CONTRIBUTIONS OF EXPERIMENTAL AND ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY TO CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY1
Authors: ZUBIN JOSEPH 
Published: January 2008

An analysis of the influence of experimental psychology on clinical psychology has made it necessary to call attention to the middleman who mediates between experimental and clinical psychology–the abnormal psychologist. Whether the clinical and experimental approaches can be synthesized in one cranium remains an unanswered question, despite the success with which the synthesis has occurred in a few rare instances.

With regard to diagnosis of disorders in behaviour, by which we mean a thorough knowledge of the cause of the illness and a description of its effect on the indivdual suffering from it, such knowledge is rarely available in the mental disorders, and hence we must fall back on mere description of the characteristic way in which the patient behaves–his Symptoms and signs (the complaints and the indicators which are observable even without complaint). However, the disordered behaviour may arise from a variety of causes. Furthermore, the same type of disorder may reveal itself differently in different patients depending upon their original equipment or their personality–i. e. the systematic behaviour which characterized them before the disorder became apparent. From this point of view there are three necessary sets of information required before a diagnosis can be made: (1) pre‐morbid personality, (2) current behaviour and characteristics, and (3) the cause of the change.

What has experimental psychology done to help in these three areas? First, it has provided certain psychometric devices for evaluating the current behaviour of the patient when he comes to attention. Among these are such well‐known Instruments as intelligence tests, and personality tests and laboratory techniques for measuring physiological, sensory, perceptual, psychomotor and conceptual responses under controlled stimulation as well as under idling state conditions. It has, thus far, helped but little in the provision of methods for determining pre‐morbid personality, though retrospective accounts of development and instruments for recording such data are now being developed. Some prospective studies (Mednick) are also in progress. With regard to aetiology, attempts have been made to formulate scientific models which may underlie mental disorders, ranging from ecological, developmental, and learning, to heredity, internal environmental, and neurophysiological models, and considerable research under each of these models has been engendered in an attempt to uncover the sources of the disorder.

Most of these studies are conducted by research psychologists and other research scientists in various research centres: The Maudsley Hospital, the NIMH, New York Psychiatrie Institute, Max Planck Institutes, University of Paris Faculté de Médecine, the Medical Research Council in Great Britain, etc. It is to be hoped that the result of these efforts will eventually benefit the practising clinician. The techniques for testing the hypotheses emanating from these models may be divided into (1) culture‐dependent, (2) culture‐fair, and (3) culture‐free. The first will vary considerably across cultures, since it has to conform to local cultural norms in order to detect deviation in response. The second will also vary from culture to culture, but translations or equivalence across cultures can be found. The third attempts to transcend culture by remaining relatively invariant from culture to culture. It is still too early to know whether culture‐free techniques can be developed, but to the extent that they remain relatively invariant from culture to culture, they may make possible more objective cross‐cultural studies.

There is one danger facing clinical psychology–the danger of being swamped by the demands for service. In the U. S. this demand has produced a severe shortage of trained personnel and an even greater shortage of research clinicians or abnormal psychologists. The fortunate countries where this has not happened yet should take heed to avoid the North American pattern. One too easy road would be to adopt North American clinical psychology by translating most of the tests and techniques. It is to be hoped that this will not become a vogue, and that each country will enrich our knowledge of human behaviour through its own heritage rather than sacrifice its past to the American mould.