Clinic psychology

The clinic psychology was born in France in the Années 1950 from the contributions from the Psychanalyse which gave him one of its Modèle S of comprehension as well of psychic operation, in terms of authorities, topics etc as of what is played it (Transfert, Identification, Projection, Clivage etc). The aiming is comprehension, in terms of balance, of the involved forces (impulses and defenses) and of significance Inconscient E, of the Symptôme S, character traits or behaviors which caused the consultation of the psychologist. Two methods, nonexclusive, can be used: clinical maintenance and tests (projective and of level).

The clinic psychology is not exclusively psychoanalytical, it is underlain by other theories. Moreover, it is not to confuse with the Psychopathologie. Indeed, the latter is more restricted, because it is limited to pathological operations.

History

Precursors

The clinical current in psychology was initiated in the direction of the opposition to the thought of Auguste Count, which did not see in psychology, no possibility of scientificity, this for lack of object of study. For this last, the explanation was to be sought either with dimensions one of biological, or with dimensions one of sociology. John Stuart Mill is the first to defend a true scientificity of psychology, but it only in a way embarrassed Auguste Count, it can answer missing a more objective method.

Pierre Janet is thus the first to set up a scientific psychology posed on his method of psychological Analyze. Sigmund Freud will follow quickly, which will give besides debates of priorities between these authors, with its design of the psychic apparatus.

Later, the contribution of Walloon Henri, Jean Piaget, but also of Kurt Lewin will be also of importance to allow a consistency the clinic psychology. Indeed, all these authors have like common points:

to recognize reality with whole share of the Psychism
the research of the psychological processes by the genetic study

Birth of the private clinic

The clinic psychology, such as it is practiced in France, is attached to the names of Daniel Lagache and Juliette Favez-Button manufacturer, both doctors Psychanalyste S and Philosophe S. This triple anchoring gives him its special character, fact of a tension between an “objective” pole which would be represented by the use of tests, and a “subjective” pole represented by the situation of examination and/or treatment. In both cases, it is about a clinical situation, i.e. singular seizure of an individual “in situation” by another individual.

This tripod, one can detail it quickly:

Of the Medicine, it inherits a method - the private clinic - and an objective - to diagnose and cure (D. Lagache). But where the doctor palpated, auscultated, struck and listened, the psychologist led of the talks to diagnostic and/or therapeutic, and practical aiming of the tests, if necessary.
Of the Philosophy, it draws a design from the Homme, mainly phenomenologic: each subject is single and no lived is reducible with another.
Of the Psychoanalysis, a design of psychic operation in terms of forces and conflicts being held in places and being able to be translated into symptoms.

The clinical term is inherited medicine: if the psychologist is known as clinician, it is as much because it leaves his laboratory to meet the other in “natural” situations that because it meets people presenting of the disorders or the psychic difficulties. The psychologist is thus clinician who meets people in total situation and concretes, contrary to the situation of laboratory where in fact variables are handled.

" The humanity of the object the qpécifie less than the methodological attitude: to consider control from its own point of view, to as accurately raise as possible the manners of being and of reacting of an human being concrete, complete, with the catches with a situation, of seeking to establish of it the direction, the structure and the genesis, of detecting the conflicts which justify it and the steps which tend to solve these conflicts, such is in short the program of psychology clinique" (D. Lagache)

There was, during the history of the discipline, a displacement of its center of gravity. The Psychoanalysis, which was at its borders as a “ultra-private clinic” gradually became its hard core, confronting it with the risk not to be more but one kind of soft cytoplasm. (1) Movement due to the history of the psychoanalysis in France, as Claude-MR. shows it well. Prévost in clinic psychology , Which I know. The things today are diversified, and it psychoanalysis is become again an ideal model, among others, clinic psychology. The psychoanalysis had been destined for this place because of a series of oppositions which were lived like dead ends: from the points of view of (humanistic naturalist vs ), fields (experimental Psychology vs Medicine), poles of the personality (the behavior vs the emotional sphere). That caused immediate an enrichment of the discipline, so much from the point of view of the technique (maintenance, tests) that from the doctrinal point of view.

The unit of the psychology which called of its wishes Daniel Lagache can thus be obtained only by maintaining a balance between sometimes opposite forces. But is there another solution? Does what one call a personality, this is not either a balance between force S interns and external? What this personality can have of single, of singular, irreducible with the other, will be explored as completely as possible using talks or of tests. It is not a question to exclude subjectivity, nor even to reduce it, but to put it in the middle of the project of the clinic psychology, to be its subject of study of it: a prone , the psychologist, tries to include/understand another subject, the consultant, and it does it with the techniques and the methods of its discipline, but also with what it is like subject. It is there, in the middle of subjectivity, of the individual one, that the clinic psychology meets the universal one, and therefore, founds its scientificity.

It has as an aim “the study of individual human control and its conditions (Hérédité, maturation, psychological and pathological conditions, history of the life) in a word the study of the total person in situation ". (D. Lagache) It uses as technique maintenance and the tests.

The individual taken in his concrétude, such is the object of the clinic psychology: “The clinic psychology is characterized by the investigation systematic and as complete as possible of the individual cases”. D. Lagache, the unit of psychology, p. 70, Quadriga/P.U.F.

Criticisms and controversies

The clinic psychology is a broad field and there are recurring tensions to determine until which degree the clinic psychology should be based on empirical research and practices based on facts or of course a rational thought and a critical judgment.

The clinicians can attach a variable importance on this subject, but in all the case the qualified professionals can be recorded near various types of representative organizations.

The clinic psychology can be prone to similar criticisms has those done with psychiatry, for example by the movement Antipsychiatrique.

The psychologists clinicians are sometimes criticized by the psychiatrists for their insufficiencies of formation implying a lack of scientific knowledge in general medicine, genetic or médicamentassions some. There were controversies on the request carried out by the psychologists clinicians in order to obtain a capacity of regulation.

In spite of a growing base in fact, it still remains of many questionings as for the effectiveness of a certain number of forms of evaluation and treatment of use in the clinic psychology.

Quotations

Freud said in January 1899 in a letter: “ relationships to the conflict, with the life, here what I will like to call clinic psychology. ”

Notes and references of the article

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