Despite being in existence for less than a century, clinical psychology has undergone an immense transformation in the last century. The interesting part in this field revolves around the substantial amount of transformation it has undergone in the last 120 years. The history of clinical psychology can be traced back to the 1800s. An overwhelming amount of literature posits that Sigmund Freud and Lighter were the pioneers of this field and opened their doors to offer their first services as early as 1986. According to Eysenck (1952), “Sigmund Freud was one of the first to create a formal approach to psychotherapeutic treatment and is one of the founding fathers of psychoanalytic therapy while Freud emphasized on the importance of unconscious processes and drives.”
It is within this particular period that Freud emphasized the importance of childhood experiences and therapeutic change analysis. The significant roles played by Freud’s students, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler led to the development and gaining of further insights into this field. In the years that followed, the idea of psychoanalytic therapy led to the desire to gain further insights into psychotherapy, with a special focus on client-centered therapy and behaviorism. However, the two world wars marked distinct periods of radical transformation in clinical psychology. The great need for assessment of mental illness on soldiers marked the development of army-beta and army-alpha exams to ascertain the levels of mental fitness of pilots, navigators and bombardiers. Ringel and Roland (2001) argue that “while the addition of clinical psychologists as psychotherapists was intended to be temporary, they quickly established themselves as competent clinicians, forming a professional identity that would last for the next 40 years.”
By the end of World War II, clinical psychologists continued to make developments in this field by examining new areas of assessments and interventions. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Health Disorders (DSM) provided a comprehensive guideline on effective approaches in diagnosis for a variety of psychological complications. Despite having flawed and vague descriptions of symptoms and processes for interventions, the manual was put through a series of revisions and updates that gave birth to new forms of psychotherapy.
The development and evolution of the field of clinical psychology have led to the development of new perspectives of addressing the psychological needs of patients. It forms a very important field in a number of areas today. In fact, clinical psychology forms one of the greatest contributors in enhancing the integrity of justice systems across the entire globe. Clinical psychologists have the capacity to determine the mental capacity and provide an accurate assessment on whether a suspect is mentally stable to stand trial.
The role of research and statistics in this field cannot be underestimated. Research and statistics form the most important pillars of clinical psychology. According to Plante (2005), “clinical psychology attempts to use the principles of psychology to better understand, predict, and alleviate intellectual, emotional, biological, psychological, social, and behavioral aspects of human functioning.” These behavioral aspects of human beings can be best understood by the application of research and statistics.
Becoming a professional clinical psychologist calls for the capacity to make inferences, make recommendations for diagnosis, carry out an analysis of psychological problems and employ the most effective systems of treatment and interventions. All these steps call for the accurate use of data and relevant methods of statistical analyses to achieve accurate results for best treatment and intervention. Furthermore, modern perspectives of clinical psychology demand extensive application of research, data, and relevant statistical tools to know when and whether a psychological intervention is effective.
It must be emphasized that the new perspectives in clinical psychology have been achieved through the evolving nature of clinical psychology. This evolving nature revolves around the concerted efforts that have been put in place by dedicated researchers in this field. From a cybernetic perspective, it is seen that research forms the foundation of clinical psychology. Furthermore, the future of clinical psychology and its capacity to respond to future psychological complications rests on the capacity to advance research initiatives focused on achieving effective psychological interventions. Research helps in proving or disapproving psychological theories while statistics play the pivotal role of determining the validity and accuracy of findings.
As a branch of mathematics, statistics make use of both univariate and multivariate procedures. Psychologists on the other hand make use of both procedures to ascertain the accuracy of a particular system diagnosis or intervention. Furthermore, statistics form the basis on which relationship between one or two variables is ascertained to provide indicators of the levels of effectiveness of interventions.
The Differences between Clinical Psychology and Other Mental Health Professions
Despite the underlying fact that clinical psychology maintains similarities with other mental health professions, the underlying differences revolve around the kinds of work they perform and the approaches they adopt in their interventions. Clinical psychologists are specialists trained in understanding, treating, and preventing the onset of mental orders, whereas a psychiatrist is a mental health professional who focuses on the treatment of mental illnesses, including severe cases of schizophrenia and depression. Social workers on the other hand offer their services at the social level and receive a completely different set of education from clinical psychologists.
The difference between clinical social work also includes the scope of their operations. Clinical psychologists, especially those with doctorate levels of education have the capacity to carry out research on a variety of areas related to mental health treatments. School psychologists on the other hand focus on social phenomena that revolve around the school environment. Unlike clinical psychologists, “school psychologists undergo vigorous training in child behavior, child development, and education and often focus on the psychology of learning” (Plante, 2005). Plante (2005) expounds on the role of school psychologists in asserting that, “besides offering individual and group therapy with children and their families, school psychologists also evaluate school programs, provide cognitive assessment, help design prevention programs and work with teachers and administrators to help maximize teaching efficacy.”
In conclusion, it is discerned that the interest behind this particular field of psychology revolves around its dramatic transformation in the recent decade. From the times of Sigmund Freud and Lighter as pioneers of this field, clinical psychology plays a significant role in the treatment and interventions of mental disorders. Furthermore, research and statistics play a pivotal role in the development and evolution of clinical psychology. Last, the differences between clinical psychology and other mental health professions such as social work, psychiatry, and school psychology revolve around the scope of their operations and education.
References
Eysenck, H. J. (1952). The effects of psychotherapy: An evaluation. Journal of Consulting Psychology 16 (5): 319–324.
Plante, T. G. (2005). Contemporary Clinical Psychology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons.
Ringel, J. S. and Roland S. (2001). National estimates of mental health utilization and expenditures for children in 1998. Journal of Behavioral Health Services and Research. 28 (3): 319–332.