A Psychologist and a Software Developer

Abstract

Psychologists have a diverse set of skills, including communication, research, interpersonal perception, diagnosis, psychotherapy, and consultation. An emerging skill for psychologists is software development. This chapter describes how I have used software development in my professional work as a psychologist. My development work has ranged from a tutorial system to teach Rorschach scoring methods, an ethics case-study simulator, mobile applications to help psychotherapists evaluate psychotherapy outcome and alliance, psychometrics-based consulting work with independent colleges, and a competency assessment system to help doctoral programs monitor the effectiveness of their training. Though the initial challenges of learning a computer language may seem daunting, a number of online resources are helpful for psychologists desiring to learn software development.

Throughout this chapter, I describe the Therapy Outcome Management System (TOMS), an iOS app that allows psychotherapists to monitor outcome and working alliance on a session-by-session basis. Not only is the TOMS useful for clinicians and their patients; it also allows for large-scale data collection from a worldwide sample.

Computers themselves, and software yet to be developed, will revolutionize the way we learn.(Steve Jobs)