A competent psychologist is always learning and adapting their theories and treatment approaches, with added focus on cultural and individual diversity. While formal education provides a versatile set of skills to commence formal practice, ongoing self-motivated learning is essential. A psychologist should be always exploring avenues to advance previous learning to more updated, valid, and reliable approaches (evidenced based research), but also ensuring a critical assessment of the research is undertaken. Critical assessment may include methodology limitations, normative samples, cultural considerations, and overall strength of argument posed by researchers.
The role of a clinical psychologist is remarkably like that of a detective, trying to place pieces of a puzzle together to solve a complex mystery, however the psychologists task relates to the puzzle of human behavior. Sherlock Holmes is a good example of someone that used the approach of hypothesis testing to deduce the most reliable and parsimonious explanation to a phenomenon that eliminates all other possible explanations. Thus, if you are not aware of other possible diagnoses (within or outside your knowledge base), then you may easily adopt a biased approach to psychological assessment, which may fail to encompass and treat the severity of the client’s symptoms and concerns.
This is evident in clinical practice, where clinical disorders are:
(1) comorbid with other DSM-5 disorders,
(2) highly heterogenous, and
(3) shared etiologies, symptoms, and expressions (e.g., cognitions).
Adopting a diagnosis based on the most salient set of symptoms and attenuating the less salient symptoms when considering a formal diagnosis may lead to treating part of the problem, and not the complete complexity of the individual concerns. Failing to consider all possible hypotheses for the client can impact treatment considerations and prolong the client’s distress and impairment further.
