Clinical Psychology: Aims and Scope

Clinical Psychology
Introduction
Clinical psychology: A professional specialty concerned with diagnosing and treating
diseases of the brain, emotional disturbance, and behavior problems.
Psychologists can only use talk therapy as treatment; you must see a psychiatrist or other
medical doctor to be treated with medication. Psychologists may have a master's degree
(MA) or doctorate (PhD) in psychology. They may also have other qualifications, including
Board certification and additional training in a type of therapy.
Clinical psychologists diagnose and treat people with intellectual disabilities to
help improve clients mental health and sense of well-being. Its a highly
practical and solution-oriented specialty for people who want to help others
help themselves.
Aims and Scope
The main aim of the Clinical and Experimental Psychology (CEP) is to publish high
quality research works and provide Open Access to the articles using this platform.
The Journal offers a rapid and time bound review and publication that freely
disseminates research findings related to Clinical Psychology research. CEP caters to
the requirements of the medical practitioners, behavior therapists, researchers, lab
professionals, students, academicians, and industry that are involved in Medical and
Pharmaceutical studies. No matter how prestigious or popular; it increases the
visibility and impact of published work. It increases convenience, reach, and
retrieval power. Free online literature software facilitates full-text searching,
indexing, mining, summarizing, translating, querying, linking, recommending,
alerting, "mash-ups" and other forms of processing and analysis.
All works published by OMICS International are under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License. This permits anyone to copy, distribute, transmit and
adapt the work provided the original work and source is appropriately cited. CEP
strongly supports the Open Access initiative. All published articles will be assigned
DOI provided by Cross Ref. CEP will keep up-to- date with latest advances in the
field of Clinical Psychology Research. Abstracts and full texts (HTML, PDF and XML
format) of all articles published by CEP are freely accessible to everyone
immediately after publication. CEP supports the Bethesda Statement on Open
Access Publishing.
ASSESSMENT
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGISTS INVOLVEMENT IN ASSESSMENT
Since its inception, psychology has been uniquely concerned with the
measurement of differences between individuals on important cognitive and
personality characteristics. The study of differences between individuals on
important cognitive and personality characteristics. The study of differences
between individuals on important cognitive and personality characteristics.
The study of differences between individuals on psychological tests and
measurements began with the work of Sir Francis Galton in England in the late
1800s
Galton was fascinated by the work of his cousin Charles Darwin on differences
in characteristics both between and within species, and in the process of
natural selection that is influenced by these differences. Galton focused on
the concept of individual differences between people, especially in various
aspects of perception and menial abilities.
STUDY OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

Early interest in individual difference testing in the United States is
marked by the work of James McKeen Catell at the University of
Pennsylvania. Trained in Wundt's laboratory in Germany and
influenced by a meeting with Galton in England, Catell constructed tests
to measure various facets of sensori-motor functioning. As a result of
these early influences, one strong thread through the history of clinical
psychology is the development of tests and other procedures to assess
and measure characteristics of individuals.
THE INFLUENCE OF BINET'S INTELLIGENCE TEST

BACK GROUND TO BINET'S INTELLIGENCE TEST
Around the time that Witmer was developing an application of
psychology to help children who were experiencing difficulties learning
in school, events in Europe were also leading to the development of
methods to measure children's potential for learning. In 1904, the
Minister of Public Instruction in Paris wanted to ensure that children
with limited intellectual skills were still provided with an education.
Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon were commissioned by the French
government to develop a tool to aid in decisions about the appropriate
educational programs for French schoolchildren. Binet was a French
researcher trained in both law and medicine. In order to study
individual differences, he felt it was necessary to sample a wide range
of complex intellectual processes so that the spread of scores obtained
by different individuals would be broad (Reisman, 1976). Binet's work
resulted in the first formal test of intelligence, the 1905 Binet-Simon
scale, consisting of 30 items of increasing difficulty. By 1908 this
original simple test had been expanded into an instrument composed of
59 tests grouped at age levels from three to thirteen years according to
the percentage of children of a particular age who passed a given item
(Reisman). Interest in Binet's work grew over the next few years, and
versions of the Binet-Simon scale were imported to the United States.
The version that eventually became the accepted U.S. translation and
standardization of the Binet-Simon scale (the Stanford-Bind
Intelligence Test) was developed by psychologist Louis Terman of
Stanford University in 1960.
WORLD WAR I; A TEST FOR CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

As the United States prepared to enter the war that was raging in Europe
in 1917, the American military was faced with an unprecedented task:
the conscription and creation of a massive army and navy. There was an
enormous need to evaluate quickly and accurately the qualifications of
over 1 million young men as potential members of the armed forces
(Driskell & Olmstead, 1989). Physicians were enlisted in the task of
conducting physical evaluations of these draftees to determine whether
they were physically fit to serve during the war. But the military
recognized the need to also evaluate the mental and intellectual
qualifications of these potential soldiers. Physicians could not fill this
role, because the evaluation of mental functioning was not within their
realm of expertise. Based on their knowledge of human learning and
memory and the measurement of individual differences in human
intelligence, psychologists were called on to fill this role. In 1917, a
group of psychologists, headed by APA president Robert Yerkes,
undertook the task of developing tools to measure the mental abilities
of future soldiers (Driskell & Olmstcad, 1989). The psychological tests
that were available and in use at the time (e.g., the test developed by
Binet and Simon) required individual administration. Consequently,
these tests were impractical for use with the large number of recruits
involved in the military. Therefore, Yerkes and his colleagues set about
the task of developing a quick and efficient test of intelligence that could
be administered to large groups of individuals simultaneously.
There effort yielded two tests,
1.The Army Alpha (a test of verbal skills) and
2. The Army Beta (a test of nonverbal skills).
The enduring consequence of this work is that it established psychologists as

experts in the measurement of individual characteristics in
ways that were practical and useful. This opportunity for
psychology to contribute to the war through the application of psychological
tests increased the status and visibility of psychologists and of psychological
testing. It is unlikely that this first large-scale
application of scientific psychological knowledge and methods would have
occurred without strong pressure from external sources, in this case the U.S.
military.
ASSESSMENT AFTER WORLD WAR I

Following World War I, clinical psychologists became well known for their test
ing skills. A testing development occurred, such that by 1940 over 500
psychological tests had been produced. These tests included both verbal
and non-verbal intelligence tests, career interest, personality and vocational
skills tests.
Tests were available for children of all ages and abilities as well as for adults.
ADVANCES IN PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING AND ASSESSMENT

In addition to the powerful social forces that led clinical
psychology to become involved in psychological assessment and
testing, significant advances in research have also played an
important role. For example, the publication of the Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) by psychologist Starke
Hathaway in 1943 represented a major change in the way that
psychologists measured personality and psychopathology. The
MMPI relies on statistical comparisons of the test responses of an
individual to those of a large sample of other people who have
already been tested. These comparisons are used to determine
the degree to which the individual is similar to a group of people
with known personality characteristics, or 31 img Clinical
Psychology- (PSY401) VU people with a specific type of
psychopathology. Thus, the MMPI represented an important shift
away from the more clinical, subjective approach to assessment
and toward a more statistical, empirically based method of
assessment. Another important advance in assessment occurred
during the 1960s with the recognition that direct observations of
people's behavior might represent an important source of
information, perhaps more valid than relying on their responses
to psychological tests. The first applications of behavioral
observation as a means of assessment were conducted in schools
and psychiatric hospitals, settings in which it was rather easy for
a psychologist to observe an individual's behavior and in which
the environment was relatively contained and controlled. For
example, Bijou, Peterson, Harris, Alien, and Johnston (1969)
described a method for the experimental study of young children
in natural settings, including their home, school, and other
institutions, as well as the behavior of parents, peers, and
professional workers. In general, research has shown that
behavioral observations can be conducted in a manner that is
reliable (different raters independently generate similar ratings
of the same individual) and that these observations can be useful
in formulating and evaluating the effects of treatment.

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Clinical Psychology

Aims and Scope

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGISTS INVOLVEMENT IN ASSESSMENT

STUDY OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

THE INFLUENCE OF BINET'S INTELLIGENCE TEST

WORLD WAR I; A TEST FOR CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

There effort yielded two tests,

1.The Army Alpha (a test of verbal skills) and

2. The Army Beta (a test of nonverbal skills).

The enduring consequence of this work is that it established psychologists as

ASSESSMENT AFTER WORLD WAR I

ADVANCES IN PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING AND ASSESSMENT

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