Critical Thinking For Helping Professionals

PART 1 CRITICAL THINKING: WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT IS IMPORTANT. Introduction: The Role of Critical Thinking in the Helping Professions. Exercise 1 Making Decisions About Intervention. Exercise 2 Reviewing Your Beliefs About Knowledge. PART 2 RECOGNIZING PROPAGANDA IN HUMAN SERVICES ADVERTISING. Exercise 3 Evaluating Human-Services Advertisements. Exercise 4 Does Scaring Youth Help Them "Go Straight"?: Applying Principles of Reasoning, Inference, Decision Making, and Evaluation. PART 3 FALLACIES AND PITFALLS IN PROFESSIONAL DECISION MAKING. Exercise 5 Using the Professional Thinking For.

Critical thinking values, skills, and knowledge are integral to evidence-based practice in the helping professions. On a daily basis, practitioners must be able and willing to think critically about decisions that affect clients' lives, while detecting and avoiding misleading framing ofproblems that may harm clients but contribute to the profit of involved industries (e.g. ignoring environmental sources of distress and focusing on characteristics of clients). Critical Thinking for Helping Professionals, Fourth Edition is designed to engage readers as active participants in 37exercises designed to hone critical thinking skills and offer practice in critically appraising different kinds of research, carrying out the steps in the process of evidence-based practice, reviewing the extent to which clients are involved as informed participants, and reviewing excuses used foroffering poor services. For students in social work, nursing, counseling, and psychology, this new edition offers entertaining and thought-provoking ways to sharpen decision making skills.

Praise for Critical Thinking in Clinical Practice, Third Edition "Eileen Gambrill is unparalleled in her ability to describe common flaws and biases in clinical decision making. The result in this revised edition is a steadfast call for change that also acknowledges the demands of practice. A must-read for clinicians and researchers alike." —Elizabeth K. Anthony, PhD, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, Arizona State University "This Third Edition builds upon the impressive strengths of Gambrill's prior treatments of the topic to support the notion that critical thinking is a teachable skill and one essential for contemporary practice in the human services. This book should be the default authority on the topic of critical thinking for human service professionals and would be an excellent textbook." —Bruce A. Thyer, PhD, LCSW, Professor and former Dean, Florida State University College of Social Work "I was skeptical about how Critical Thinking in Clinical Practice could be improved, but Eileen Gambrill has succeeded! Her articulation of critical thinking skills for clinical decisions ultimately will benefit the people we serve." —Joanne Yaffe, PhD, ACSW, Associate Professor of Social Work and Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Utah A balanced and illustrative guide to incorporating critical-thinking values, knowledge, and skills into clinical education and practice Now in a third edition, Critical Thinking in Clinical Practice is written for helping professionals who want to think more clearly about the decisions they make and the context in which they make them. It is a practical volume for clinicians who would like to expand their knowledge of common pitfalls and fallacies in clinical reasoning. As in earlier editions, this Third Edition draws on research related to problem solving and decision making, illustrating the relevance of research findings to everyday clinical practice and policy. Revised throughout, the new edition includes discussion of: The influence of pharmaceutical companies on the helping professions, including disease mongering—the creation of bogus risks, problems, and needless worries Different kinds of propaganda in the helping professions that compromise informed consent Additional coverage of classification, pathology, reliance on authority, and hazards in data collection The development of decision aids of value to both professionals and clients The relative contribution of specific interventions compared to nonspecific factors to positive outcome Factors related to decision making in multidisciplinary teams New developments regarding intuitive and analytic reasoning The pragmatic theory of fallacies Designed to enhance the quality of services offered to clients, Critical Thinking in Clinical Practice, Third Edition is filled with insightful examples, useful lists, websites, and guidelines, presenting an essential resource for all helping professionals and students in the helping professions.

Covers the use of research & critical thinking to assist helping professionals make the most effective choices in treating clients with social & emotional problems.

The current practice of counselling, psychotherapy, and most helping professions often relies on clinical wisdom with little evidence of what actually works. Clinical wisdom is often a justification for beliefs and values that bond people together as professionals but often fails to serve clients since many of those beliefs and values may be comforting, but they may also be inherently incorrect. Improving the Effectiveness of the Helping Professions: An Evidence-Based Approach to Practice covers the use of research and critical thinking to assist helping professionals make the most effective choices in treating clients with social and emotional problems. The use of evidence-based practice (EBP) comes at a time when managed care and concerns over health care costs coincide with growing concerns that psychotherapy, case management, and counseling may not be sufficiently effective ways of helping people in social and emotional difficulty.

This is a new edition of the wildly successful everyday reference for social workers. Like the first edition, it has been crafted with the help of an extensive needs assessment survey of educators and front-line practitioners, ensuring that it speaks directly to the daily realities of the profession. It features 40% new material and a more explicit focus on evidence-based practice.

This incisive look at how propaganda has infiltrated the helping professions is essential reading for social workers, psychologists, and other helping professionals, and is an excellent supplement to courses on critical thinking and introduction to practice.