Comment: Can clinical judgment hold its own against scientific knowledge? Comment on Zeldow (2009).

Abstract

P. B. Zeldow (2009) presents a series of vignettes that make a compelling case for the role of clinical judgment and for the claim that the knowledge of a credentialed practitioner stand up against the credentialed knowledge of scientific research. This comment discusses how the dispute between scientific knowledge and clinical judgment is not unique to psychotherapy but has been extensively discussed in other disciplines, especially medicine and education. Two models of science and practice are presented: a model based on Aristotle's (1999) distinction between techne and phronesis and H. L. Dreyfus and S. E. Dreyfus's (1986) five-stage model of skill acquisition. Both a scientific knowledge base and a model of clinical practice that value the judgment of the expert practitioner are necessary for psychology to be a learned profession. Nevertheless, the gap between science and practice may never be fully closed but will always have irresolvable conflicts that can only be contained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).