Thoughts on Dawes's writing.

I had a couple of thoughts on “Excerpts from Dawes”.

First of all, current trends of emphasis on empirically-validated therapies are good evidences that his strong voices that clinical psychologists should adopt scientists model seriously has been heard. Ever since he raised this issue in 1994, there have been accumulating researches examining the outcomes of specific therapies on specific disorders. For example, there are well-supported evidences that exposure therapies works well on PTSD or extreme fears, and CBT on eating disorders, panic attacks, OCD. Although limitations are still with the research -statistical significance can not be easily extended to clinical one, clinical psychologists, in general, have made a good progress in terms of endeavoring to apply sciences into practices.

Second, in accordance with his firm standning in support of a scientist, clinical psychologists should be aware of what they do know and do not know. With this awareness, they will better try to 1) be very discreet on words and actions affecting other people’s lives and 2) refer to research findings in search for answers to problems at various professional settings.