Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology By Lilienfeld, Scott

Sinopsis

This book is likely to make a number of readers angry. Some readers will probably object to portions of the book on the grounds that their cherished clinical techniques or brands of psychotherapy have been targeted for critical examination. For them, this book may be a bitter pill to swallow. Other readers will probably be deeply disturbed, even incensed, by the growing proliferation of questionable and unvalidated techniques in clinical psychology. For them, this will be a book that is long overdue. If we manage to leave readers in both camps at least a bit distressed, we will have been successful, because we will have gotten their attention.

Our purpose in this edited volume is to subject a variety of therapeutic, assessment, and diagnostic techniques in clinical psychology to incisive but impartial scientific scrutiny. We have elected to focus on techniques that are novel, controversial, or even questionable, but that are currently influential and widely used. By providing thoughtful evaluations of clinical techniques on the boundaries of present scientific knowledge, we intend to assist readers with the crucial goal of distinguishing science from pseudoscience in mental health practice.

As will become clear throughout the book, unscientific and otherwise questionable techniques have increasingly come to dominate the landscape of clinical psychology and allied fields. Survey data suggest that for many psychological conditions, including mood and anxiety disorders, patients are more likely to seek out and receive scientifically unsupported than supported interventions. Yet no book exists to help readers differentiate techniques within clinical psychology that are ineffective, undemonstrated, or harmful from those that are grounded solidly in scientific evidence.

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