The Importance Of Experience-Based Psychology

Psychology as a field is often rife with subjectivity. To attempt to understand all of the intricacies of the mind and human behavior is a monumental task, and has been the sole focus of an ever-growing community on the global scale. As such, many types of methods have been employed in order to gain some insight into the nebulous matter of psychoanalysis. For example, according to an article by Begley (2009), “In surveys, [clinical psychologists] admit that they value personal experience over research evidence” (pg. 2). In the piece Begley asserts that many clinicians use anecdotal evidence to develop methods of treatments for their practice, thereby diluting the scientific integrity of the psychological field. Furthermore, rejection of empirical

An article in Clinical Psychology Review (2013) lists some of the reasons as “statistical misunderstandings regarding the application of group probabilities to individuals” and “[erroneous conclusions] that client change is due to an intervention itself rather than to a host of competing explanations” (pg. 883). Essentially, clinicians practicing experience-based psychology wish to tailor their efforts specifically to the individual in order to avoid “cookbook psychology.” In order to efficiently evaluate the strengths and pitfalls of both types of methodology, cases must be evaluated for their outcomes in relation to the practice employed. An example of evidence-based psychology is manifest in the study “Behavioral Treatment of Schizophrenic Delusions: A Single-Case Experimental Analysis” by Brad

In the interview the patient reiterated the known symptoms regarding the “haggly witch” and the voices in his mind. The patient was then asked to rate his certainty of belief of a given delusion on a percentage-based scale with 100 being completely certain of the belief’s validity and 0 being completely certain of the belief’s invalidity. Based on previous effective research, Dr. Alford selected the ABAB experimental method in order to test the “strength of belief” of the patient in conditions of baseline and in treatment phases. For the course of the experiment, the patient was given a log to self-report both how often he experienced the noted delusions and how certain he was in their validity (using the 0-100 scale). This log allowed the collection of dependent-variable data so as to generally quantify the effect of each phase of the