Clinical Psychology

expertise or give in to the expediency of the pre-
scription pad and its ready cash flow over the hard
work of psychotherapy”(p. 600).

Technological Innovations

Technology has influenced many fields, and clinical
psychology is no exception. In this section, we
discuss several recent technological innovations
that are likely to have a lasting impact on clinical
psychology.

Telehealth

Telehealth refers to the delivery and oversight of
health services using telecommunication technolo-
gies. For example, Web sites, e-mail, telephones,
online videoconferencing, and transmitting medical
images for diagnosis are often used as a means to
assess, evaluate, and treat psychological and behav-
ioral problems. There are many advantages to tele-
health, including increased accessibility to services,
more efficiency in service delivery, reducing stigma
that might be associated with presenting for treat-
ment at a traditional brick-and-mortar clinic, and
the ability to obtain expert consultations in a
more expeditious manner. To date, most of the
applications of telehealth have focused on rural
populations where services are harder to obtain
due to distance and number of local providers, as
well as on institutionalized populations (e.g., pris-
oners) who may not have ready access to services
outside the institution of interest.
In this section, we will focus on two forms of
telehealth that are relevant to the science and prac-
tice of clinical psychology. First, we discuss the rap-
idly growing field termed ambulatory assessment.
Next, we discuss computer-assisted treatments of
psychological conditions.

Ambulatory Assessment

As the name implies,ambulatory assessmentinvolves
assessing the emotions, behaviors, and cognitions of

individuals as they are interacting with the environ-

ment in real time (Trull & Ebner-Priemer, 2009). A

major impetus for ambulatory assessment is the

finding that individuals are deficient in their mem-

ory and report of past personal experiences, includ-

ing moods, events, and behaviors (Fahrenberg,

Myrtek, Pawlik, & Perrez, 2007; Solhan, Trull,

Jahng, & Wood, 2009). Despite this limitation,

clinical psychologists typically rely on question-

naires and interviews that require retrospective

assessment of clinical symptoms and conditions.

Therefore, one advantage of ambulatory assessment

is that very little, if any, retrospection is required of

the client. For example, to track a client’s mood

state, an electronic diary or smart phone might be

used to prompt the client to complete mood ratings

at various points throughout the day and night.

These data will reflect the client’s mood as it is

Electronic diaries can be used to assess clients while they

are going about their daily life.

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