Reference no: EM133521006

Questions: What do you think?, what did you learn about clinical psychology and what are specific areas of focus?

The Discussion:

Clinical psychology is a branch of psychology, which focuses on the assessment and the treatment of mental illness, abnormal behavior and psychiatric problems.

A clinical psychologist is a trained doctor that works with people with the goal of reducing psychological distress who are also showing abnormal behavior, and may be experiencing psychological distress. Clinical psychologist work with people with mental and physical health problems, including serious mental illnesses, neurological disorders addictive behaviors, childhood behavior disorders personality and family relationships, schizophrenia anxiety and depression. Clinical psychologist, usually work alongside a multidisciplinary team, including other professionals including other doctors, nurses, social workers, occupational therapist, and physiotherapist they work under a large range of settings, including hospitals, health centers, child and adolescent, mental health services, social services, and community mental health teams. Their main goal is to assess a client, and they do this by undertaking clinical assessments using a variety of methods, including interviews, psychometric test, direct observation of behavior and the use of questionnaires. After an assessment of a client has been made, a clinical psychologist may offer some form of therapy, counseling, or advice. The road to become a clinical psychologist is a long complex journey, which usually requires an undergraduate degree in psychology or related subject and doctoral training in clinical psychology and those that wish to focus on the research that goes into clinical psychology may do a PhD. Many require a minimum of 6 to 12 months of relevant clinical work experience in order to secure a doctoral training place how ever, all the hard work pays off.