Clinical Psychology in Practice

Question 1

What is Clinical Psychology?

Answer 1

Aims: understanding, preventing and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction, and to promote subjective well-being

Scientist-Practitioners

Settings you can work in:
Hospitals, health centres, social services, universities, prisons, private clinics, charities, government, businesses (consultation)

Populations you can support:
Forensic, Child and Adolescents, Adult, Older People, People with Learning Disabilities

Question 2

what does a clinical psychologist do?

Answer 2

Direct work can include:
Assessing an individuals mental health needs through psychometric testing, interviews and behavioural observations
Assessing for neurodevelopmental (e.g. ADHD, ASD, Learning Disability) or neurodegenerative conditions (e.g. Dementia)
Assessing individuals risk of harm to self (e.g. self-harm, suicidal intent) from others (e.g. child protection, safeguarding concerns) and to others (offending behaviours).
Offering psychological formulation and therapy to support a range of mental and physical health difficulties

Indirect work can include:
Interviewing families/caregivers to inform assessment/interventions
Behavioural observations to inform behaviour management strategies
Working as part of a multidisciplinary team e.g. with medical doctors, nurses, social workers, education professionals, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists etc.
Providing consultation/training to other professions (as above), to encourage a psychological approach in their work
Developing and evaluating service provision for individuals
Providing clinical (and/or research) supervision to team members, or to MSc students or Doctoral trainees.
Providing teaching to BSc/MSc students or Doctoral trainees

Question 3

Therapeutic modalities used in practice

Answer 3

Working systematically - can refer to bronfenbrenners theory.

Systemic influences that can enable things to go wrong:
Transgenerational issues
Trauma/loss
Imbalance of power: aggression, violence
Secrets
Significant stressors: drug/alcohol misuse, poverty, parental separation, parental mental health difficulties
Identity/sexuality/gender difficulties
Cultural issues/dislocation from communities
Allocation of resources and provision of services

What is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)?
Umbrella term for a talking therapy influenced by many theorists. Core assumption: emotional difficulties are a result of abnormalities in cognitive processing and/ or unhelpful ways of behaving. Good evidence base* for a range of psychopathology including:
Anxiety
Depression
Trauma
Eating disorders
Psychosis and more

All clinical psychologists are qualified to deliver CBT and supervise others delivering CBT. CBT is delivered over 6-12 sessions, one hour each week with an individual 
Structured, active and collaborative.
Aims: identify problems with thinking and behaving that maintain emotional distress and develop skills to change thoughts and behaviours. CBT sessions consist of:
Setting an agenda 
Introducing the model
Reviewing mood
Agreeing goals of therapy
Homework 
Monitoring of progress