Susan Llewelyn and David Murphy (Eds),What is Clinical Psychology?

Susan Llewelyn and David Murphy (Eds), What is Clinical Psychology? , Oxford University Press: New York, 5th edition, 304 pp.: 9780199681495,$21.87 (pbk)

Reviewed by: Naveen Kashyap, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India

Clinical psychology has emerged as a demanding and competitive health profession around the world. Owing to its short history and geometric spread during the past quarter century, the field is surrounded with misconceptions and lack of knowledge about subject matter. What is Clinical Psychology? has served as the forerunner in comprehensively decoding the field of clinical psychology for people interested in the field. The book effectively introduces major areas of clinical psychology and provides realistic views that one will encounter while working in clinical psychology. The book comprehensively details the current practices in clinical psychology and relates them to other areas of healthcare, psychology, treatment and therapies. Baring a couple of introductory chapters, each chapter in the book addresses a work setting encountered by clinical psychologists as part of their work. The context and challenges of the work settings are then explained as assessment in terms of gaining knowledge about the person and situation. This follows reviewing of psychological processes for explaining and predicting possible causal factors from the assessment data, in terms of existing psychological theories. Possible psychological intervention models/approaches are then outlined that help bring about a required change. Comprehensive evaluation of the intervention process, in order to monitor the specificity and effectiveness of the interventions, are also outlined. Detailed reports about the work done with patients and their families as part of the service delivery process are also included in each chapter. Most chapters end with an outline to the future directions for the issues involved. An innovative and interesting feature of the book is the use of real-life examples to explain the challenges clinical psychologist face while working in the field and how they come about solving the challenges. Most chapters end with references and advanced reading materials for the interested readers.

The entire book can be divided into three parts. Part one (basics of clinical psychology) contains Chapters one and two. In the first chapter the editors comprehensively introduce the field of clinical psychology. They cover vast grounds starting from explaining the history of the field to explaining briefly the intricacies of clinical practice and how clinical practice is related to other mainstream areas of healthcare. The chapter ends with a note on the ethics and the impact of becoming a clinical psychologist. The second chapter, in contrast, is more methodology based. The chapter attempts to explain the science behind clinical psychology practice, the various models and competencies used in practice and also briefly outlines the various therapeutic models used by clinical psychologists in everyday practice.

The second part of the book (field of practice in clinical psychology) covers from Chapters three to thirteen. Chapter three is dedicated to primary healthcare. Starting with a brief introduction to the primary healthcare system, the process of assessment and triage, education and self-help training, brief cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) as an intermittent treatment and working with other members of the healthcare system are dealt in this chapter. The fourth chapter discusses the clinical setting behind working with children and young adults. The focus here is the idea of well-being and resilience and within this scope the best interventions for problems with behaviour, emotions, developmental problems, psychosis and eating disorders are discussed. Issues with working on severe mental health problems are elaborated in Chapter five. The clinical psychologist’s approach of assessment using psychometric and self-report measurement, voice and delusional therapy and training and supervision of patients suffering with psychosis are discussed as issues in this chapter. The sixth chapter unearths issues in working with older people, such as problems faced by older people, the assessment process to be used by clinical psychologists for this population and details of interventions techniques, such as behavioural therapy, CBT, cognitive analytic therapy, interpersonal therapy and other systematic and indirect approaches. The role of clinical psychologists in assessment and treatment of eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia and binge eating, are dealt with in Chapter Seven. Intervention therapies, such as trans-diagnostic CBT, cognitive analytic therapy and interpersonal therapy for eating disorders, are discussed in detail. In the eighth chapter intellectual disability individuals and the challenges in working with them are discussed. Highlights of the chapter include describing intellectual disability and the direct and indirect processes of applying psychological models in the treatment of individuals. Clinical psychologists working in forensic mental health is the focus of the ninth chapter. The chapter outlines the forensic services, legal context for mental disordered offenders and mental legislation. A number of examples help in understanding the context more clearly. Chapter ten starts with outlining addictions and substance use and misuse disorders. The role of clinical psychologists in designing therapies for addicts, such as building motivation, will power, brief interventions, maintaining changes and managing urges and cravings, are detailed. The next chapter centres on working with trauma. Introducing trauma and its post effect (PTSD), the chapter goes on to explain the psychological, biological and cultural aspects of trauma and its outcome. This is followed with outlining therapies, such as trauma-focused CBT (TF-CBT), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and working with families. The chapter ends with discussions on some special issues, such as debriefing, power therapies and false and recovered memories. Key clinical issues linked to distress and hence lowering of quality of life, the assessment and therapeutic models of treatment, such as CBT, cognitive effectiveness therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, soul-focused therapy, while working with people having physical health problems are the subject matter of the twelfth chapter. The next chapter centres around issues related to clinical neuro-psychological work. The chapter starts with introducing the field of clinical neuro-psychology and then moves on to issues of assessment and interventions required while working with patients with clinical neuro-psychological deficits.

The third part of the book (social aspects and clinical psychology) comprises Chapters fourteen and fifteen. Chapter fourteen deals with issues related to the working of clinical psychologists in teams. The chapter focuses on the importance of team work, leadership and supervision in providing efficient clinical services. The next chapter covers issues such as race, ethnicity, culture and diversity that present challenges to clinical work. Emerging hindrances, such as social context, racism, cultural competence and religion and spirituality, are discussed at length.

The last unit is written by the editors of the book in which the future scope of clinical psychological work is discussed in detail. A discussion on likely future themes, innovative therapy approaches, academia–practice bridging, ethics and values and organizational and leadership skills are the subject matter of the unit.

In all the book is lucid to read, easy to understand and quick to follow. The editors have done a magnificent job in collapsing the subject matter of clinical psychology in just over 300 pages, and that too without losing any relevant details. The book is a good read for novices who wish to venture into the field of clinical psychology. Certain merits of the book, such as extensive examples from real clinical psychological practice and the comprehensive reference list at the end of each chapter, add much to the text’s success. However, some limitations of the text include the use of United Kingdom-based practice principles in the entire book. Another feature the book could incorporate is more efficient figures within the text and quick reference points after every chapter. Overall the book serves the purpose for which it was written, that is, a good introductory text on clinical psychological practice.