Describe the benefits and drawbacks of the use of case studies in research on psychopathology

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Answer: (1) Benefits: rich clinical descriptions (symptoms displayed, manner in which symptoms emerged, developmental and family history, response to any treatment efforts), especially important if the disorder is rare (e.g., multiple personality disorder and transsexualism); can be used to generate hypotheses; associated details can give clues about the nature of mental illness. (2) Drawbacks: can be viewed from many different perspectives and competing explanations may be equally plausible; risky to draw general conclusions from a single case.

Psychology

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Psychology

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Psychology