Clinical Psychology

Clinical psychology is one of the most important domains of general psychology. It includes psychopathology, clinical assessment, and many other aspects and it is used in the various institutions in order to improve the mental health of the population or in order to treat certain mental disorders. For this reason, the need to organize knowledge in the field of clinical psychology is recognized.The book Clinical Psychology is the result of the extensive research on specific professional literature and it is also a representation of personal observations and practical clinical experience of the author. It is a textbook type and it consists of ten chapters, which represent an integrative approach to psychical life.In the first chapter of this book, the reader will have the opportunity to become familiar with the definition of clinical psychology and with the basic tasks of clinical psychology. Also, the first chapter provides a historical overview of the development of clinical psychology as an independent discipline. This chapter also includes specialties of clinical psychology with specific tasks of clinical psychologists in different institutions. These specialties are Infant Mental Health and Clinical Child Psychology, Adult Clinical Psychology, Clinical Psychology in old age and Forensic Psychology.The second chapter of this book is designed in a way to enable the understanding of the concept of normality and understanding of the various problems that researchers face when defining the term "normality". In this chapter, the reader will be able to understand the different types of mental health and techniques of assessing the psychological well-being and life satisfaction.The third chapter is focused on the theoretical approaches that underlie clinical psychology and includes biological access, psychodynamic theory as well as the behavioral and medical model. As a sequel, the fourth chapter offers to the readers' the access to diagnosis of mental disorders, while taking into account the nature and tasks of diagnosis and the methodological dilemma of either categorical or dimensional nature of mental disorders. In the theoretical part, the fifth chapter involves instrumentation which is used in the diagnosis of mental disorders.The next three chapters are focused on psychological disorders in children, adolescents, and adults. As a basis of disorders, the book offers several theories, such as Freud's and Cattell's theory and Five-factor theory, and presents personality disorders, organic disorders and psychotic disorders in adults, and many different mental disorders in children. Finally, the proposed strategy for prevention of the psychological disorders as well as the treatment in cases of these disorders is discussed.