Clinical Psychology

[Silas D]

Is clinical psychology a pseudo-science? It's not often reliable and they never have much evidence to back up their beliefs.

[cafolini]

I think inasmuch as it is attending to beliefs on the part of the therapist it is a pseudo science. But as a science its purpose is to help the patient think. That is a very difficult task.

[OrphanPip]

It depends. One of the problems clinical psychology has, along with medicine, is that the profession underwent a sort of scientific revolution in the late 60s and early 70s, and thus was late to the show among applied sciences. For the most part, in the USA and Canada clinical psychologist rely on rigorous scientific studies these days. However, there is some controversy surrounding how effective the "speaking cure" is as a method vs. the psychiatric model of pharmaceutical care.

In Europe, there is an unfortunate preponderance of psychotherapists who are not all scientific in their approach. Some psychotherapists in France continue to use Lacanian methods, which is a little frightening.