A Critical Reconstruction of Evidence-based Practice in Psychology: Evidence and Ethics (Routledge Focus on Mental Health)

Evidence-based practice in psychology is the dominant regulatory principle in clinical psychology, defining psychological knowledge and its application.This book provides a critical analysis and a reconstruction of the policy statement focusing on epistemology and ethics. The book shows the ideological and historical background for the development of evidence-based practice in psychology.It covers the main conceptual and empirical arguments leading to this transition including philosophy and evidence-based medicine.The book goes on to show some of the defects of evidence-based practice in psychology: it misconstrues psychological knowledge; reduces the number of ethical resources available to regulate psychological practices; does not fulfil its ambitions of being a tripartite concept; and undertheorises the issue of integration.The closing chapters provide a constructive critique, preserving the valuable aspects of evidence-based practice in psychology while developing it to make it f