You must show an understanding that clinical psychology is about mental health issues, including issues in diagnosing such issues, features and symptoms, explanations and treatments and therapies. What you need to learn:
Definitions of abnormality
The history of abnormality.
Statistical infrequency definition.
Failure to function adequately including Rosenhan and Seligman, 1989.
Classification systems
ICD (ICD10 and ICD 11 when revised – 2017).
DSM including DSM IVR and DSM V.
Debates in diagnosis
Cultural issues in diagnosis.
Reliability in diagnosis.
Validity in diagnosis.
Schizophrenia
Description of symptoms and features, including thought insertion, hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking.
The function of neurotransmitters as a theory/explanation.
One other biological theory/explanation of schizophrenia.
Depression
Description of symptoms and features.
Two different explanations for the disorder (one biological, one non-biological).
Therapy for schizophrenia
Drug therapy.
Family therapy.
Therapy for unipolar depression
Drug therapy.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
Rosenhan (1973) On being sane in insane places.
Suzuki et al. (2014) High prevalence of underweight and undernutrition in Japanese inpatients with schizophrenia.
Hans and Hiller (2013) Effectiveness of and drop out from outpatient cognitive-behavioural therapy for adult unipolar depression: A meta-analysis of nonrandomised effectiveness studies.
The use of methods in psychology when carrying out research in clinical psychology
Methods from Units 1 and 2, as appropriate.
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) related to clinical psychology.
Neuroimaging, including structural and functional brain scanning related to clinical psychology.
Conventions of published psychological research: abstract, introduction, aims and hypotheses, method, results, discussion; the process of peer review.
Awareness of Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) guidelines for clinical practitioners.
Decision making and interpretation of data:
List A from Topic A, as appropriate
List B from Topic B, as appropriate.
Evaluation of research in clinical psychology
Issues of reliability, validity, generalisability, credibility, objectivity, subjectivity, ethics and practical application of findings as appropriate.
One practical research exercise to gather data relevant to topics covered in clinical psychology - a content analysis that explores attitudes to mental health. This practical research exercise must adhere to ethical principles in both content and intention. In conducting the practical research exercise, you must:
perform a content analysis
analyse at least two sources such as radio interviews, newspapers, magazines) to compare attitudes towards mental health.
make design decisions when planning and gathering sources for a content analysis, including credibility of secondary data, ethical considerations, controls and reliability.
collect, present and comment on sources gathered.
consider strengths and weaknesses of a content analysis and possible design improvements.
complete the procedure, results and discussion section of a report.
Comparing how attitudes to mental health have changed over time.
How different sources report mental health.