A very important statement we could read from the book Philosophy of Education states that our lifetime is not enough to learn all the things in this world. There are a lot of topics to study, and since there are numerous academic disciplines to explore, understanding them all would be quite time consuming as well as challenging. If there is one thing that is very hard to comprehend, that is human attitude and behaviour.
Understanding human behaviour would not be possible overnight. This is the very reason why clinical psychology becomes the core subject of would-be psychiatrists and psychologists. The complexity of human characteristics must be proven not only by actual experiences with patients or through the conduct of a comprehensive observation but also with related studies in research. Conclusions obtained from unreliable sources may be misleading and are treated purely as an assumption or presumption.
Science as an integration to clinical psychology
Integration is a process by which ideas and principles of a specific discipline are interrelated and or connected with other known subjects in order to enhance the teaching and learning process. The step by step procedures in conducting a science experiment are patterned with conducting an inquiry or study on significant issues and concerns involving human behaviour.
What is the inquiry in clinical psychology?
Before Brisbane clinical psychologists could formulate possible solutions and recommendations to address abnormal human behaviour, research questions are carefully crafted and are answered or concluded later upon finishing the study. Examples of clinical questions are the following:
- What specific behaviour or attitude best describes yourself?
- Given a scale of 1-10, what is the level of acceptance from your family when you manifest such behaviour?
- How do you evaluate or assess such level of acceptance?
- Do you think it is your strength? Or your weakness? Why?
- Are you happy about it? Why or why not?
- What are the things that make you happy?
The above-mentioned questions are only examples, but when you try to go over it, each question is connected or related to one another. Moreover, this type of clinical inquiry is a psychologist’s strategy to draw out emotions of pain and or indifference to a patient experiencing isolation and depression. With the right answers or responses, a clinical psychologist could seek the help of friends and family members by way of asking their favour of trying to adjust to the patient’s present mental health condition as a form of psychosocial therapy.
The role of formulating a standard hypothesis to answer certain behavioural issues
Much to the knowledge of everybody, a hypothesis is a form of an educated guess that needs to be proven at the end of a patient’s therapy and the specific research that goes with it. Conclusions are based upon the level of significance either by using correlation or analysis of variance as statistical treatments in conducting quantitative research on clinical psychology.
There are two distinct ways of expressing a hypothesis, and they are:
- Null hypotheses – e.g. There is no significant difference between the conduct of psychosocial therapy to twenty patients suffering from minor depression with that of their coping mechanisms in overcoming their current mental health condition
- Alternative hypotheses – e.g. There is a significant difference between the conduct of psychosocial therapy to twenty patients suffering from minor depression with that of their coping mechanisms in overcoming their current mental health condition.
It is clear that the null hypothesis denies or rejects the alternative hypothesis. This is a key to better understand, relieve and prevent psychologically distressed patients in the future.