Clinical Psychology Mental Health Is an Essential

Clinical Psychology

Mental health is an essential part of overall health. The Surgeon General's report on mental health in 1999 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999) and the 2001 supplement Mental Health: Culture, Race and Ethnicity (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001) both highlighted mental health as a critical health aspect affecting a broad range of individuals today. Current paper is focused at exploring the concept of clinical psychology and how it is different from social psychology, counseling psychology and forensic psychology.

Clinical Psychology is the field of psychology in which theory, science and clinical knowledge are combined for the objective of comprehension, prevention and relieve distress and dysfunction based on psychology and for the promotion prejudiced comfort and personal development. The main features of clinical psychology are psychological assessment and psychotherapy. Though clinical psychologist participate in psychological research, teaching, counseling and forensic assessment. Clinical Psychology is a legalized profession in several countries (Plante, 2005)

Difference between Social Psychology, Counseling and Forensic Psychology

Social psychology is the field of psychology in which different aspects of social life and social behavior are dealt. It is well established that every individual has feelings, perceptions, opinions and beliefs about almost everything comes in the daily life. In addition to this everyone has their own argument about these feelings and emotions as why they possess a particular opinion or feeling about any thing.

Counselling psychology is another field of psychology which deals with counselling on personal and emotional behaviours and attitudes of people. Through counselling many psychological problems are dealt. The difference between counselling and clinical psychology is that in clinical psychology along with counselling medicines are also prescribed while in counselling the psychological problems are resolved through counselling and discussion.

Forensic psychology deals with applying psychological knowledge and ideas for justice system and in courts. Forensic psychology has been considered as a branch of psychology and speciality by the America Psychological Association (APA) since the year of 2001 (Kane, 2008). There are experts in this field who are trained in three areas: clinical, forensic, and legal. At clinical level they get training and education in the psychological assessment, intervention, analysis, and ethics. At forensic level, they are trained about the examinee's response style in addition to other methods for assessing the symptoms and aptitudes associated with legal questions. As the forensic psychology deals with legal and judicial system so the forensic psychologists are education and trained about legal and court system and they are taught general information about the judicial system, case law, statutes, administrative codes, and the methods of getting appropriate legal information. Mostly forensic psychologists are education and trained in clinical or counselling psychology and get post doctorate forensic training (Goldstein, 2007; Melton et al., 2007). There have been introduced graduate programs offering doctorates in forensic psychology or joint jurist doctorate/doctorates in clinical psychology programs that allow psychologists the chance to get training in particular in the field of forensic psychology.

The difference and clinical and forensic psychology is basically the evaluations that are performed: these differences are 1) in the clinical evaluation the investigative, behavioural, and psychological standards are considered 2) in clinical psychology, the diagnosis of a mental mess is performed and a treatment strategy or intervention is given to patient. Though in clinical and forensic assessments same issues are addressed but in forensic psychology legal aspects are also addressed and it is ensured that these assessments meet evidence standards. As compared to clinical assessment the forensic evaluation is aimed at assisting an attorney or trier of fact in a specified lawful issue. Therefore, it is possible that assessments might centre on a particular occasion or on a nonclinical communication connecting the examinee and a third party (Heilbrun, 2001; Melton et al., 2007).

The role of a clinical and forensic psychologist has also a basic difference. The clinical psychologist focuses on examinee or patient by diagnosing mental disorders and suggesting treatment while the role of forensic psychologist holds a more objective stand because his/her client is attorney or court and not the examinee. Due to the forensic setting priority is given to the precise information as compared to the perspective of examinee. As opposed to this the role of clinical psychologist is to focus on the well being of the patient or individual coming to the clinic for counselling. The clinical psychologist provides assistance to the examinee with diagnosis of mental health issue and recommending clinician for improving the examinee's mental health performance. Due to difference in the role the forensic psychologist is required to take safety measures while informing the examinee about the objective of the assessment and about his/her own role in this assessment as well as the position of the client itself. Thus forensic psychology has different processes as compared to the clinical psychology (Heilbrun, 2001; Melton et al., 2007).

Another difference is in the behaviour of the examinee. The examinee in the clinical psychology settings seeks the services of the psychologist willingly while in forensic psychology the services are hired by court or attorney. So in clinical psychology settings, the examinee does not distort any information that he or she provides. Consequently, in clinical assessments examinee's self reports, medical processes, psychological measures, and behavioural evaluations are used for information seeking. Comparatively the examinee in forensic setting is examined on the request of third party and is likely to be challenging or distrustful during the assessment. That is why in the forensic setting, historical documents (i.e., arrest history, prior evaluations, etc.) in addition to personal reports are also analysed which are not considered much in the clinical setting. A forensic psychologist uses information collected by third-party for obtaining officially pertinent in order to ensure the steadiness of the examinee's self report. This is done because the self-report, in a forensic setting, is subject to external incentives that could result in the examinee exaggerating or minimizing symptoms (Heilbrun, 2001; Melton et al., 2007).