Instructions
What you’ve learned about psychopathology up to this point could span three courses! True, we’ve taken more of an overview approach, but still – what you’ve accomplished thus far has been impressive. You’ve covered the entire history of abnormal psychology, tackled mental health stigma, and you can apply not one but eight foundational models of psychopathology to real-world situations. You’ve gleaned solid insight how clinicians assess, diagnose, formulate, and treat clinical cases. And you are already diving into specific categories of DSM-5-TR disorders.
Before we dive too much deeper into the DSM-5-TR, let’s stop and reflect on the meaning and significance of the clinician’s process and how it applies to you in the context of your evolving academic journey and within the time and place in which you are living. 
And it’s an exciting time to do so! Especially as it relates to clinical assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. Psychological diagnosis has hit its zeitgeist moment – it has never been more seen on the pop culture stage than it is now. It’s in our television shows, social media feeds, and talk shows, and is functioning to help today’s generation contextualize their mental health struggles and recognize the benefits of treatment. Society’s perspective on therapy is also experiencing a sea change. Influencers advertise accessible online therapy platforms in their podcasts and YouTube channels and celebrities openly share their successes with counseling in interviews and on their social media.
This generational attention to psychological diagnosis and treatment is well captured in this song from the TV show My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: A Diagnosis (2017).
The assignment instructions below will guide you, step-by-step, as you reflect on your learning. When you have completed this assignment, you’ll have coalesced your own personal perspective on the clinician’s task, informed by your own experience, our course learning resources, and our current sociocultural circumstance. 
Assignment Overview: Complete a 5+ page reflection that captures your evolving perspective on clinical assessment, diagnosis, and treatment (therapy). While this is largely a reflection on your own perspectives, take on our course materials, and cultural observations, you will be asked to bring in resources to support some claims or to serve as examples of your points (described in more detail below).
Step 1: Write an Introduction (1/2 – 1 page): 
Start your paper by reflecting on the thoughts, beliefs, and perspectives on mental health assessment, diagnosis, and treatment that you had prior to taking this course. Below is a list of questions to help you think through this. It is not an exhaustive list (you might choose to bring in an idea not on this list), and you certainly don’t have to answer all these questions. They are just meant to guide your thinking.
Note: Don’t write your introduction in a question-answer format, write in full paragraphs in which you communicate to the reader a summary of your pre-class thinking on clinical assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. You might start your introduction with “Prior to taking this course, I…”(Note: First person language is acceptable and recommended in this assignment).
What did I think a mental health professional did when they were trying to understand their client? What did I think the process was or how it unfolded?
What did I know or think about psychological testing (IQ tests, personality inventories, symptom questionnaires, etc.) prior to taking this course? How might I have guessed they were leveraged to help someone?
What was my opinion on the ability of a mental health professional’s ability to understand a complex case?
What were my views on psychological/psychiatric diagnosis? Did I see them as helpful? Stigmatizing? Either or both, depending on the situation?
How important did I think diagnosis was?
Did I hold any stigmatizing beliefs about mental health diagnosis?
What did I think about how cultural issues played into assessment and diagnosis?
What were my beliefs about treatment (e.g., psychotherapy, medication, alternative treatments, etc.)?
Did I think therapy was effective?
End your introduction with a segue into your body, laying out its objectives and what you hope to accomplish with it. Hint: Your objectives are described in Step 2 below.
Step 2: Body of Your Reflection (3 1/2 – 4 pages)
In the body of your work, you will explore popular culture representations that are influencing society’s views of the assessment, diagnosis, and therapy process. You’ll compare/contrast those representations with what you have learned in this course. You’ll also think critically about how culture may be influencing the science and practice of psychopathology as we speak.
Body Section I: Media Representations and Influences
Here, you will consider how pop culture representations of the clinical assessment, diagnostic, and therapeutic processes have influenced both you and the broader cultural conversation surrounding mental health.
Provide three (3) specific examples from pop culture (movie scenes, TV episodes, YouTube clips, news stories, podcast episodes, songs, advertisements, etc.) that represent some aspect of clinical practice (assessment, diagnosis, case formulation, or treatment).
To best illustrate, provide an in-text citation and an associated reference to that example. You should link directly to the example if it is available on the web. If it is a scene from a TV show or movie that is not available on YouTube or another free source or if it is a podcast episode that doesn’t have an available link outside of a podcast app, make sure to reference it with the episode number so that your reader (i.e., your instructor) can watch/listen and evaluate its content. If providing a time stamp would be helpful, please provide it.
Note: Here, you are not showing representations of mental illnesses (we’ll do that in Unit 7!). You are showing representations of how clinicians go about assessing, diagnosing, conceptualizing, and treating their clients)
Very briefly describe what is happening in each example, then move forward to discuss what each is specifically suggesting or implying about the process of clinical assessment, diagnosis, or treatment and how a viewer might interpret that information.
End this section by synthesizing the take home message – when viewed together, what does it seem like our general cultural understanding of the clinical process is? Do you think this message influenced your own perspective (that you offered in the introduction)? If so, in what way?
Body Section II: Comparison and Contrast with Class Information
Offer your reader an in-depth compare-and-contrast between the take home message you ended with in Body Section I and the academic perspectives on mental health presented in this courses’ learning resources. Take note of any points where the broader cultural conversation either aligns with or diverges from what you have learned in PSYC 353. Make specific reference the readings from the course (the required readings and/or the supplemental sources) to highlight what you have learned about mental health from an academic standpoint. You can also bring in any other peer-reviewed, academic journal resources to support your ideas, too.
Body Section III: Implications for Clinical Practice
Discuss how the current cultural landscape may impact clinical practices. Consider how shifts in societal attitudes might lead to changes or adaptations in a clinician’s approach. Offer at least two peer-reviewed, scholarly academic resources to support your arguments. You might consider this source as one of them (full reference below). You don’t have to use it; this is just to aid you in starting your research. If you do use it, you’ll need to find at least one more.
Gere, B., Salimi, N., & Anima-Korang, A. (2019). Social media use as self-therapy or alternative mental help-seeking behavior. Journal of Psychology & the Behavioral Sciences, 5(2), 21-36. https://www.doi.org/10.22492/ijpbs.5.2.02
Step 3: Conclusion (1/2 – 1 page)
Summarize the key points of your reflective journey, emphasizing how the perspective you offered in your introduction either has shifted or has not shifted. What are your parting thoughts after having engaged in this reflection?
Paper Writing Guidelines:
Paper should be written in APA 7 style; this includes title page, in-text citations, reference page, and paper formatting (1-inch margins, double-spaced, 12-point font, etc.). An abstract is not required.
Use the rubric to guide your performance, ensuring you hit all elements required and with the expected level of critical and authentic thinking.
Apply sound writing mechanics: write with clarity and pay attention to spelling/grammar. Consider reading your paper out loud or having a dictation software read it back to you for a different perspective.
Consider using subject headings to visually organize your paper for you and your reader.
Submit completed document by assigned due date.
Your final paper should be at least 5 pages of written content (meaning not including the title page and reference page).
What you’ve learned about psychopathology up to this point could span three courses! True, we’ve taken more of an overview approach, but still – what you’ve accomplished thus far has been impressive. You’ve covered the entire history of abnormal psychology, tackled mental health stigma, and you can apply not one but eight foundational models of psychopathology to real-world situations. You’ve gleaned solid insight how clinicians assess, diagnose, formulate, and treat clinical cases. And you are already diving into specific categories of DSM-5-TR disorders.
Before we dive too much deeper into the DSM-5-TR, let’s stop and reflect on the meaning and significance of the clinician’s process and how it applies to you in the context of your evolving academic journey and within the time and place in which you are living.
And it’s an exciting time to do so! Especially as it relates to clinical assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. Psychological diagnosis has hit its zeitgeist moment – it has never been more seen on the pop culture stage than it is now. It’s in our television shows, social media feeds, and talk shows, and is functioning to help today’s generation contextualize their mental health struggles and recognize the benefits of treatment. Society’s perspective on therapy is also experiencing a sea change. Influencers advertise accessible online therapy platforms in their podcasts and YouTube channels and celebrities openly share their successes with counseling in interviews and on their social media.
This generational attention to psychological diagnosis and treatment is well captured in this song from the TV show My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: A Diagnosis (2017).
The assignment instructions below will guide you, step-by-step, as you reflect on your learning. When you have completed this assignment, you’ll have coalesced your own personal perspective on the clinician’s task, informed by your own experience, our course learning resources, and our current sociocultural circumstance.
Assignment Overview: Complete a 5+ page reflection that captures your evolving perspective on clinical assessment, diagnosis, and treatment (therapy). While this is largely a reflection on your own perspectives, take on our course materials, and cultural observations, you will be asked to bring in resources to support some claims or to serve as examples of your points (described in more detail below).
Step 1: Write an Introduction (1/2 – 1 page):
Start your paper by reflecting on the thoughts, beliefs, and perspectives on mental health assessment, diagnosis, and treatment that you had prior to taking this course. Below is a list of questions to help you think through this. It is not an exhaustive list (you might choose to bring in an idea not on this list), and you certainly don’t have to answer all these questions. They are just meant to guide your thinking.
Note: Don’t write your introduction in a question-answer format, write in full paragraphs in which you communicate to the reader a summary of your pre-class thinking on clinical assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. You might start your introduction with “Prior to taking this course, I…”(Note: First person language is acceptable and recommended in this assignment).
What did I think a mental health professional did when they were trying to understand their client? What did I think the process was or how it unfolded?
What did I know or think about psychological testing (IQ tests, personality inventories, symptom questionnaires, etc.) prior to taking this course? How might I have guessed they were leveraged to help someone?
What was my opinion on the ability of a mental health professional’s ability to understand a complex case?
What were my views on psychological/psychiatric diagnosis? Did I see them as helpful? Stigmatizing? Either or both, depending on the situation?
How important did I think diagnosis was?
Did I hold any stigmatizing beliefs about mental health diagnosis?
What did I think about how cultural issues played into assessment and diagnosis?
What were my beliefs about treatment (e.g., psychotherapy, medication, alternative treatments, etc.)?
Did I think therapy was effective?
End your introduction with a segue into your body, laying out its objectives and what you hope to accomplish with it. Hint: Your objectives are described in Step 2 below.
Step 2: Body of Your Reflection (3 1/2 – 4 pages)
In the body of your work, you will explore popular culture representations that are influencing society’s views of the assessment, diagnosis, and therapy process. You’ll compare/contrast those representations with what you have learned in this course. You’ll also think critically about how culture may be influencing the science and practice of psychopathology as we speak.
Body Section I: Media Representations and Influences
Here, you will consider how pop culture representations of the clinical assessment, diagnostic, and therapeutic processes have influenced both you and the broader cultural conversation surrounding mental health.
Provide three (3) specific examples from pop culture (movie scenes, TV episodes, YouTube clips, news stories, podcast episodes, songs, advertisements, etc.) that represent some aspect of clinical practice (assessment, diagnosis, case formulation, or treatment).
To best illustrate, provide an in-text citation and an associated reference to that example. You should link directly to the example if it is available on the web. If it is a scene from a TV show or movie that is not available on YouTube or another free source or if it is a podcast episode that doesn’t have an available link outside of a podcast app, make sure to reference it with the episode number so that your reader (i.e., your instructor) can watch/listen and evaluate its content. If providing a time stamp would be helpful, please provide it.
Note: Here, you are not showing representations of mental illnesses (we’ll do that in Unit 7!). You are showing representations of how clinicians go about assessing, diagnosing, conceptualizing, and treating their clients)
Very briefly describe what is happening in each example, then move forward to discuss what each is specifically suggesting or implying about the process of clinical assessment, diagnosis, or treatment and how a viewer might interpret that information.
End this section by synthesizing the take home message – when viewed together, what does it seem like our general cultural understanding of the clinical process is? Do you think this message influenced your own perspective (that you offered in the introduction)? If so, in what way?
Body Section II: Comparison and Contrast with Class Information
Offer your reader an in-depth compare-and-contrast between the take home message you ended with in Body Section I and the academic perspectives on mental health presented in this courses’ learning resources. Take note of any points where the broader cultural conversation either aligns with or diverges from what you have learned in PSYC 353. Make specific reference the readings from the course (the required readings and/or the supplemental sources) to highlight what you have learned about mental health from an academic standpoint. You can also bring in any other peer-reviewed, academic journal resources to support your ideas, too.
Body Section III: Implications for Clinical Practice
Discuss how the current cultural landscape may impact clinical practices. Consider how shifts in societal attitudes might lead to changes or adaptations in a clinician’s approach. Offer at least two peer-reviewed, scholarly academic resources to support your arguments. You might consider this source as one of them (full reference below). You don’t have to use it; this is just to aid you in starting your research. If you do use it, you’ll need to find at least one more.
Gere, B., Salimi, N., & Anima-Korang, A. (2019). Social media use as self-therapy or alternative mental help-seeking behavior. Journal of Psychology & the Behavioral Sciences, 5(2), 21-36. https://www.doi.org/10.22492/ijpbs.5.2.02
Step 3: Conclusion (1/2 – 1 page)
Summarize the key points of your reflective journey, emphasizing how the perspective you offered in your introduction either has shifted or has not shifted. What are your parting thoughts after having engaged in this reflection?
Paper Writing Guidelines:
Paper should be written in APA 7 style; this includes title page, in-text citations, reference page, and paper formatting (1-inch margins, double-spaced, 12-point font, etc.). An abstract is not required.
Use the rubric to guide your performance, ensuring you hit all elements required and with the expected level of critical and authentic thinking.
Apply sound writing mechanics: write with clarity and pay attention to spelling/grammar. Consider reading your paper out loud or having a dictation software read it back to you for a different perspective.
Consider using subject headings to visually organize your paper for you and your reader.
Submit completed document by assigned due date.
Your final paper should be at least 5 pages of written content (meaning not including the title page and reference page).
