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Quite often a thread on this forum turns into a little battle over what different schools of thought want clinical psychology to focus on and how they want it to evolve. Great debates of that nature do move knowledge and practice forward, for that reason and as someone taking steps into the field I'm pretty curious about these debates are about.
Sometimes, in reading this forum, I feel like I'm eavesdropping on a fight in a restaurant, I get all the emotions, the general thrust of the arguments but I lack the context and nuanced understanding history provides. So without actually starting any one of these arguments can we talk about what the big ones are and what each camp generally says about the topic. Two arguments I have noticed (feel free to rephrase, or just come up with your them as you fit):
1. Evidence Based vs what ever the other sides should be called
I am imagining that the evidence based camp would advocate for something close to how medicine is practiced today, in that one determines the problem on the basis of pre-establish criterion, then choose a proven (and what constitutes proof?) method to address that problem. So for this group the skill of a psychologist is in having enough skill to identify the proper "problem" and modulate the scale of the response.
On the other side I've noticed various gradients. They run from the poster who seems be hostile to experimental methods as valid source of information to those that think, such evidence should be "integrated" into the wisdom developed from a practice.
2. Training Necessary for an effective practitioner
This seems to be another hot topic with several dimensions. I'm not even sure how to slice it up. Maybe the camps are: Doctoral Training with a research component is needed v other levels of training are ok, depends on how much feedback and supervision is provided.
Or maybe a better way to slice it up is, 1. those who turn on the level of supervision and rigor (they might say something like "some Masters programs produce competent therapists but the large number of PsyD and masters programs don't have the capacity to do so. Thus they should be clipped") and 2. those who turn on the exposure to/involvement in research ("you can't be a effective clinical psychologist without research participation" vs "performing actual research is not necessary to be a competent practitioner")
Maybe if there is some consensus on what the arguments are, we can actually start different threads to have the arguments properly 🙂
Sometimes, in reading this forum, I feel like I'm eavesdropping on a fight in a restaurant, I get all the emotions, the general thrust of the arguments but I lack the context and nuanced understanding history provides. So without actually starting any one of these arguments can we talk about what the big ones are and what each camp generally says about the topic. Two arguments I have noticed (feel free to rephrase, or just come up with your them as you fit):
1. Evidence Based vs what ever the other sides should be called
I am imagining that the evidence based camp would advocate for something close to how medicine is practiced today, in that one determines the problem on the basis of pre-establish criterion, then choose a proven (and what constitutes proof?) method to address that problem. So for this group the skill of a psychologist is in having enough skill to identify the proper "problem" and modulate the scale of the response.
On the other side I've noticed various gradients. They run from the poster who seems be hostile to experimental methods as valid source of information to those that think, such evidence should be "integrated" into the wisdom developed from a practice.
2. Training Necessary for an effective practitioner
This seems to be another hot topic with several dimensions. I'm not even sure how to slice it up. Maybe the camps are: Doctoral Training with a research component is needed v other levels of training are ok, depends on how much feedback and supervision is provided.
Or maybe a better way to slice it up is, 1. those who turn on the level of supervision and rigor (they might say something like "some Masters programs produce competent therapists but the large number of PsyD and masters programs don't have the capacity to do so. Thus they should be clipped") and 2. those who turn on the exposure to/involvement in research ("you can't be a effective clinical psychologist without research participation" vs "performing actual research is not necessary to be a competent practitioner")
Maybe if there is some consensus on what the arguments are, we can actually start different threads to have the arguments properly 🙂
