Critical thinking in clinical practice improving the quality of judgments and decisions

• Main Author: Gambrill, Eileen D. 1934- (Author)
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, N.J. Wiley 2005
• Edition: Second edition
• Subjects: Psychology, Clinical; Counseling; Decision Making
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.

Decisions are influenced by a variety of fallacies and biases that we can learn how to avoid. Critical thinking values, knowledge, and skills, therefore, are integral to evidence-based practice. These emphasize the importance of recognizing ignorance as well as knowledge and the vital role of critic...

Table of Contents:

• The need for critical thinking in clinical practice
• Sources of influence on decisions that clinicians make
• Reasons and reasoning: the heart of making decisions
• Different views of knowledge and how to get it: exploring your personal epistemology
• The influence of language and persuasion strategies
• Formal and informal fallacies: mistakes in thinking and how to avoid them
• Classification, pseudoauthority, and focusing on pathology
• Content and procedural knowledge
• Taking advantage of research on judgment, problem solving, and decision making
• Evidence-based practice: a philosophy and process for thinking ethically and critically about decisions
• Posing questions and searching for answers
• Critical appraisal of practice-related research: the need for skepticism
• Making decisions about data collection
• Discovering causes of clients' problems: common biases
• Predictions about clients and treatment effectiveness: improving the odds
• Enhancing the quality of case conferences, team meetings, and organizational culture
• Overcoming personal obstacles to critical thinking
• Maintaining critical thinking skills.