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12 - Critical Thinking in Clinical Inference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Thomas F. Oltmanns  and
E. David Klonsky
Edited by
Robert J. Sternberg ,
Henry L. Roediger III  and
Diane F. Halpern
Thomas F. Oltmanns
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
E. David Klonsky
Affiliation:
Stony Brook University
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Henry L. Roediger III
Affiliation:
Washington University, St Louis
Diane F. Halpern
Affiliation:
Claremont McKenna College, California
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Summary

OVERVIEW

Every day, health professionals make decisions about issues that affect the well-being of their patients. These decisions can be called clinical inferences. This chapter explains how psychologists reach the conclusions they do, including a critical look at the validity of clinical inferences.

What types of inferences do psychologists make? Two common inferences involve diagnosis and treatment selection. Psychologists make decisions about the types of problems experienced by their clients, and they select interventions that are likely to be effective for treating these conditions. Psychologists make other important clinical inferences as well. In a criminal case, a judge or lawyer may ask a psychologist to predict whether a defendant will engage in violent behavior if released from custody. A patient recovering from alcoholism may want information about the probability that he or she will relapse. Diagnosis, treatment selection, violence prediction, and prognostic forecasting are all examples of clinical inferences made by psychologists in the course of clinical practice.

Critical thinking refers to the use of skills and strategies that make desirable outcomes more likely (see Chapter 1, this volume). In the context of clinical practice, desirable outcomes include the formulation of accurate diagnoses, effective treatments, and accurate predictions about future behavior. Valid clinical inferences can substantially improve people's lives, whereas invalid inferences can lead to prolonged psychological distress. Critical thinking is essential for achieving desirable clinical outcomes.

Type
Chapter
Information
Critical Thinking in Psychology , pp. 196 - 215
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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