Research

Psychology is based on psychological research.  The research runs from applied psychology that deals with the complexity of what people do, think and feel, to more formal physiological and neuropsychological/psychoneuroimmunology research such as immune functions and stress hormones and functional MRI scans of the brain. 

On average as a psychologist I read about 50 to 150 abstracts or summaries of research in my field each week.  I get about four professional journals sent to my house each month and get another couple additionally every quarter.  I actively follow new developments in internal medicine, specifically cardiology, infectious disease, and immunology.  I have a friend who does cancer research so I follow that area.  In psychology I follow new developments in ethics, law, health, assessment and psychological testing.

Research is an area in which psychologists and psychiatrists substantially differ.  Psychological practice is supposed to be informed by research.  Psychiatric practice is informed by medicine.  There is a disconnect between some of the newer research coming out of academic institutions and clinical psychological psychological practice using that research to inform and improve upon their treatments.  The same disconnect exists in medicine.  It can take several years for solid research to influence clinical practice in either field.

My research has focused on descriptions of what people do and how they describe themselves and clinical treatments in new areas.  When I first started working on anxiety I worked with very young children.  I asked questions like "Can the same treatments for adults with anxiety be used to treat anxiety in a 2 to 4 year old?"  The research showed the treatments were effective.  Or questions like "Do people reporting homicidal rage change their disordered thinking after treatment?"  A large percentage do and the change remains for six months of follow up.  Or "Is rage expressed and experienced differently by different racial groups?"  It is.  Or "Do lesbians have the same types of sexual dysfunctions reported by heterosexual women?"  They do.

Research starts off with a question.  This question is a called hypothesis when the researcher answers it and puts together the study to see if the expected answer is correct or is disproved by the research.   A parent brought a 3 year old into the office.  Someone had sexually abused the child.  The mother wanted to know if the child could testify against the assailant when and if they were caught by police.  So that is a question that can be researched.  So I put together a study to determine if that child could understand right and wrong/truth and fantasy.  Could she understand and describe what happened to her.  Could she identify her attacker from a variety of people and single them out.  So we did all that.  She could explain what happened to her.  She could explain what was real and not real, what happened from what was made up.  She could not identify people to differentiate them.  Since all three aspects would be needed for this child to testify in court, the mother could tell she would not be able to testify even if an attacker was apprehended.

Psychological testing is like individual research.  The question is "How does this person function in these specific areas?"  The hypothesis is "This person functions like most people (the people on whom the test was normed)."  The testing then affirms or disproves the hypothesis.  In some cases of psychological testing we know the person does not match the normative group.  I test disabled people for the most part.  Most psychological tests are not standardized on the disabled.  Small groups of specific disabled populations are used in some tests.  Such as the intellectually impaired, deaf, blind, and learning disabled are with testing of intelligence.  In the cases I test the testing is far more descriptive, single subject case study--what does this person do, in these areas, with these materials.

Any materials can be used for psychological testing in this manner.  When I try to standardize the materials, instructions, and have large groups for comparison, that then becomes a standardized psychological test.  Research provides the clarification on procedures, instructions, materials, methods, and scoring of the results.  So if I ask someone to draw a clock, it might just be me asking the person.  If I follow the instructions for the 7 different clock drawing tasks from the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Test Battery-that's a test.  If I follow the formal instructions for the Draw-a-Clock test, that's a test-and there are comparison photos of clock drawings by hundreds of people with known disorders for me to compare the clock drawing I got from the person I'm evaluating.

Hundreds of thousands of research articles are published in different areas in psychology annually.  There are hundreds of journals and periodicals describing the research being done.  It's not possible for a person to keep up with all the research in the field of psychology because there is simply too much research.  So people specialize in specific areas of research, specific parts of psychology.

The beginning courses in under graduate and graduate school deal with understanding the various areas of psychology and the vast body of research that makes up the field.  Graduate work and post-graduate study clarify the areas of interest into smaller and smaller areas for mastery.  The average psychologist spends between 4 and 7 years after completing a Bachelor's Degree studying an area of psychology for practice.