings.

instead of a pHD, they offer a psD. and have developed research requirements that include some research training and completion of a research project but the difference is that they place less emphasis on experimental designs and more on evaluation of individual cases or service oriented programs

they are the least focused on research