However, even in uncertain areas such as clinical practice, some decisions are better than others. Clinical decision-making is treated as a challenging process that can be enhanced by acquiring skills integral to evidence-based practice, such as posing well-formed questions that guide efficient and effective research for practice and policy-relevant research. A third was the discovery of books such as Straight and Crooked Thinking (Thouless, 1974) - a well-written book that describes a number of common mistakes as well as solutions.
A fourth influence was research on human judgment and decision-making that has been drawn together in sources such as Humail's conclusions (Nisbett & Ross, 1980) and Judgment and Choice (Hogarth. This chapter describes the sources of error resulting from how for example a misclassification of clients and treatment methods Sources of error that can reduce the accuracy of predictions are described in Chapter 15 and steps are suggested to increase accuracy, such as the use of statistical tools and reduced reliance on memory.
Material related to the field of clinical decision-making lies in sociology, anthropological psychology, medicine, rhetoric, philosophy, education, and popularized presentations of formal and informal fallacies, such as Straight and Crooked Thinking (Thouless, 1974). There are strong differences of opinion about many of the topics discussed in this book, such as statistical versus clinical prediction and the most useful way to pursue knowledge or whether it can be obtained.
LAY OF THE LAND
Licensing and accrediting bodies such as the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and the Council on Social Work Education rely on surrogates of competence and quality of professional education, such as the diversity of the faculty and the size of the faculty, their degrees and prior experience (Gambrill , 2002). Appendix 1.2 "Treatment of Hysteria:'in Russell TTrall, Hydropathic Encyclopedia (New York, 1868). NewYork Academy of Medicine Library. Errors may occur due to the personal characteristics of clinicians, such as excessive need for approval (see Chapter 17) .
Critical thinking is a unique type of purposeful thinking in which we use standards such as clarity and fairness. In the first, strategies such as censoring (not mentioning) well-argued alternative views and contradictory evidence are used. It takes courage to tolerate ambiguity and confront ignorance and bias in our thinking. Penalties for non-compliance are often severe.
Self-awareness involves being aware of our way of thinking (eg, the strategies we use) and its shortcomings, such as stereotypes that change what we see and inaccurate (inflated) assessment of our competence (Dunning, Heath, & Suls, 2005). . Critical thinking skills and the practice of using them can be used to avoid mistakes as a fundamental trait. For example, social reform efforts emphasize the influence of political, economic, and social conditions, such as the quality of educational opportunities.
Critics of mental health services, such as Basaglia (in Scheper-Hughes & Lovell, 1987), believe that many people (including clinicians) do not understand the economic demands of capitalist societies such as United States, and the effects of these claims. (such as disabling and controlling individuals who do not contribute to productivity: the unemployed, the disabled and the elderly, to name just a few).
The particular match between a client and a clinician and the quality of the helping relationship also influence decisions. The accuracy of a generalization depends on the size and representativeness of the sample and the degree of variability in a population. Some, such as Richard Smith (2003), former editor of the British Medical Journal, do not think so.
Note: The data in the table indicates how the truth or falsity of the conclusion depends on the truth or falsity of the premises. It is assumed that what is true for the sample is true for all possible cases. Arrange the premises (or supporting claims) and the conclusion (or key claim) so that the structure of the argument becomes visible.
Statistics can be misleading in a number of ways related to the size and representativeness of the samples on which they are based. For example, sometimes the importance of a term was found to vary between 20%. Principle of relevance: only reasons or questions directly related to the merits of the position in question.
One of the obstacles to using evidence-based practices and policies is the quality of feedback we get about our decisions. Consider withdrawal from the arthritis drug Vioxx due to side effects such as strokes. Indeed, history shows that critical tests of common practices have prevented further harm to clients (eg, the blinding of infants; Silverman, 1980).
Consider the church's response to the discovery that the earth is not the center of the universe. It assumes that approximations to the truth can be discovered through rational argument and the critical testing of theories, and that the validity of a claim is related to the uniqueness and rigor of the relevant critical tests. Theories differ in the extent to which they have been tested and in the rigor of the tests used.
Thus, if our goal is to communicate the emotional complexity of a particular type of experience (eg, the death of an infant), then qualitative methods (eg, detailed case examples, thematic analysis of journal entries, open -interviews completed at different times). Consider, for example, the propagandistic nature of the International Consensus Statement on ADHD (Barkley et al., 2000).
COMMON SOURCES OF ERROR
Note the reaffirmation of the original position (begging the question) and the appeal to consensus. Examples of the use of emotionally toned words can be seen in the excerpts from a case conference in Chapter 16. This tendency is then thought of as an attribute of the person (Bromley 1977).
In the fallacy of composition, it is assumed that what is true of a part is also true of the whole. In the fallacy of division, it is assumed that what is true of the whole is true of all parts. If an attack on the proponent of the argument is related to the issue at hand, it may be relevant in some cases.
Perhaps there is a grain of truth in evaluating an argument by considering the associates of the person proposing it. An example of the available reference fallacy is to say that "if you really wanted to. This fallacy is the opposite of using a suspect special case as evidence for a generalization (see later discussion).
A possible solution here might be to ask the person exactly which aspect of the argument is confusing. Ad hominem arguments may be used, in which the person's background, habits, associates, or personality (rather than the arguments) are criticized or appealed to. This is an example of using a descriptive term as a pseudo-explanatory term (see also Chapter 13).
In the continuum fallacy, it is argued that because there is a continuous distribution of grades between the two extremes, there is no real difference. Some of the informal errors discussed under language influence in Chapter 5 can also be included here, such as the use of pseudo-technical jargon. In the statement 'As members of the American Psychological Association, we know that:' the appeal is for a re-- A.
This was one of the key reasons for the development of evidence-based practice. Normative data may be ignored for one or more of the other reasons discussed in this section.
