clinical-foundations

name	clinical-foundations
description	Foundations of clinical psychology and psychopathology. Covers anxiety disorders (generalized anxiety, panic, phobias, OCD, PTSD), depressive disorders (major depression, persistent depressive disorder, bipolar), personality theories (psychodynamic, trait/Big Five, humanistic, social-cognitive), therapeutic approaches (CBT, psychodynamic, humanistic/person-centered, behavioral, pharmacological), the biopsychosocial model, DSM diagnostic framework, and the evidence base for psychological treatments. Use when analyzing psychological disorders, therapeutic approaches, personality assessment, or the intersection of biology, psychology, and social context in mental health.
type	skill
category	psychology
status	stable
origin	tibsfox
modified	false
first_seen	"2026-04-12T00:00:00.000Z"
first_path	examples/skills/psychology/clinical-foundations/SKILL.md
superseded_by	null

Clinical Foundations

Clinical psychology applies psychological science to the understanding, assessment, and treatment of psychological disorders. This skill covers the major categories of psychopathology, the dominant personality theories that inform clinical conceptualization, and the evidence-based therapeutic approaches used in practice. The organizing framework is the biopsychosocial model: psychological disorders arise from the interaction of biological vulnerabilities, psychological processes, and social-environmental factors.

Agent affinity: rogers (person-centered therapy, humanistic perspective), hooks (intersectionality in mental health), skinner-p (behavioral interventions, reinforcement-based treatment design)

Concept IDs: psych-psychological-disorders, psych-treatment-approaches, psych-learning-theory, psych-behavior-reinforcement

Clinical Domains at a Glance

#	Domain	Core Questions	Key Frameworks
1	Anxiety disorders	What distinguishes normal anxiety from disorder? How do maintenance cycles work?	Cognitive model (Beck), learning theory, neurobiology
2	Depressive disorders	What causes depression? What maintains it?	Beck's cognitive triad, learned helplessness, monoamine hypothesis
3	Personality theories	How do we model stable individual differences?	Big Five, psychodynamic, humanistic, social-cognitive
4	Therapeutic approaches	What works for whom, and how?	CBT, psychodynamic, person-centered, behavioral, pharmacological

Domain 1 -- Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety is a normal adaptive response to threat. It becomes a disorder when it is disproportionate to the actual threat, persistent, and causes significant distress or functional impairment.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Excessive, uncontrollable worry about multiple life domains (health, finances, relationships, minor matters) occurring more days than not for at least six months. Accompanied by restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance. The cognitive model (Borkovec, 1994) proposes that worry is a verbal-linguistic avoidance strategy that suppresses more distressing emotional imagery.

Panic Disorder

Recurrent unexpected panic attacks -- sudden surges of intense fear peaking within minutes, with physical symptoms (pounding heart, shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness, numbness) and cognitive symptoms (fear of dying, fear of losing control). Clark's (1986) cognitive model: catastrophic misinterpretation of bodily sensations ("my heart is pounding, I must be having a heart attack") creates a positive feedback loop that escalates anxiety into panic.