How to create an elaborate Case Study in Psychology

A case study in psychology is mainly used for research purposes and for reference for future cases that other psychologists might see. It is an in depth study on an individual person. In order to make a successful case study, one must be detailed and make the study elaborate. The idea is to make the study detailed, non generalizing and used to analyze patterns and help psychologists who might be studying a similar case.

Decide on the case

There are a few types of psychology case studies that can be used when formatting your case study.

There are explanatory studies which are more casual and less elaborate than others.

There are exploratory studies that are more elaborate than explanatory and can be a good prologue to future studies and cases and research. They give researchers leads to gather more information and compare to the case study.

There are descriptive cases, intrinsic, collective and instrumental which are all more elaborate case study formats and involve more research and investigation.

You must also decide if you are going to look back on a previous case and history or if you are looking at a new problem with new observations.

Research thoroughly

Research makes all the difference in how elaborate a case study is. Due observational research and hands on looks at the problems and study at hand. Doing interviews of the individuals gives the readers more insight into the issue being studied and also keeps the readers attention more easily. It brings humanity to the study and helps psychology researchers and practitioners understand the subject and their thought process better. Make sure your research can be backed up with facts and that it is not completely biased writing or overly generalized. This will make your study seem more credible.

In Conclusion

A case study in psychology has a lot of purposes. Research is important in the field of psychology as is understanding the thought process behind an individual. In order to create an elaborate case study, a researcher must first create a format that allows for the most detail possible and must research in every possible way, through hands on interview and observation and through past history and other research. An elaborate psychological research not only states the facts, but also gives the reader insight into the individual and keeps the reader's attention.