Application: Topic: Applying Theory to Specific Settings and Populations - Essay Example

Application of Theories Application of Theories Psychology is a very wide discipline with very many fields of specialization. This essay is based on clinical psychology areas of specialization. Clinical psychology is a sub-branch of psychology that deals with assessment, diagnosis and treatment of mental diseases (Cheshire & Pilgrim, 2004). This is the largest area of specialty in psychology and involves working in a hospital environment. My area of work for instance is based in a mental hospital that receives a lot of patients with a wide range of complications.

The hospital receives about thirty patients per day, with most of them being victims of drug and substance abuse.There exist many theories that give clinical psychology and the field of psychology in general a scientific foundation. Theories create a body of knowledge upon which clinical psychologists can rely and make appropriate decisions. Two main theories that are relevant to clinical psychologists are behaviorism or behavior theory and cognitive theories (Compas & Gotlib, 2002). These two theories form a basis for two main approaches in clinical psychology, one based on studying behavior of patients while the other focuses on understanding the internal functioning of one’s mind.

James Watson is believed to be the originator of behavioral theories, based on the idea that individual behavior can be measured, changed or trained to attain certain desired levels. According to the theory, behavior can be learnt through conditioning as a result of one interacting with their environment (Compas & Gotlib, 2002). Cognitive theories on the other hand focus on understanding internal mental states of individuals. The main tenets of cognitive theories are mental reductionism, mental processing and memory constructs.

This entails understanding mental processes such as recalling, thinking and analyzing (Compas & Gotlib, 2002).One similarity between the two theories is the fact that they all aim at improving the capacity of humans to think and work effectively. A major difference between the theories is in their approach; while behaviorism only studies actions and behaviors of individuals, cognitive theories study internal processes of the mind. An advantage for behaviorism is that it is easy to study trends in behavior and determine how to change it.

On the other hand, the theory may not be able to explain why individuals show certain behaviors. The cognitive theory rectifies this by studying internal processes of the brain in order to be able to understand why people act the way they do. Cognitive theory may be disadvantageous in some cases because it requires specializes skills for one to be able to understand internal mechanisms of the brain (Groth-Marnat,2009).Despite being very different the two theories can be applied in clinical psychology to help treat mental illnesses.

Both theories can be relied upon in assessing the mental capacity of a patient before diagnosing his or her condition. Behaviorism can be used to study actions and behaviors displayed by a patient in order to assess whether they fall within the norm. Cognitive theory can also be used to assess one’s mental capacity before deciding on their diagnosis and treatment (Groth-Marnat, 2009). Behavior theory is also vital in treatment of patients because it helps to change behavior of individuals and bring it back to normal through conditioning.

ReferencesCheshire, K. & Pilgrim, D. (2004).A short introduction to clinical psychology. London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Compas, B.&Gotlib, I. (2002).Introduction to Clinical Psychology. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.Groth-Marnat, G. (2009). Handbook of Psychological Assessment (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.