Research is a prime part of clinical research the first research conducted in this field was by

Sigmon Freud. Experiments are conducted for two reasons either to see the effect of certain

medicine on its respected mental illness or to categorize generic behavior of a specific mental

illness. If we take the effects of schizophrenia medicine, the fist medicine was developed as an

anti-histamine but after clinical trials it was declared to work on schizophrenic patients.[CITATION

Ing15 \l 1033 ]

It was later discovered through experiments that this drug had a lot of side effects so it was

discontinued. [ CITATION Fra17 \l 1033 ]

An example of the second class of research would be classifying the orthodox features of clinical

depression. These include depressive tendencies, anti-social behavior and several others deduced

by clinical experiments and observations. [CITATION The08 \l 1033 ]

Coming to how have we come so far? The first psychiatric hospital was built by Muslims in

Baghdad in the 8th century. In the 9th century Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari developed the idea

of using clinical psychiatry to treat mentally ill patients. In the 11th century in The Canon of

Medicine, Avicenna described a number of conditions, including hallucination, insomnia, mania,

nightmare, melancholia, dementia, epilepsy, paralysis, stroke, vertigo and tremor [ CITATION Avi25

\l 1033 ] and Al-Biruni employed an experimental method in examining the concept of reaction

time. In the 13th century Bartholomeus Anglicus published De Proprietatibus Rerum, which

included a dissertation on the brain, recognizing that mental disorders can have a physical or

psychological cause[CITATION Ang \l 1033 ]. In the 14th century English authorities regarded

mental illness as demonic possession, treating it with exorcism and torture. In the 19th century

Benjamin Rush became one of the earliest advocates of humane treatment for the mentally ill

with the publication of Medical Inquiries and Observations upon Diseases of the Mind, the first
American textbook on psychiatry, in the 1880s the Society for Psychical Research was founded

in England and in 1896 Lightner Witmer is considered to have founded clinical psychology. In

the 1900s Sigmund Freud published the paper On the Sexual Theories of Children, introducing

the concept of penis envy; he also published the paper 'Civilized' Sexual Morality and Modern

Nervous Illness. In 2002 Avshalom Caspi et al. presented a study that was the first to provide

epidemiological evidence that a specific genotype moderates children's sensitivity to

environmental insults. In 2010 the draft of DSM-5 by the American Psychiatric Association

(APA) was distributed for comment and critique. In 2013 on April 2 U.S. President Barack

Obama announced the 10-year BRAIN Initiative to map the activity of every neuron in the

human brain and DSM-5 was published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

Clinical psychology has come a long way. Starting from the recognition of mental disorders

being an illness rather than a body being taken over by a demon or the patient being some kind

of witch or wizard, to being one of the most important field of psychology. Clinical psychology

is one of the branches of psychology that is based on research and without research it could not

be what it is now. Many great psychologist have made groundbreaking discoveries like Freud,

who has created a whole sub branch of clinical psychology all this would not have been possible

without experimenting, even though these psychologists would have their theories there would

have been no way to conform these theories without experimentation. We would also not be able

to classify the characteristics of different mental disorders without experimentation thus intern

having no data to treat or classify these mental disorders causing psychiatrist to treat the same

mental disorders with a variety of techniques not knowing which would work best not only this

we would also not have a detailed hand book like the DSM-5 making diagnosis and treatment a

lot more difficult.

Let’s talk about the experimentation in clinical psychology in the context of Pakistan. Pakistan

being a third world country and having such backwards view about psychology, specifically

clinical psychology, it is believed that anyone going to a client is “pagal” this means that he /she

is hysteric, despite these brutally unusual views it is surprising how much clinical research has

been conducted in the country. A journal is published annually by the Center for Clinical

Psychology. This journal contains various experiments conducted by Pakistanis in the fileld of

clinical psychology. Research was conducted on what psychological aspects caused epilepsy,

this refers to the certain thought processes that leads to epilepsy [CITATION Irs06 \l 1033 ]. Another

research was done on irrational beliefs that predict depressive symptoms in the adolescent of

Lahore; this refers to beliefs that are illogical for example thinking of a situation that will never

happen, these beliefs are the cause of depression in adolescent Lahore’s [CITATION Rah06 \l 1033 ].

These researches show that Pakistan is also participating in researches in the field of clinical

psychology. Even though we are extremely behind on our research but at least we are taking a

step towards participating in experimentation taking place in clinical psychology. This also

shows that we are claiming our place in the research for clinical psychology with the rest of the

world. It does not matter if we are slow because despite our current ideologies about clinical

psychology it is a very big step that we are even conducting any kind of research. Looking at the

current speed at which we are going we will soon catch up with the world in the field of research

in clinical psychology and we might even over throw the barbaric and insolent ideologies we

have about the field causing research in the field to sky rocket to new heights.
References

 [CITATION Ing15 \l 1033 ]

 [ CITATION Fra17 \l 1033 ]

 [CITATION The08 \l 1033 ]

 [ CITATION Avi25 \l 1033 ]

 [CITATION Ang \l 1033 ]

 [CITATION Irs06 \l 1033 ]

 [CITATION Rah06 \l 1033 ]