The Core Purpose and Philosophy of the Profession as a clinical psychologist
BY: Peter Harvey
Philosophy
The work of clinical psychologists is based
on the fundamental acknowledgement that all people have the same human value
and the right to be treated as unique individuals. Clinical psychologists will
treat all people - both clients and colleagues - with dignity and respect and
will work with them collaboratively as equal partners towards the achievement
of mutually agreed goals. In doing this, clinical psychologists will adhere to
and be guided by explicit and public statements of the ethical principles that
underpin their work.
Purpose
Clinical psychology aims to reduce psychological
distress and to enhance and promote psychological well-being by the systematic application
of knowledge derived from psychological theory and data.
Aims
Clinical psychology services aim to enable
individual service users to have the necessary skills and abilities to cope
with their emotional needs and daily lives in order to:
·
maximise psychological and physical
well-being;
·
to develop and use their capacity;
·
to make informed choices in order to
enhance and maximise independence and autonomy;
·
to have a sense of self-understanding,
self-respect and self-worth;
·
to be able to enjoy good social and
personal relationships;
·
and to share commonly valued social
and environmental facilities.
Clinical psychology services aim to enable
other service users to:
·
develop psychologically-informed ways
of thinking;
·
to use psychological knowledge to
enhance and develop their professional practice to the benefit of their
clients;
·
to be able to enhance their sense of
self-understanding, self-respect and self-worth; and to use psychological data
to aid decision-making at a clinical, organisational and societal level.
How these aims are achieved
The core skills of a clinical psychologist
are:
m assessment;
m formulation;
m intervention;
m evaluation.
Assessment of psychological processes and
behaviour is a competence derived from the theory and practice of both academic
and applied psychology. It is different from other activities such as diagnosis
and includes both assessing individual change and stability and comparing the
individual with others.
Assessment procedures include:
·the development and use of
psychometric tests (e.g. tests of intelligence and ability, mood, personality,
neuropsychological function);
·the application of systematic observation
and measurement of behaviour in both real-world and other settings (e.g. the
observation of nurse-patient interaction in a long-stay ward, training parents
to observe and monitor a child’s behaviour, enabling care staff to record
self-injurious behaviour);
· devising self-monitoring strategies
for individual service-users (e.g. diaries of intrusive thoughts);
·the use of formal and informal
interviews with clients and carers.
Results of these assessments are placed
firmly within the context of the historical and developmental processes that
will have shaped either an individual, family, group or organisation.
Clinical psychologists have the ability to
assess the suitability of different measurement procedures depending on the
purpose for which the assessment is needed, as well as being competent to
devise and test one-off, individualized assessment procedures.
Formulation:
Is the summation and integration of the knowledge
that is acquired by this assessment process (which may involve a number of
different procedures). This will draw on psychological theory and data to provide
a framework for describing a problem, how it developed and is being maintained.
Because of their particular training in the
linkage of theory to practice, clinical psychologists will be able to draw on a
number of different explanatory models and so a formulation may comprise a number
of provisional hypotheses. This provides the foundation from which some actions
may derive.
What makes this activity unique to clinical
psychologists is the information on which they draw. The ability to access,
review, critically evaluate, analyse and synthesise psychological data and
knowledge from a psychological perspective is one that is unique to
psychologists, both pure and applied.
Intervention:
If appropriate, is based on the formulation.
This may or may not involve the application of a formal process of behaviour
change (i.e. one of the psychological therapies). Other sorts of intervention
may be training of others (professional staff, relatives and carers), the provision
of psychological knowledge by teaching or the development of psychological
skills through supervision.
All these interventions are tests of the
provisional hypotheses contained in the formulation and, as such, are subject
to modification in the light of experience and new data.
Evaluation:
Is therefore, a critical and integral part of
the clinical psychologist’s work. All activities and interventions need to be
evaluated both during their implementation and afterwards to assess the stability
and security of change.
Again, the ability to devise and use
assessment procedures and to handle complex and difficult data are key competencies
for any clinical psychologist.
In summary,
It is the mixture and synthesis of competencies,
built on the body of psychological theory and data, which are applied to
helping people solve personal, family, group, work or organisational problems that
makes clinical psychology unique in health and social care.
References:
Peter Harvey, The Core Purpose and Philosophy
of the Profession, The British Psychological Society, Division of Clinical
Psychology 2001.
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