FOREWORD TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE

Approaches to Clinical Psychology from different paradigms: Additional ways to address intervention

Aproximaciones a la Psicología Clínica desde diferentes paradigmas: más caminos para enfocar la intervención

Miguel Ángel Pérez Nieto

Universidad Camilo José Cela, Madrid, España

Correspondence

The systemisation that tends to be found in the study of different psychopathological phenomena, their understanding, and their treatment reveals a certain distance between the findings most closely linked to explaining the variety of problem behaviours and clinical symptoms and the psychological treatment that is often considered (Butler, 2004). In many instances, this means that in certain specific clinical environments there is a divergence between what is being studied on the nature of the problem and the treatment subsequently being applied to it. It may even seem that the research into treatment techniques and into the variables that may explain the problem are two completely different issues, when it would probably be more expedient for them to have a nexus and greater proximity. Possibly because of the acceptance of this distancing, or maybe for other reasons such as those linked to R&D policies, the design of departments and knowledge areas at universities, etc., we sometimes find that much of the basic research conducted into clinical matters often seeks to explain the nature and workings of the cognitive processes it studies, rather than their involvement in the clinical or psychopathological phenomenon to be explained. This tendency, which may be due in some way to the separation between clinical and basic considerations, and the decision not to widen this gap, is what has led the editorial committee of the journal Clínica y Salud [Clinical & Health], a publication that deals closely with professional practice, to publish a dedicated issue covering approaches that are experimental or based on theories somewhat removed from the most common treatments in these fields. This issue's contents may nonetheless be useful and enriching for the intervention in these areas, perhaps exposing professionals to new methods or new approaches for addressing the problems they face.

This issue of Clínica y Salud seeks to head in this direction, by linking and narrowing the gap between clinical contexts and the more common theories and paradigms in other areas, such as neuroscience and psychophysiology, experimentation into attention and memory processes, the creation and use of psychological constructs within the scope of personality, or social cognition. To do so, a selection has been made of six articles that cover approaches to clinical environments and relevant issues in psychopathology through procedures and theories that are not often considered in such fields. Thus, this dedicated issue opens with an article that uses the application of a paradigm, namely, the evaluation of the Prepulse Inhibition, as a way of exploring the processing of information from its very onset, from the earliest moments of the attention and orienting reflex, and based on peripheral measures of a physiological nature. Accordingly, this paradigm is applied in the work by Marín-Mayor, Jurado-Barba, Martínez-Grass, Ponce-Alfaro, and Rubio-Valladolid to the subject of alcoholism, although it has also been used with samples of schizophrenic patients. The contributions this paradigm makes are discussed in the article; but its use in itself may be an example of new paths to be explored in clinical environments.

The issue continues with two articles based on the interaction between our biological bases, learning processes and their implications in maladaptive behaviours. To do so, the authors apply Gray's theory (Gray & McNaughton, 2000) on personality, its inhibition systems, and its system of behavioural approach, sensitivity to punishment and sensitivity to reward. From these perspectives, which would explain the individual differences in learning backgrounds, consideration may be given to maladaptive behaviours such as pathological gambling (see Navas & Perales, 2014). There is also an exploration of the implications these personality profiles have in understanding the changes in affective relationships, as in the article by Pascual, Pérez-Nieto, Pascual, and Redondo (2014), in which women who have been the victims of domestic violence undertake a learning task according to a paradigm of affective reversal, thereby exploring whether their sensitivity to punishment or reward, besides their traumatic experience, may have a bearing on their performance in this reversal. The implications of a poorer performance in this task might be linked to the greater development of tendencies that depend on affective relationships.

Following a review of the implications that our physiological activity and its measurement may have for the development or maintenance of different problem behaviours, the content moves from learning to memory, a cognitive process that has usually been more studied in depression, but which also, extending its range of links, may play an important role in high-anxiety levels. Thus, the article by Sanz-Blasco, Miguel-Tobal, and Casado-Morales (2014) focuses on the implications that a high level of social anxiety may have on the recovery of stimuli and words with no special affective value. In turn, the article by García-Pacios, del Río, and Maestú (2014), based on a task of induced memory loss, reveals that stimuli without a significant affective load become clearly distracting in high-anxiety states. These data are consistent with, for example, the Eysenck's (1992) hypervigilance theory, even though it does not stem from the study of different cognitive processes. In sum, these articles suggest that the tendency to process information as emotional and threatening in anxiety does not occur solely in the initial input, as has often been reported, but also in the subsequent step of generating and processing information.

Finally, this dedicated issue has also included an article that advances from learning and cognitive processes to the study and use of psychological constructs whose operationalization and measurement are less tailored to an experimental design, but which nonetheless are equally relevant in clinical contexts. The article by Espinosa, Valiente, and Bentall (2014) has the courage and honesty to include in the study explicit and implicit measures of psychological constructs such as the "self", in addition to the development of psychotic symptomology. Its findings reveal the importance, even if not validating the theory, of including these different types of measures.

In short, the aim of this dedicated issue is to present approaches that may be somewhat bolder, but definitely less conventional, in the trust that this may help to prompt new focuses and contributions. Many of the findings and conclusions featured in this issue omit any reference to the use of these results in the treatment or assessment of the clinical populations from which they have been obtained. Nevertheless, we understand that the link between their approaches and their implications for clinical intervention will not go unnoticed by readers in general, and much less so regarding those professionals in the clinical environments to which they have referred, or in other closely related fields.

Correspondence:
Miguel Ángel Pérez Nieto.
Dpto. de Psicología.
Facultad de CC de la Salud.
Universidad Camilo José Cela.
C/ Castillo de Alarcón, 49.
28690 Villafranca del Castillo. Madrid.
E-mail: mperez@ucjc.edu

References

1. Butler, G. (2004). Clinical difficulties to revisit. En J. Yiend (Ed.), Cognition, emotion, and psycopathology: theoretical, empirical and clinical directions (pp. 290-307). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.         [ Links ]

2. Espinosa, R., Valiente, C. y Bentall, R. (2014). El concepto de Self y de Otros en los delirios persecutorios. Clínica y Salud, 25, 187-195.         [ Links ]

3. Eysenck, M. (1992). Anxiety: the cognitive perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.         [ Links ]

4. García-Pacios, J., del Río, D. y Maestú, F. (2014). State anxiety in healthy people can increase their vulnerability to non-emotional but not to unpleasant distraction in working memory. Clínica y Salud, 25, 181-185.         [ Links ]

5. Gray, J. A. y McNaughton, N. (2000). The neuropsychology of anxiety: an enquiry into the Functions of the Septo-Hippocampal System. Oxford: Oxford University Press.         [ Links ]

6. Marín Mayor, M., Jurado-Barba, R., Martínez-Grass, I., Ponce Alfaro, G. y Rubio Valladolid, G. (2014). La respuesta de sobresalto y la inhibición prepulso en los trastornos por uso de alcohol. Implicaciones para la práctica clínica. Clínica y Salud, 25, 147-155.         [ Links ]

7. Navas, J. F y Perales, J. C. (2014). Aportaciones de la Neurociencia del Aprendizaje a la comprensión y tratamiento del juego patológico. Clínica y Salud, 25, 157-166.         [ Links ]

8. Pascual, D., Pascual, T. Redondo, M. M. y Pérez Nieto, M. A., (2014). Sensibilidad a l recompensa y al castigo, personalidad, impulsividad y aprendizaje: un estudio en un contexto de violencia íntima de pareja. Clínica y Salud, 25, 167-174.         [ Links ]

9. Sanz-Blasco, R., Miguel-Tobal, J. J. y Casado Morales, M. I. (2014). Cognitive processes in evaluation anxiety: An experimental study based on memory bias. Clínica y Salud, 25, 175-166.         [ Links ]