Concreteness and Specificity in Clinical Psychology : Evaluations and Interventions  by Luciano L’Abate pdf

In 35 years of practicing psychotherapy in the private and public sectors, I have read countless books and attended many conferences addressing modalities in clinical psychology and psychotherapy. The book you are about to read is ground-breaking and provocative. It is written by an extraordinary author whose innovative thinking, clinical practice, and academic writing spans for more than four decades. Readers familiar with Dr. L’Abate’s substantial international body of work will recognise the continued evolution of his observations and critiques on prevailing models of clinical practice in psychology and psychotherapy. As expected from L’Abate, the content of this book is controversial, thought provoking and beyond it’s time.

In this book L’Abate observes that current clinical psychological and psychotherapeutic practices are predominantly based on “Talk” and that the outcomes rely largely on the nature of the relationship between patient and therapist. In this way, the therapeutic relationship is argued to be a tool in psychotherapy that is based on talk that is not replicable. This leads to what L’Abate calls the “Artisan” component of current psychotherapy as no “Talk” can be replicated exactly in the same way.

Controversially, L’Abate’s original research encourages clinical psychology and psychotherapy to break with the face-to face “Talk” approach in favor of more visible clinical practices based on distance writing that is internet based, overtly structured and founded on a scientific replicable approach.

Readers might initially feel shocked. How can clinical psychology and psychotherapy be conducted without face-to-face talk? L’Abate argues that psychological evaluations and interventions should consist of uniformly replicable standard operating procedures based on distant writing and that these procedures must be replicable within one professional, among professionals and, among different clinical venues. L’Abate’s proposes that the process of psychological interventions should consist of assigning concern-targeted written homework assignments including interactive practice exercises thought work books with continuous and consistent feedback from the therapist and with repeated evaluations of progress from one series of exercises to another.

In this way L’Abate argues that written standard operating procedures in pre and post evaluations and interventions provide homogeneity and uniformity. This, then leads to replicability of the written standard operating procedures, which in turn forms the basis for scientific validation of those observations and operations. L’Abate argues that this approach can be reliably used and replicated by any psychologist or psychotherapist….

Contents

1 . Definitions of Terms

• A Model for a Science of Clinical Psychology
• Two Different Origins: Same Conclusion
• Clinical Experience
• Philosophy of Science
• An Example of Abstraction and Generality
• Research to Support Concreteness and Specificity
• Recent Contributions About the Role of Abstraction
• Conclusion

2. The Future Is Now: Online Interventions

• Are Here to Stay and Grow
• Historical Background
• The Contribution of Hertlein and Blumer
• Feedback in Psychotherapy
• Why Online Practice Can Be Harmful
• Why Online Practice can be Harmful: —Part III. How Can So Many Professionals
• Ignore the Basics?
• Regulatory Boards
• Professional Associations
• Leadership Possibilities
• Other Options
• Conclusion

3. Verifiability in Clinical Psychology Practices

• The Requirements of Verifiability in Clinical Psychological Practices
• The Meaning of Evidence in Clinical Psychology: Concreteness and Specificity in Psychological Evaluation
• Test Evidence
• The Artist/Empiricist Distinction in Clinical Psychology: Counseling, Psychotherapy, and Psychoanalysis
• The Importance of an Initial Baseline to Evaluate Progress
• The Importance of Follow-Up in Clinical Psychology Practices
• Importance of Assigning Homework in Psychological Interventions

4. Present Status and Future Perspectives for Personality and Family Assessment

• Conclusion

5. Practice Without Theory

• The Structured/Unstructured Continuum in Clinical Psychology Practices
• Degrees of Structure
• Semistructured Programs
• Conclusions

6. Beyond Systems Thinking: Toward a Unifying Framew ork for Human Relationships

• What Is the Shape of a System?
• What Is a Paradigm, a Theory, a Model, and a Dimension?
• Metatheoretical
• Operational
• Theories
• Models
• Dimensions
• Implications for Theory Construction
• Requirements for a Unifying Framework of Human Relationships
• Requirements for a Paradigm
• Requirements for a Theory
• Requirements for a Model
• Requirements for a Dimension
• Applications of Extremes in Specificity and Concreteness
• Conclusion

7. Combining Theory with Practice

• Meta-theoretical Assumptions
• Interrelatedness of Relational Competence Theory Models
• Theoretical Assumptions
• Developmental and Normative Models
• Clinically Relevant Models
• Conclusion

8. Workbooks: Programmed Interactive Practice Exercises and Prescriptions

• Theory-Derived Workbooks
• The Nature of Workbooks
• Programmed
• Practice
• Exercises
• Workbooks for Preventive and Health Promotional Lifelong Learning
• Workbooks for Psychiatric Classification
• Workbooks from Research with Single- or Multiple-Score Tests
• Research Results
• Replicable Theory-Derived Interactive Practice Exercises and Prescriptions
• Applications in the Laboratory
• Crisis Intervention or Psychotherapy: Prescribed Therapeutic Tasks
•  Intimacy: This Model Is Evaluated in Therapy with Two Tasks
• Conclusion

9. Conclusion: Implications for Evaluation, Therapy, and Training 

• Evaluation
• Therapy and Training
• Appendices
• References

Language: English
Format: PDF
Pages: 363
Size: 7 Mb