| | ›› POLICY |
| | Bringing Science into the Clinic |
| | An accreditation program could help bring better treatments to patients |
| | |
| | The high cost of health care is no secret. |  |
| | Revamping clinical psychology could be |
| | one way to make the system more efficient |
| | - while also helping psychologists better |
| | serve their patients, according to a recent |
| | report from the Association for |
| | Psychological Science. The report details |
| | an accreditation system that has been in |
| | development for two years, which will |
| | certify training programs that focus on |
| | scientifically validated treatments and |
| | instruct their students in the scientific |
| | method. The system would also create a |
| | "seal of approval" to show prospective |
| | patients that a psychologist received such an education, the report says. |
| | "Many of the people being trained today aren't trained to understand and |
| | apply science to patients out in the real world, so patients aren't getting the |
| | treatments most likely to help them," says Timothy Baker, a psychology |
| | researcher and professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin−Madison |
| | and co-author of the report. Clinical psychology continues to depend on |
| | outdated, ineffective strategies of diagnosis and treatment - and surveys show |
| | individual practitioners often value their own experience or a "hunch" over |
| | scientific evidence, ultimately hindering their ability to effectively help patients. |
| | "We're simply not taking advantage of what is known in scientific research," |
| | Baker says. |
| | With a stronger scientific background, psychologists not only will be able to |
| | better choose treatments for patients and gauge therapy's effectiveness, but they |
| | also could become "more sophisticated users of psychological research," Baker |
| | notes. "They'll contribute to research and improve treatments." |
| | |
| | −Allison Bond |
| | |
| | SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, 2010 |
| | |
