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Definition
| A designation bestowed by the American Psychological Association on psychological training programs that meet acceptable training standards |
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| A training experience designed to build specific clinical skills (in assessment, psychotherapy, etc.). Often a practicum combines academic content, or theory, with practical experience. |
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| A member of a profession devoted to understanding and treating individuals affected by a variety of emotional, behavioral, and/or cognitive difficulties. Clinical psychologists may be involved in numerous activities, including psychotherapy, assessment and diagnosis, teaching, supervision, research, consultation, and administration. |
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Definition
| A clinical psychology training model that emphasizes empirically supported approaches to assessment, prevention, and clinical intervention. This model arose from concerns that clinical psychology was not firmly grounded in science. |
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Definition
| Psychologists whose interests and activities overlap significantly with those of clinical psychologists. Traditionally, counseling psychologists have provided individual and group psychotherapy for normal or moderately maladjusted individuals and have offered educational and occupational counseling. |
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| Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) degree |
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Definition
| An advanced degree in psychology that is emerging as an alternative to traditional research-oriented Ph.D. degrees. It has a relative emphasis on clinical and assessment skills and a relative de-emphasis on research competence. |
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Definition
| A degree that requires training beyond the master's degree. In clinical psychology, the doctoral degree is usually obtainable after 4 years of graduate training in assessment, diagnosis, psychotherapy, and research, plus a 1-year internship. |
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| Graduate Record Examination |
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Definition
| A test frequently required of applicants to graduate training programs. The GRE assesses quantitative, verbal, and analytical abilities. In addition, the GRE offers subject tests for several disciplines, including psychology. |
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Definition
| Psychologists whose research or practical work focuses on the prevention of illness, the promotion and maintenance of good health, or the treatment of individuals with diagnosed medical conditions. |
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| The approach that emphasizes individual differences over general behavioral principles. This approach is associated with subjectively oriented clinical practice. |
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| An intensive clinical experience required of all clinical psychology students and usually occurring at the very end of their graduate training. Typically last 1 year and involve full-time work at an independent facility. |
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Definition
| An advanced degree, usually obtainable after 2 years of graduate work. Individuals with this training in clinical psychology work in a variety of service-delivery settings but may be less likely to gain professional independence than individuals with doctoral degrees. |
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| The approach that examines or attempts to identify general principles of behavior, deemphasizing individual differences. This approach is associated with empirically oriented clinical practice. |
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| Individuals (e.g., crisis hotline workers) who have been trained to assist professional mental health workers. |
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Definition
| Schools offering advanced training in psychology that emphasizes competence in assessment and psychotherapy over competence in research. Many are not affiliated with universities, and most award the Psy.D. degree. This differs from the training offered by traditional doctoral programs. |
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| Psychiatric Social Workers |
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Definition
| Mental health professionals trained in psychiatric diagnosis and in individual and group psychotherapy. Compared to psychologists and psychiatrists, their training is relatively brief, limited to a 2-year master's degree. They are intensely involved in the day-to-day lives of their patients and focus more on the social and environmental factors contributing to their patients' difficulties. |
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| A physician with intensive training in the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of mental disorders. Because of their medical backgrounds, they may prescribe medications for the alleviation of problematic behavior or psychological distress. |
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| A clinic operated by a clinical psychology training program and staffed by clinical students, faculty, and others. It provides a setting for clinical students to gain practical experience by offering assessment, therapy, and consultation services to the public. |
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| An examination required of all clinical psychology students, usually in their third year of training. The function of this exam is to ensure the student's academic competence. |
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| Rehabilitation Psychologists |
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Definition
| Psychologists whose practice focuses upon individuals with physical or cognitive disabilities. They most often work in general or rehabilitation hospitals, and they help individuals with disabilities deal with the psychological, social, and environmental ramifications of their conditions. |
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Definition
| Psychologists who work with educators to promote the intellectual, social, and emotional growth of school-age children. Activities may include evaluating children with special needs, developing interventions or programs to address these needs, and consulting with teachers and administrators about issues of school policy. |
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| Scientist-Practitioner Model of Training |
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Definition
| The principal model for clinical psychology training of the past 50 years (also referred to as the Boulder model). This model strives to produce professionals who can effectively integrate the roles of scientist and practitioner (i.e., who practice psychotherapy with skill and sensitivity and conduct research on the hypotheses they have generated from their clinical observations). |
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Definition
| The theoretical framework that a psychologist relies on to conceptualize and treat clients' problems. Examples of such orientations include psychodynamic, cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal, systems, and eclectic/integrative. |
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| American Psychological Society (APS) |
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Definition
| The professional psychological organization formed in 1988 when an academic-scientific contingent broke off from the APA. Goals include advancing the discipline of psychology, preserving its scientific base, and promoting public understanding of the field and its applications. |
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Definition
| A popular or learning framework for treating disorders that is based on the principles of conditioning. Usually focuses on observable behavior and is typically of relatively brief duration. |
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| An approach to understanding and changing behavior by identifying the context in which it occurs (the situations or stimuli that either precede it or follow from it). |
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| Brief (Time-Effective) Therapy |
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Definition
| Generally speaking, therapy of 15 or fewer sessions' duration. It has gained popularity in recent years due to the financial constraints imposed by managed care, as well as studies demonstrating that its effectiveness is on par with that of traditional psychotherapy. |
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Definition
| A psychological specialty that focuses on the prevention and treatment of mental health problems, particularly among people that are traditionally underserved. |
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| Clinicians that employ the techniques of more than one theoretical orientation. The nature of the presenting problem determines which orientation to use in a given case. |
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| A term introduced by Charles Spearman to describe his concept of a general factor of intelligence. |
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| Clinics devoted to the evaluation and treatment of children's intellectual and behavioral difficulties. |
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| A psychological specialty that focuses on the prevention of illness, the promotion and maintenance of good health, and the psychological treatment of individuals with diagnosed medical conditions. |
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| Treatment that is presented and described in a manual format (i.e., outlining the rationales, goals, and techniques that correspond to each phase of the treatment). |
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| measurement of intelligence |
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Definition
| The use of tests to measure various mental capacities (e.g., the speed of mental processes, the ability to learn over trials). |
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Definition
| The term coined by James McKeen Cattell to describe his measures of individual differences in reaction time. He believed that performance on these tests was associated with intelligence. |
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| neuropsychological assessments |
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Definition
| An assessment approach--based on empirically established brain-behavior relationships--that evaluates a person's relative strengths and weaknesses across a number of areas (e.g., memory, speed of processing, and manual dexterity). |
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Definition
| Psychological tests that draw conclusions about people's states or traits on the basis of their responses to unambiguous stimuli, such as rating scales or questionnaire items. Responses are often interpreted using a nomothetic approach. |
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Definition
| Enduring and maladaptive patterns of experience and behavior that emerge by adolescence or young adulthood and persist through much of adulthood. |
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Definition
| The use of measures or techniques to provide insight into enduring characteristics or traits. |
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| A technique, derived from traditional Freudian principles, that uses expressive play to help release anxiety or hostility. Proponents believe that such a release has a curative effect. |
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Definition
| Psychological testing techniques, such as the Rorschach or the Thematic Apperception Test, that use people's responses to ambiguous test stimuli to make judgments about their personality traits or their psychological state. |
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Definition
| A framework for understanding and treating mental illness based on the collaborative work of Breuer and Freud in the late 1800s. |
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Definition
| The use and interpretation of psychological test scores for the purposes of diagnosis and treatment planning. |
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Definition
| Research that evaluates the effectiveness of therapy or certain therapy components. May be used to determine which intervention is more effective for treating a certain condition or which component of a particular therapy is most crucial for bringing about an observed change. |
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Definition
| A movement in psychology that began in the late 1950s and persisted through the 1960s. Proponents of this movement asserted that only overt behaviors could be measured and even questioned the existence of personality traits. |
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Term
| structured diagnostic interviews |
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Definition
| A class of assessment tools, all of which consist of questions keyed to diagnostic criteria. The interviewers ask all interviewees the same questions in the same order and score the answers in standard ways. |
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Definition
| A behavioral technique for the treatment of anxiety disorders in which patients practice relaxation while visualizing anxiety-provoking situations of increasing intensity. |
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| Academy of Psychological Clinical Science |
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Definition
| An organization of clinical psychology programs and clinical psychology internship sites committed to the clinical scientist model of training. Affiliated with the American Psychological Society (APS). |
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| American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) |
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Definition
| An organization that offers certification of professional competence in many psychology specialties. Certification may be sought after 5 years of postdoctoral experience and is granted on the basis of an oral examination, the observed handling of a case, and records from past cases. |
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Definition
| A professional regulation that prohibits people from calling themselves psychologists while offering services to the public for a fee unless they have been certified by a state board of examiners. |
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| An ethical principle that calls upon psychologists to respect the integrity of their clients and to guard the relationship from exploration. This principle encompasses ethical standards such as avoiding dual relationships with clients and discontinuing treatment when it is clearly no longer beneficial. |
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Definition
| A training model that encourages rigorous training in empirical research methods and the integration of scientific principles into clinical practice. |
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| combined professional-scientific training program |
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Definition
| A training model that offers a combined specialty in clinical, counseling, and school psychology. |
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Definition
| An ethical principle that calls upon psychologists to recognize the boundaries of their professional expertise and to keep up to date on information relevant to the services they provide. |
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| An ethical principle that calls upon psychologists to respect and protect the information shared with them by clients, disclosing this information only when they have obtained the client's consent (except in extraordinary cases in which failing to disclose the information would place the client or others at clear risk for harm). In research on human subjects, the principle of protecting individual participants' data from public scrutiny. |
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| A knowledge and appreciation of other cultural groups and the skills to be effective with members of these groups |
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| The presence of differences, or variety. |
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| As pertains to psychologists, enforceable rules of professional conduct identified by the APA. |
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Term
| health maintenance organization (HMO) |
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Definition
| A managed care system that employs a restricted number of providers to serve enrollees. Costs for all services are fixed. |
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Definition
| A professional regulation that is more stringent than certification. It specifies not only the nature of the title and training required, but also the professional activities that may be offered for a fee. |
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Definition
| A profit-driven, corporate approach to health (and mental health) care that attempts to contain costs by controlling the length and frequency of service utilization, restricting the types of service provided and requiring documentation of treatment necessity and efficacy. |
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| preferred provider organization (PPO) |
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Definition
| A managed care system that contracts with outside providers to supply services to members. These outside providers are reimbursed for their services at a discounted rate in return for an increased number of member referrals. |
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Definition
| The legal ability to prescribe medication. There is currently a heated debate among clinical psychologists as to the desirability of obtaining this privilege. |
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| A landmark 1976 case in which the California Supreme Court ruled that a therapist was legally remiss for not informing all appropriate parties of a client's intention to harm. This case legally established a therapist's "duty to warn." |
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Definition
| Single-case designs that observe systematic changes in the participant's behavior as the treatment and no-treatment conditions alternate. The initial baseline period is followed by a treatment period, a treatment reversal period, and a second treatment period |
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| A study conducted in the laboratory under conditions that are purportedly analogous to real life. |
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| Designs in which two or more separate groups of participants each receive a different kind of treatment |
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| A research method consisting of the intensive description or study of one person (usually a client or patient who is in treatment). |
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| A situation in which extraneous variables are not controlled or cannot be shown to exist equally in one experimental and control groups. One cannot attribute changes in the dependent variable to the manipulation of the independent variable. |
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| The group in an experimental design that does not receive the treatment of interest. In the perfect experimental design, the groups are similar on all variables except the treatment variable. |
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| A research method similar to naturalistic observation in which carefully planned observations are made in real-life settings, except that the investigator exerts a degree of control over the events being observed. |
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Definition
| A statistic (usually symbolized by r) that describes the relationship between two variables. r ranges between -1.00 and +1.00; its sign indicates the direction of the association, and its absolute value indicates the strength. |
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Definition
| An array that displays the correlations between all possible pairs of variables in the array. |
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| Statistical methods that allow us to determine whether one variable is related to another. In general, they do not allow us to draw inferences about cause and effect. |
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| A research design that compares different groups of individuals at one point in time. |
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| In research on human subjects, the legal requirement that researchers explain to participants the purpose, importance, and results of the research following their participation. |
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| Sometimes used in research when knowing the true purpose of a study would change the participants' responses or produce non-veridical data. |
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| The variable in an experimental design that is measured by the investigator. |
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| A procedure for circumventing the effects of experimenter or participant expectations. Neither the participant nor the experimenter knows what treatment the participant is receiving until the very end of the study. |
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| The study of the incidence, prevalence, and distribution of illness or disease in a given population. |
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| What the investigator or the research participant anticipates about the experimental outcome. |
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| The group in an experimental design that receives the treatment of interest. |
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| The theory or proposal on which an experimental study is based. Often, the hypothesis predicts the effects of the treatment administered. |
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Definition
| A research strategy that allows the researcher to determine cause-and-effect relationships between variables or events. |
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| The results of an experiment are generalizable beyond the narrow conditions of the study. |
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| The hypothesized dimension underlying an interrelated set of variables. |
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| A statistical method for examining the interrelationships among a number of variables at the same time. This method uses many separate correlations to determine which variables change together and thus may have some underlying dimension in common. |
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Definition
| Data that are fabricated, altered, or otherwise falsified by the experimenter. |
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| The rate of new cases of a disease or disorder that develop within a given period of time. Allows us to determine whether the rate of new cases is stable or changing from one time period to the next. |
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Definition
| The variable in an experimental design that is manipulated by the investigator. |
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Definition
| In research on human subjects, the legal requirement that researchers inform potential participants about the general purpose of the study, the procedures that will be used, any risks, discomforts, or limitations on confidentiality, any compensation for participation, and their freedom to withdraw from the study at any point. |
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Definition
| In an experiment's results, the change in the dependent variable is attributable to the manipulation of the independent variable. |
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Definition
| A research design that compares the same group of individuals at two or more points in time. |
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Definition
| A term used when research participants in the experimental and control groups are the same or similar on variables (e.g., age, sex) that may affect the outcome of the research. |
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Definition
| Research designs that combine both experimental and correlational methods. In this design, participants from naturally occurring groups of interest (e.g., people with panic disorder and people with social phobia) are assigned to each experimental treatment, allowing the experimenter to determine whether the effectiveness of the treatments varies by group classification. |
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Term
| multiple baseline designs |
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Definition
| Design used when it is not possible or ethical to employ a treatment reversal period. In this design, baselines are established for two (or more) behaviors, treatment is introduced for one behavior, and then treatment is introduced for the second behavior as well. By observing changes in each behavior from period to period, one may draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the treatments. |
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Definition
| A research method in which carefully planned observations are made in real-life settings. |
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| The case where the expectations for the experimental manipulation cause the outcome rather than (or in addition to) the manipulation itself. |
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Definition
| The overall rate of cases (new or old) within a given period of time. Allows us to estimate what percentage of the target population is affected by the illness or disorder. |
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| Data based upon people's reports of past experiences and events. |
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Definition
| A variable (e.g., demographic, environmental) that increases a person's risk of experiencing a particular disease or disorder over his or her lifetime. |
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Definition
| A visual representation of the relationship between two variables. Consists of an x-axis (labeled to reflect one variable), a y-axis (labeled to reflect the other variable), and a number of data points, each corresponding to one person's scores on both variables. |
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Definition
| Designs that focus on the responses of only one participant. Usually, an intervention is introduced after a reliable baseline is established, and the effects of the intervention are determined by comparing the baseline and postintervention levels of behavior. |
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Definition
| Statistical values that would not be expected to occur solely on the basis of chance. By convention, a value would be expected to occur by chance alone fewer than 5 times out of 100. |
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Definition
| The possibility that a correlation between variables A and B is due to the influence of an unknown third variable rather than to a causal relationship between A and B. |
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Definition
| Designs in which the same group of participants is compared at different points in time (say, before and after a treatment is administered). |
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| The diagnostic axis of the DSM-IV-TR that identifies all of the clinical disorders that are present, except for the personality disorders and mental retardation. |
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Definition
| The diagnostic axis of the DSM-IV that indicates the presence of personality disorders or mental retardation. |
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Definition
| The diagnostic axis of the DSM-IV that identifies current medical conditions that may be relevant to the conceptualization or treatment of the disorders diagnosed on Axes I and II. |
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Definition
| The diagnostic axis of the DSM-IV that specifies any psychosocial or environmental problems relevant to diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. |
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Definition
| The diagnostic axis of the DSM-IV that provides a numerical index of the individual's overall level of functioning. |
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Definition
| Discrete classifications. Many of the mental disorders in the current diagnostic system are presented as categorical in nature, meaning that people are judged either to have the disorder or not have it. |
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| One of the three major definitions of abnormal behavior, this definition labels behavior as abnormal if it violates cultural norms. |
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Definition
| In the context of conformity-oriented definitions of abnormal behavior, the fact that judgments about the abnormality of a particular behavior may vary from culture to culture or subculture to subculture. |
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Definition
| In the context of conformity-oriented definitions of abnormal behavior, the numerical values on a test or inventory that differentiate normal from abnormal performance. |
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Definition
| In the diathesis-stress model of psychopathology, a vulnerability (e.g., genetic, psychological) to develop a particular disorder. |
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Definition
| Continua. In a dimensional classification system, individuals may be seen as falling on any point of a continuum ranging from total absence of a disorder to its most severe manifestation. |
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| disability or dysfunction |
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Definition
| One of the three major definitions of abnormal behavior, this definition labels behavior as abnormal if it creates social or occupational problems for the individual. |
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Definition
| The third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, published in 1980. Introduced revolutionary changes in the diagnostic system, including explicit, etiologically neutral diagnostic criteria and a multiaxial system of diagnosis. |
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Definition
| The current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, published in 2000. |
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Definition
| In the diathesis-stress model of psychopathology, a stressor (e.g., biological, psychological) that acts together with a diathesis to produce a given mental disorder. |
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Definition
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| etiological models of psychopathology |
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Definition
| Causal models of abnormal behavior and mental illness that also have implications for assessment and treatment. For example, the biological, psychodynamic, learning, and cognitive models. |
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| Global Assessment of Functioning |
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Definition
| The score provided on Axis V that serves as an index of the person's overall level of functioning. |
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Definition
| A syndrome (cluster of abnormal behaviors) occurring within an individual that is associated with distress, disability, or increased risk of problems. |
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Definition
| A large class of frequently observed syndromes that comprise certain abnormal behaviors or features. |
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Definition
| The evaluation of patients along multiple domains of information. The DSM-IV-TR calls for diagnosis along five separate axes, each of which aids in treatment planning and the prediction of outcome. |
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Definition
| The diagnosis that is chiefly responsible for a person's distress or disability and should be considered the focus of treatment. |
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Definition
| A scientist who studies the causes of mental disorders as well as the factors that influence their development. |
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Definition
| In the context of diagnostic classification, the consistency of diagnostic judgments across raters. |
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Definition
| In the context of diagnostic classification, this would be demonstrated if the same cluster of behaviors resulted in a diagnosis for members of one sex but not for the other. Although the current diagnostic criteria are not biased in and of themselves, clinicians may be biased in the way they apply these diagnoses to males and females. |
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Definition
| One of the three major definitions of abnormal behavior, this definition labels as psychologically abnormal those people with a poor sense of well-being. |
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Definition
| A group of symptoms that tend to occur together. |
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Definition
| In the context of diagnostic classification, the extent to which diagnoses correlate with meaningful variables such as etiology, prognosis, and treatment outcome. |
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