| Abstract: | Reviews the book, Psychological Diagnosis In Clinical Practice by Benjamin Pope and Winfield H. Scott (1967). The aim of this book according to the authors, is to demonstrate how the clinical psychologist transforms data obtained from tests into diagnostic formulations. They address the book to a wide audience including student psychologists, teachers, social workers, nurses, counselors, and lawyers. While one might like to see such interest, it is difficult to imagine student nurses ploughing through the intricacies of interpreting Card 4 of the Rorschach. Likewise, while one might feel that law students ought to have a smattering of psychology behind them before being turned loose on the public, it is doubtful if this book provides the best source. While the theoretical portion of this book brings together in a useful fashion some of the more recent findings in the psychometric area, there is very little evidence that the authors have permitted this information to affect their actual practice in the clinical situation. Their approach to diagnostic problems appears virtually unchanged from that which was being advocated a quarter of a century ago. As such they sire unwittingly likely to realize the dual aims of discouraging the "better" more critical student from taking clinical psychology seriously, while at the same time providing further ammunition for those individuals within the discipline who are critical of diagnostic testing in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
