The clinical psychologists I’ve met seem to be all about the cognitive-behavioural therapy. Applying it, testing it, often both. And it’s funny how some research clinical psychologists in particular aren’t all fuzzy and humanistic – they treat people a bit like computers e.g. depressed person + CBT = cognitive error modification = less depressed person.

I did my research project on a CBT-type thing, and I expressed skepticism to my supervisor about the effectiveness of CBT, saying I just didn’t see how it could possibly work. Being an expert on the subject, she referred me to the hundreds of articles showing it does (obviously the hundreds of never-published-but-binned articles are on rubbish heaps somewhere as well!), and researchers are doing experiments alongside the therapy effectiveness experiments to try and elicit WHY it works. I don’t think they have much of an idea yet, but if it helps some people without recourse to drugs (which, from sort-of personal experience, doctors are very willing to throw out), so much the better.

If you’re interested in my research project, or the research group that does this kind of testing, feel free to email me and I’ll throw you some links!

1)I am not sure if and how it helps. This is a matter which I will not discuss here, because it touches many other issues. I have commented on a few things on some previous posts, and I will express more of my opinions in the future.

2)It is an applied science. Even the research that clinical psychologists perform happens in the whole context of therapy. I am a great fan of cognitive sciences, because they have taken back psychology to what was in the 19th century: the study of consciousness and behavior, without any further implications.

Concerning the subjects you mention in your last paragraph, these are the subject that I find most fascinating about psychology in this century. And I find even more fascinating the fact that we finally study them. Right now I have only one article http://encefalus.com/neurology-biology/split-brains-consciousness-michael-gazzaniga/ , but more will come.

Concerning the conversation with the clinical psychologist, why don’t you contribute to Encefalus? If you wish to become a guest blogger just send me an email. I planned to invite professionals to write, but I believed that my blog needed some more time to draw the necessary attention. If you agree just contact me.

You also say that “most other psychologists are occupied with being guests in b-rated tv shows,” but, of course, this is *far* from true. And, by the way, your example, Dr. Phil McGraw, does not appear in the April, 2008, list of clinical psychologists licensed by the State of Texas, where he’s based (http://www.tsbep.state.tx.us/roster_2008.html). While he does appear to hold a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, he can’t call himself a clinical psychologist until he has had the appropriate post-doctoral training and earned a license. You’d also be hard-pressed to find in that list of licensees even one name you would recognize as a media psychologist.

There are *many* clinical psychologists who do *only* assessments and no therapy or research, and there are many others who do only psychological research and neither assessments nor therapy. Most of the clinical psychologists on university faculties, for example, do research either primarily or exclusively. It’s the researchers who provide the clinicians with the scientific basis for their therapeutic work, including the humanists, as well as the behaviorists, psychoanalysts, and all the other varieties you cite. There are lots of other psychological specialties besides clinical psychology, all investigating some aspect of consciousness or behavior or whatnot, but clinical psychologists also make enormous contributions to the science. Research clinical psychologists are the ones who develop and validate psychological tests. Every clinical psychologist must earn a Ph.D., and to get a Ph.D. they have to do a doctoral dissertation, which requires research, not therapy (although therapy may be involved). So every single clinical psychologist is not only an informed consumer of basic scientific research, they are also contributors to that research.

So you believe that a grand unified theory of human psychology is within our grasp? I very much hope you are correct, but I don’t see how. There isn’t even any agreement on how the concept of “free will” works, or consciousness itself, for that matter. That’s still in the realm of the philosophers (e.g. Daniel Dennett). There’s no agreement on how many factors are involved in “personality” (though, curiously, all the most popular guesses are odd numbers: 3, 5, 9). How about this: Why don’t you invite some local clinical psychologist, or, better yet, a local professor of clinical psychology from a university, to lunch, and have a conversation with him or her about this stuff? I think you’d find it enlightening and fascinating.

Warm regards,

Dan Henderson
MA, Clinical Psychology 1992
Sunnyvale, CA