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Writer's picture Connor Whiteley

What is Clinical Psychology and Why is Clinical Psychology needed?


abnormal psychology, mental health, mental illness, depression, clinical psychology

Hi everyone, I hope that you’ve had a good week.

Today’s post is a quick introduction to clinical psychology, also known as Abnormal Psychology.


What is clinical psychology?

Personally, I define clinical psychology as the area of psychology that studies and treats mental health issues as well as research has shown that clinical psychology has the ability to aid recovery and alleviate suffering in relation to many difficulties.


In other words, clinical psychology has been proved to help people with their mental health.


In addition, clinical psychologists apply psychological theory and research to understand and alleviate human distress. For example, they take theories from biological psychology and cognitive psychology and use these theories to help people- as well as clinical psychologists focus on the following key concepts in order to help people assessment, formulation, treatment and evaluation. (Jones and Hartley (2015)


However, defining exactly what clinical psychology is, is difficult because clinical psychologists work in a number of complex roles and this is a vague answer due to the differing as well as diverse roles that clinical psychologists work in.


In other words, clinical psychology is an area of the discipline that can be hard to explain due to the wide range of task and settings that people work in .


Clinical psychology works in a range of varied settings. Like:

· Children and adolescents

· Learning disabilities

· Working aged adults

· Forensic

· And more…


The overall aim of clinical psychology is to empower people to make themselves better as well as this is achieved by learning to tolerant, accept or manage distress differently or by changing how they react and think in a certain situation.


Why is clinical psychology needed?

Sadly, stress is part of life but this stress can have very negative impacts on our daily functioning and we can need support to deal with this stress, as well as difficulties with mental health are seen as a growing public health concern with estimates of 1 in 6 people in the past week experiencing a common mental health problem.


Additionally, mixed anxiety and depression being the most common mental disorder in Britain with 7.8 % of people meeting the criteria for a diagnosis.


In England, 4-10% of will experience depression in their lifetime.


Source: mentalhealth.org.uk


Lastly, Mind is a mental health charity that aims to refocus perception of mental health, as well as around 1 in 4 people will experience mental experience mental health problems this year yet the shame and salience can be as bad as the mental health problem itself. Your attitudes to mental health could impact someone’s life.


Source: mind.org.uk


I hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s blog post.


Please feel free to leave a comment below and please sign up for my newsletter to receive your free book.


Have a great week!


Kind regards Connor.

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