From TAVA
Hardly irrelevant, since it clearly contradicts your assertion that clinical psychology is driven by available treatments. I am a clinical psychologist. I study disruptive behavior disorders. Relatively few good treatments for DBD are available. Your assertion didn’t get out of the gate.
How is this relevant to your argument about clinical psychology? Clinical psychologists (with very limited exceptions) cannot prescribe stimulants or any other medications. Can you give me any citations that support that at any time our diagnostic techniques consisted of prescribing stimulants?
Not to belabor the point, but bullshit. Again, we typically do not have the same type of markers that may be present for other types of disorders or diseases. But that does not mean our variables have no “true meaning.” Inference and increased errors mean that we have less precision than would be preferable, but do not mean that clinical psychology is not a science, nor that rigor is illusory. There are innumerable examples in other sciences wherein inference is required to support and to challenge theory about otherwise unobservable processes, yet only the zealot would suggest that they are not scientific.
Suggestion does not make something true or false. Suggestion puts forth a competing hypothesis to be tested. This is always my favorite part of your arguments: because there is a shred of evidence in support of competing theory B, it must mean that currently accepted theory A is wrong. You apparently love to discount evidence in support of psychological or psychiatric constructs by relying on evidence that is even less reliable or valid. Here’s a hint – your approach is not a scientific approach, but the grinding of an axe. If clinical psychology behaved as you did, we would fail to move forward for lack of critical evaluation of our constructs.
And some evidence suggests otherwise. Certainly very few would suggest that we know all we need to know about schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, or ADHD. Can you cite evidence that we are not looking at physiological distinctions? Would you prefer that we use no constructs, taxons, categorizations or diagnoses until the Ultimate and True Diagnostic and Statistical Manual XXIV falls fully formed into our laps?
I disagree. I would agree that clinical judgment is still required, which I believe is a good thing. However, the phrasing of symptoms is generally circumscribed and specific.
Very true
Very false. A trained professional should use clinical judgment to apply the standards of the DSM.
Again: bullshit. I think your problem is a result of, well, primarily not knowing what you are talking about, and secondarily, restricting your definition of clinical psychology to the less-than-rigorous applied practices of some or even many practitioners. This does not make clinical psychology less than a science. Please provide a definition of science that renders clinical psychology anything less.