Kuliah Dek Rizky Psikologi

Introduction to Clinical Psychology

What is clinical psychology?

• A subfield of the large discipline of psychology
• Conduct research on behavior and mental processes
• Involvement in the assessment or measurement of the abilities and characteristics of individual human beings
• Effort to help people who are psychologically distressed
• Clinical attitude or clinical approach

The Activities of clinical psychologist

• Assessment
• Treatment
• Research
• Teaching
• Consultation
• Administration
• Distribution of clinical activities
• Clients and their problems
• Employment settings and salaries or clinical psychologists
• Socio – cultural diversity among clinical psychologist

The Roots of clinical Psychology

• The research tradition in psychology
• Attention to individual differences
• Changing conceptions of behavior disorder

Clinical psychology in the 21st Century

• The challenges of health care reform
• Trends toward integrated theories and interdisciplinary work
• Specialization of clinical activity
• The challenge of cultural diversity
• The scientist – practitioner issue

Assessment in clinical psychology

• Definition : the process of collectiong information to be used as the basis for informed decision by the assessor or by those to whom results are comunicated.
• A process of solving problems ( answering question ) ( Maloney, & Ward, 1976 )

Reasons for psychological assessmen

• Help answer specific question and aid in making relevant decisions ( Groth – Marnat, 2003 )
• Commons reasons : Diagnosis, treatment planning, identifying functional status, self – control problems, History

A model for the assessment process

• Cushman and Scherer ( 1995 ) :
• Determine the information you need to answer the referent questions
• Identify who is to be involved
• Obtain informed consent and releases
• Collect and examine medical records
• Identify what is to be measured e.g cognitive function, mood and personality
• Identify and select your measures
• Administer your assessment. Modify as needed
• Score measures; analyze and interpret results
• Seek consultation if you are unable to make sense of the results
• Write report
• Provide feedback to client and other appropriate parties