comparative psychopathology: connecting comparative and clinical psychology

This book introduces readers to a more comprehensive and empirically based approach to psychopathology than any other approach in use by psychological professionals today. It incorporates all areas of psychological research, experimental and observation as well as clinical and medical. This approach presents a method that does not entirely replace methods like those in the DSM-5 but improves them.

Comparative psychology, the study of behavior across all species, has a solid place in this approach because it is where behaviors and psychological processes are studied in the most objective and empirically-sound manner. Areas covered throughout this text include not only the history of comparative psychopathology and comparative psychopathology as an approach to understanding psychological disorders, including anxiety and depressive disorders, better but also how comparative psychopathology can help advance psychology’s understanding of terrible social ills, including poverty and violence.

By reading this text, readers will find essential information about how incorporating comparative psychology into understanding psychopathology can make that understanding stronger and how this approach can help psychology make for a truly better and just world.

Terry Maple, Ph.D., is an American behavioral research scientist, wildlife conservationist, Professor Emeritus (Georgia Institute of Technology), and zoo director emeritus. He was Director and later President and CEO of Zoo Atlanta. Dr. Maple has mentored 29 doctoral students at Emory University and Georgia Tech and written over 250 journal articles, chapters, and books on the behavior, conservation, and welfare of animals.

Daniel Marston, Ph.D., ABPP, is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in behavior therapy in the states of Pennsylvania and Ohio in the United States. He has two previous books and several articles published on the intersection of clinical psychology and behavior research. He also teaches statistics and research design in the Doctor of Education program at Liberty University.

Margaret Gopaul, Ph.D., MSCP, is a research scientist and professor holding a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a specialization in neuropsychology, a post-doctorate in clinical psychopharmacology, and neurophysiology training in epilepsy from Yale University and the University of Connecticut (surgical neurophysiology). She is a research faculty at Yale University/School of Medicine (Neurology) and serves as an associate research scientist at the Yale Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Neurology).