Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Question 1
Perhaps the three most influential tenets in my field of specialization in psychology would be an integrative combination of structuralism, functionalism and associativism. From these major tenets emerged various theories of psychology, most notably the behaviorism movement which ultimately led to the birth of cognitive psychology as a science. They have encompassing influences not only in my field but also in various specializations in psychology.

Structuralism, functionalism and associativism are still the underlying schools of thought of many theories.  These are both still widely used in neuroscience which is of significance to clinicians nowadays due to findings that implicate malfunctions or damage in parts of the brain that cause psychopathologies  that is, for organic disorders. Functionalism also plays a big role especially in cognitive neuroscience as it attempts to explain the processes by which all functions of the central nervous system are done. Theories or findings in cognitive neuroscience are primarily developed around structuralism and functionalism in identifying parts of the brain and their respective functions.

In cognitive neuroscience, for instance, where we get information about organic psychological or mental conditions and functionality, structuralism still has its influences especially in checking for pathologies and what areas of the brain are adversely damaged. This in turn would guide what treatment or intervention to use, depending on which areas of the brain are damaged. Structuralism is still apparent in theories that attempt to simplify things by explaining it according to its significant partitions  be it real or conceptual ones. Functionalism complements it especially in examining the physiological or conceptual processes of the different parts of the central nervous system.

Focusing on my field, it is imperative that I be guided in my practice with various studies, findings, new theories or principles that would point or suggest a fitting intervention or treatment to use. Updates from where I take useful information include research or results of studies in neuroscience, cognitive psychology, developmental or child psychology among others. Even in assessing clients, the various theories we use like theories of personality and psychological theories that explain psychological conditions are largely cushioned by structuralism, functionalism and associativism. Freuds theory of personality for instance, speaks of different structures of personality, each one having a distinct function for maintaining homeostasis. More recent theories like attachment theories have at its seat, an associativist view of a psychological phenomenon, attachment problem.

To achieve my ultimate goal as a practitioner  which is to maximize the benefit of interventions to be used to the best interest of the client, I have to approach clients issues using a holistic view. This means that I need to be updated with recent findings in areas like cognitive psychology, social or cultural psychology, biopsychology, developmental or child psychology as well as various other fields which may be significant for helping a particular client.

With cognitive psychology as one of the best contributor to the clinical practice, its theories have helped the practice achieve great lengths, especially in psychological assessment and interventions. Keys to this are perception, memory, attention and consciousness, cognitive neuroscience and mental representation and data manipulation. For cognitive neuroscience as key to the three tenets I have already mentioned why.

Out of the seven underlying themes in cognitive psychology, I believe cognitive neuroscience, memory, and mental representation or data manipulation evolved from either from the structuralism, functionalism or associativism schools of thought.

In theories of memory, cognitive psychologists propose various models. One traditional model suggests that the structure of memory is composed of three stores, namely the sensory store which holds small amounts of information for a short period, the short  term store which contains limited amounts of data, also for brief periods but longer than that of the sensory store while the long term store contains huge knowledge and keeps it indefinitely. The other theories do not quite differ significantly in that it also proposes that memory is composed of recent, short  term as well as long  term memory. However, one that is commonly adhered to by psychologists today is the alternative model, that there is a working memory which is composed of the three stores sensory, short  term and long  term. However, it is so called working memory because it contains data from all stores that has recently been activated (Sternberg 2006).

Considerable amounts of theories have sprung up from research or studies aimed at examining various hypothesis or to come up with an answer to what seems to be just a body of theories most of which have not actually been accepted or verified as guiding principles or truths.
In order to be able to assess if such theories adhered to are sound, practitioners must therefore keep abreast with results of studies or research and other forms of examination.

In clinical practice, the best tool for verifying whether indeed the theories adhered to are sound, are the clients themselves. It can be gathered by self  reports, interviews, therapy sessions, behavioral observations, even the progression of symptoms during the course of treatment is a source of information to validate theory  grounded inferences. A good source for this (practice  based evidence) is also the research papers of other practitioners in the field.

For instance, taking the associativists templates theory of memory as an example, it suggests that the mind processes scene or visual information faster once a template has already been there  or if traces of the same scene appear in ones memory, especially so if it is associated with a particular affect. Thus, that there occurs automaticity in recall of the affect associated with the similar template or with the present scene that has reached a subjects senses. A study however, conducted by Nummenmaa et. al. (2010) reveals otherwise. It was found that semantic processing of visual scenes is faster than their affective processing and that semantic categorization precedes affective evaluation.

Although affective valence can be extracted from minimal visual input, its encoding does not hold primacy over semantic recognition. The biases that emotional content exerts over cognitive processes (for example, on selective visual attention) would occur after semantic recognition of scene objects. Thus, affective analysis is contingent on attentive object identification. Nevertheless, the present results do not undermine the claims that affective information is prioritized over nonemotional information by the cognitive system. Rather, the present study qualifies this claim by suggesting that the prioritization of affective information must occur after semantic processing of visual information, which can lead to a perceptual and attentional bias toward affective scenes (Nummenmaa, et. al. 2010).

In another area, cognitive neuroscience, practitioners handling cases of post  traumatic stress disorder, other anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, and psychosis frequently report of clients repeated visual intrusions corresponding to a small number of real or imaginary events, usually extremely vivid, detailed, and with highly distressing content (Brewin et. al. 2010). The same phenomenon was often labeled as hallucinations, memory intrusions, flashbacks and often patients ended up with a variety of possible reasons for it, and forms of treatment.

In a recent study however, it was found that both memory and imagery appear to rely on common networks involving medial prefrontal regions, posterior regions in the medial and lateral parietal cortices, the lateral temporal cortex, and the medial temporal lobe (Brewin et. al. 2010). Thus previous theoretical model was replaced after evidence from cognitive psychology and neuroscience implies distinct neural bases to abstract, flexible, contextualized representations and to inflexible, sensory-bound representations. We revise our previous dual representation theory of posttraumatic stress disorder to place it within a neural systems model of healthy memory and imagery. The revised model is used to explain how the different types of distressing visual intrusions associated with clinical disorders arise, in terms of the need for correct interaction between the neural systems supporting S-reps and C-reps via visuospatial working memory (Brewin et. al. 2010).

These major updates and changes in models warn clinical practitioners to approach every treatment plan or intervention with caution because apparently, as is evident by the study earlier presented, some theories are as good as the last study that developed it. Thus, it is wiser for the profession and beneficial to the clients well  being that constant update and validation be taken to allow immediate reversals of prior inferences or diagnoses and keep or manage the damage at the least possible level.

Though I adhere to the structuralism, functionalism and associativism as influential tenets underlying theories in cognitive psychology, it would not be wise to be espoused to a particular inference as it would cause more harm than good to the clients welfare.

Question 2
There are common ethical concerns in the clinical psychology practice namely exploitative relationships, beneficence and nonmaleficence as well as informed consent. Practitioners may consciously or unconsciously exploit relationships with clients in the arrangements fees, sexual relationships or intimacies with patients, patients relatives or friends of the clients whom the therapist met in the course of the therapeutic treatment  even after the therapeutic treatment is concluded. There is a window period for this though however, any relationships outside the therapeutic relationship with the client, supervisees, trainees and their friends or relatives are generally unethical.

To avoid this, practitioners must not allow multiple relationships to exist in her therapeutic relationships with clients. It is not only disruptive to the program, it may also add to the distress or cause it during the course of the therapy. Thus, a psychologist should consider it an imperative to discuss issues about creating boundaries even from the start of the process.

On the issue of informed consent, a clients right to confidentiality is foregone where his  her as well as other peoples lives or persons are under threat of being hurt. For instance, when there is a threat of suicide (client) or assault (other people), the therapist is duty bound to disclose the matter in the interest of everyones safety. The clients right here is violated in cases when his  records or case notes are used for research purposes without consent and may therefore file a complaint to correct the offense.
Another form of violating this is when the therapist fails to protect or prevent access to files about the clients case. The advent of technology has made note  taking and recording very convenient of therapists but it is not without disadvantages. For instance, when record  keeping of the therapist is done via electronic data processing and another person was able to access a clients file (virtually or physically), the incidence of failure to prevent access to the file and taking extra steps like implementing controls (physical and technological) to disallow unauthorized viewing of a clients records constitutes an offense.

For beneficence and nonmaleficence, it is the therapists duty to ensure that the client receives utmost care and protection of his  her well  being with the therapist taking initiatives to ensure the clients utmost interest is protected. In assessing a client for instance, the therapist does not just rely on available data to complete the assessment on time. It is not so much as getting the job done but more for arriving at an accurate diagnosis to guide treatment and therefore prevent the client from harmful effects interventions that were guided by incorrect inferences, he  she can prevent the adverse effects of possible reversal of diagnosis by collaborating with other professionals in the field to validate or get inter  rater reliability of her assessment. When in doubt therefore, the decision factor to choose must be that which is most beneficial to the client in the present and the long  run.

The interest of beneficence and nonmaleficence is also not honored when a therapist does not disclose to the client other alternative courses of treatment which may be applicable to the clients case. There is a good number of alternative treatment for psychological disorders and nowadays, disclosure of such seem to be low. Others attribute it to the fact that there are no economic incentives involved in the disclosure of treatment options to the patient. Unlike when the prescribe, practitioners get incentives for extending prescriptions.

The same should be observed by researchers in the field of psychology particularly in studies involving experiments using human subjects. There are pharmaceutical companies, who, through doctors or practitioners, offer medications or treatment courses via charity. With this, they are actually conducting research to measure efficacy of a medical product.  The clients consent is gathered but for those who are in the less developed countries, clients in the lower socio  economic status often do not fully understand the extent of the consent for which they are signing. Details about possible side  effects and if the medication will on them or not are not fully disclosed to them.

In other methods of research like social immersion or naturalistic observation, psychologists conducting such studies sometimes do not realize the effect they have on the clients in the course of the study. Often this is done without the clients consent to eliminate Hawthorne effect. However, there is an impact left behind when psychologists finish and withdraw from the clients immediate or social environment so that it becomes a necessity to debrief.

There may be more cases of violations of this primary client protection in their therapeutic relationships with psychologists. But whatever the complications and when faced with a novel situation where choice is a difficulty, the breaking factor that psychologists must consider is this would it be beneficial to the client