INTRODUCING CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

When you tell people you're studying Psychology, they say "Oooh, are you going to diagnose my mental problems?" and you have to explain (sadly) that, no, you're mostly studying memory and obedience and inflatable Bobo Dolls. Well, GOOD NEWS. Clinical Psychology is what everybody thinks of when they hear "psychology": the study of mental abnormality.
"Clinical" comes from the Greek for "bedside" and refers to medical care. A 'clinician' is anyone who provides medical care - a doctor or nurse or a psychiatrist.

"Clinical Psychology" is psychology used for medical treatment - to help with the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.

Assessment means identifying whether someone's behaviours or cognitions are normal or not. Diagnosis means determining the cause of abnormality - such as a mental disorder. Treatment means helping people with mental disorders to manage their symptoms and have a better quality of life.
Another excellent lesson from Crash Course Psychology, focusing on disorders
As part of Unit 1, you will have covered some clinical psychology already:
  • When Milgram asked his students how participants would respond to his 1963 study, they suggested that only 1% would go to 450V and those people would be "psychopaths". In other words, Milgram's study showed how social situations can produce behaviour normally associated with mental illness.
  • In Cognitive Psychology, the case study of H.M. and the contemporary study by Schmolck et al. look at individuals with mental disorders brought on by brain damage.
  • In Biological Psychology, Raine explains criminal behaviour as a type of mental disorder linked to brain damage; Freud offers a complete explanation and treatment for mental disorders with psychoanalysis
  • The Learning Approach explains one type of mental disorder - phobias - in depth, including treatments like systematic desensitisation and flooding
The Edexcel Specification expects you to be able to (AO1) know and understand, (AO2) apply, (AO3) analyse and evaluate the following:

CLINICAL CONTENT

CLINICAL KEY QUESTION

One key question of relevance to today’s society, discussed as a contemporary issue for society rather than an as academic argument.

CLINICAL STUDIES

CLINICAL METHODS

The Specification also expects you to study case studies, cross-cultural studies, interviews and longitudinal studies as well as inferential statistics and quantitative data analysis, but these are explained elsewhere