Of Great Research and Practical Interest:

[PsychGraduate]

The Counseling Psychologist
Volume 37 Number 3
April 2009 400-409
© 2009 Sage Publications
10.1177/0011000008330830
http://tcp.sagepub.com
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Clinical Judgment Accuracy
From Meta-Analysis to Metatheory
Charles R. Ridley
Mary Shaw-Ridley
Texas A & M University
Clinical judgment is foundational to psychological practice. Accurate judgment
forms the basis for establishing reasonable goals and selecting appropriate
treatments, which in turn are essential in achieving positive therapeutic
outcomes. Therefore, Spengler and colleagues' meta-analytic finding—clinical
judgment accuracy improves marginally with traditional education, training,
and clinical experience—is disconcerting and should serve as a wake-up call.
Now is the time to move with urgency. The authors urge the development of a
comprehensive, standardized, and scientifically based metatheory to inform
clinical judgment. A metatheory should describe the content of clinical judgment,
the process of clinical judgment, and the self-reflection of clinicians.
Without employment of such a metatheory and concomitant improvement in
clinicians' judgment, professional psychologists are on soft footing in extolling
their claim as scientist–practitioners and ethical professionals.​

W

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​

illiam James, a pioneering American psychologist, is attributed with​

this saying: "There are a great many people who think they are

thinking when they merely are rearranging their prejudices" (Platt, 1989,
p. 240). James's words are both sobering and instructive—sobering because
they remind us of our usually overlooked and unacknowledged foibles as
human beings and instructive because his words call to our attention the
need for improving human thought processes. Can anyone really claim to
have untainted judgment?
James's words especially are relevant to the current conversation on clinical
judgment. Among the community of professional psychologists, there is
the general perception that education, training, and clinical experience
improve clinical judgment accuracy (Spengler et al., 2009). Implicit here is
the unexamined assumption that clinical training and its derivative activities
are potent sources of effect on the clinical behavior of psychologists. Because
of this assumption, we operate as though our training paradigm produces​

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This is an interesting discussion of a meta-theory and findings of a meta-analysis, and should provoke some good discussion.​

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[PsychGraduate]

There may needs to be more analysis of and standardization of the way in which psychologists work with clients using a different approach with empirically based outcomes.