Case Studies
Modified: 2023-08-15 (6:01 PM CDST)
- Case studies are old and widely used methods in psychology.
- In case
studies individuals or groups can be closely watched over a period of
time.
- Then, predictions can be made about the future behavior of
those individuals or groups.
- In medicine, case histories have long been used.
- When you go to a
medical doctor for the first time, you may have to fill out a medical case
history.
- You may answer a form that asks questions about your health
and the health of your immediate family.
- Why do doctors ask you these
questions?
- The answer is that those questions may lead to important clues in
your diagnosis.
- For example, questions about travel overseas and
about your consumption of untreated drinking water may prove very
useful in the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal discomfort.
- Answering yes to both of those questions opens the door for diagnoses
related to amebiasis, or the harboring of amebas in your gut.
- You may
have ingested those amebas from well water, or from poorly treated
water overseas.
- However, answering no to those questions makes such a
diagnosis much less likely.
- In clinical psychology, case histories are routinely used when
patients are admitted to treatment facilities.
- The questions will be
different, for the most part, from medical case histories, in that
the questions will be more about behavior, not about health.
- Questions may be asked about
- family structure and conflicts
- about
significant life events
- about ways of dealing with people and
problems
- Diagnoses and treatment suggestions will come, partly, from
the clinical case history.
- In both of these examples, the idea that the past predicts the
future is implicit.
- In forensic psychology the same relationship
between past and future is seen.
- For example, a parole board may have
to decide whether or not to parole a convict based on that convict's
behavior in prison.
- But, what they are really deciding is whether or
not they believe that convict will no longer engage in the behavior
that caused the original conviction.
- Similarly, expert witnesses may
testify in court as to the mental state of a defendant at the time a
crime was committed.
- That testimony is usually based on a case
history collected by the expert witness before the trial.
- Case studies are also used in business and economics to study how
one company or industry profited from certain conditions while others
did not. So, this method has a great deal of use in a variety of
settings.
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