1.6: Mental Health Professionals, Societies, and Journals

Learning Objectives

• Identify and describe the various types of mental health professionals.
• Clarify what it means to communicate findings.
• Identify professional societies in clinical psychology.
• Identify publications in clinical psychology.

Types of Professionals

There are many types of mental health professionals that people may seek out for assistance. They include:

Table 1.2: Types of Mental Health Professionals

Name	Degree Required	Function/Training	Can they prescribe medications?
Clinical Psychologist	Ph.D.	Trained to make diagnoses and can provide individual and group therapy	Only in select states
School Psychologist	Masters or Ph.D.	Trained to make diagnoses and can provide individual and group therapy but also works with school staff	No
Counseling Psychologist	Ph.D.	Deals with adjustment issues primarily and less with mental illness	No
Clinical Social Worker	M.S.W. or Ph.D.	Trained to make diagnoses and can provide individual and group therapy and is involved in advocacy and case management. Usually in hospital settings.	No
Psychiatrist	M.D.	Has specialized training in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders	Yes
Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner	M.S.N.	Has specialized treatment in the care and treatment of psychiatric patients	Yes
Occupational Therapist	B.S.	Trained to assist individuals suffering from physical or psychological handicaps and help them acquire needed resources	No
Pastoral Counselor	Clergy	Trained in pastoral education and can make diagnoses and can provide individual and group therapy	No
Drug Abuse and/or Alcohol Counselor	B.S. or higher	Trained in alcohol and drug abuse and can make diagnoses and can provide individual and group therapy	No
Child/Adolescent Psychiatrist	M.D. or Ph.D.	Specialized training in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness in children	Yes
Marital and Family Therapist	Masters	Specialized training in marital and family therapy; Can make diagnoses and can provide individual and group therapy	No

For more information on types of mental health professionals, please visit:

https://www.mhanational.org/types-mental-health-professionals

Professional Societies and Journals

One of the functions of science is to communicate findings. Testing hypotheses, developing sound methodology, accurately analyzing data, and drawing sound conclusions are important, but you must tell others what you have done too. This is accomplished by joining professional societies and submitting articles to peer-reviewed journals. Below are some of the organizations and journals relevant to applied behavior analysis.

1.6.2.1. Professional Societies

• Society of Clinical Psychology – Division 12 of the American Psychological Association
  • Website – https://div12.org/
  • Mission Statement – “The mission of the Society of Clinical Psychology is to represent the field of Clinical Psychology through encouragement and support of the integration of clinical psychological science and practice in education, research, application, advocacy and public policy, attending to the importance of diversity.”
  • Publications – Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice and the newsletter Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice(quarterly)
  • Other Information – Members and student affiliates may join one of eight sections such as clinical emergencies and crises, clinical psychology of women, assessment psychology, and clinical geropsychology

• Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology – Division 53 of the American Psychological Association
  • Website – www.clinicalchildpsychology.org/
  • Mission Statement – “Our mission is to serve children, adolescents and families with the best possible clinical care based on psychological science. SCCAP strives to integrate scientific and professional aspects of clinical child and adolescent psychology, in that it promotes scientific inquiry, training, and clinical practice related to serving children and their families.”
  • Publication – Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology

• American Academy of Clinical Psychology
  • Website – https://www.aacpsy.org/
  • Mission Statement – The American Academy of Clinical Psychology seeks to “recognize and promote advanced competence within Professional Psychology,” “provide a professional community that encourages communication between and among Members and Fellows of the Academy,” “provide opportunities for advanced education in Professional Psychology,” and “expand awareness and availability of AACP Members and Fellows to the public through promotion and education.”
  • Publication – Bulletin of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology (newsletter)

• The Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology (SSCP)
  • Website – http://www.sscpweb.org/
  • Mission Statement – “The Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology (SSCP) was established in 1966. Its purpose is to affirm and continue to promote the integration of the scientist and the practitioner in training, research, and applied endeavors. Its members represent a diversity of interests and theoretical orientations across clinical psychology. The common bond of the membership is a commitment to empirical research and the ideal that scientific principles should play a role in training, practice, and establishing public policy for health and mental health concerns. SSCP has organizational affiliations with both the American Psychological Association (Section III of Division 12) and the Association for Psychological Science.”
  • Other Information – Offers ten awards ranging from early career award, outstanding mentor award, outstanding student teacher award, and outstanding student clinician award.

• American Society of Clinical Hypnosis
  • Website – http://www.asch.net/
  • Mission Statement – “To provide and encourage education programs to further, in every ethical way, the knowledge, understanding, and application of hypnosis in health care; to encourage research and scientific publication in the field of hypnosis; to promote the further recognition and acceptance of hypnosis as an important tool in clinical health care and focus for scientific research; to cooperate with other professional societies that share mutual goals, ethics and interests; and to provide a professional community for those clinicians and researchers who use hypnosis in their work.”
  • Publication – American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis
  • Other Information – Offers certification in clinical hypnosis

1.6.2.2. Professional Journals

• Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice
  • Website – onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1468-2850
  • Published by – American Psychological Association, Division 12
  • Description – “Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice presents cutting-edge developments in the science and practice of clinical psychology and related mental health fields by publishing scholarly articles, primarily involving narrative and systematic reviews as well as meta-analyses related to assessment, intervention, and service delivery.”

• Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology
  • Website – www.clinicalchildpsychology.org/JCCAP
  • Published by – American Psychological Association, Division 53
  • Description – “It publishes original contributions on the following topics: (a) the development and evaluation of assessment and intervention techniques for use with clinical child and adolescent populations; (b) the development and maintenance of clinical child and adolescent problems; (c) cross-cultural and socio-demographic issues that have a clear bearing on clinical child and adolescent psychology in terms of theory, research, or practice; and (d) training and professional practice in clinical child and adolescent psychology, as well as child advocacy.”

• American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis
  • Website – http://www.asch.net/Public/AmericanJournalofClinicalHypnosis.aspx
  • Published by – American Society of Clinical Hypnosis
  • Description – “The Journal publishes original scientific articles and clinical case reports on hypnosis, as well as reviews of related books and abstracts of the current hypnosis literature.”

Key Takeaways

You should have learned the following in this section:

• Mental health professionals take on many different forms with different degree requirements, training, and the ability to prescribe mediations.
• Telling others what we have done is achieved by joining professional societies and submitting articles to peer-reviewed journals.

Review Questions

1. Provide a general overview of the types of mental professionals and the degree, training, and ability to prescribe medications that they have.
2. Briefly outline professional societies and journals related to clinical psychology and related disciplines.

Module Recap

In Module 1, we undertook a relatively lengthy discussion of what abnormal behavior is by first looking at what normal behavior is. What emerged was a general set of guidelines focused on mental illness as causing dysfunction, distress, deviance, and at times, being dangerous for the afflicted and others around him/her. Then we classified mental disorders in terms of their occurrence, cause, course, prognosis, and treatment. We acknowledged that mental illness is stigmatized in our society and provided a basis for why this occurs and what to do about it. This involved a discussion of the history of mental illness and current views and trends.

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. The word scientific is key as psychology adheres to the strictest aspects of the scientific method and uses five main research designs in its investigation of mental disorders – observation, case study, surveys, correlational research, and experiments. Various mental health professionals use these designs, and societies and journals provide additional means to communicate findings or to be good consumers of psychological inquiry.

It is with this foundation in mind that we move to examine models of abnormality in Module 2.