Shreya and Ritika

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
BY RITIKA SEN AND SHERYA
Definition of clinical psychology
 Clinical psychology is a subfield of psychology that focuses on assessing, diagnosing, and
treating mental and emotional disorders, as well as promoting psychological well-being and
resilience in individuals. It encompasses a wide range of activities aimed at understanding,
preventing, and alleviating psychological distress and dysfunction.
 APA -Clinical psychology is the psychological specialty that provides continuing and
comprehensive mental and behavioral health care for individuals, couples, families, and groups;
consultation to agencies and communities; training, education and supervision; and research-
based practice. It is a specialty in breadth — one that addresses a wide range of mental and
behavioral health problems— and marked by comprehensiveness and integration of knowledge
and skill from a broad array of disciplines within and outside of psychology proper. The scope
of clinical psychology encompasses all ages, multiple diversities, and varied systems.
Historical Developmental
 Although research in psychology is often dated to the opening of the first psychological laboratory by Wilhelm
Wundt in 1879, attempts to create methods for assessing and treating mental distress existed long before.
 The earliest recorded approaches were a combination of religious, magical, and/or medical
perspectives
 In the early 19th century, one could have his or her head examined, literally, using phrenology, the
study of personality by the shape of the skull.
 While the scientific community eventually rejected these methods, academic psychologists also were
not concerned with serious forms of mental illness.
 That area was already being addressed by the then-developing fields of psychiatry and neurology
within the asylum movement.
 It was not until the end of the 19th century, around the time when Sigmund Freud was first
developing the recent idea of a "talking cure" in Vienna, that the first clinical applications of
psychology began
Early clinical psychology
 By the second half of the 1800s, the scientific study of psychology was becoming well-established in university
 laboratories.
 Although there were a few scattered voices calling for an applied psychology, the general field looked down upon this idea
and insisted on "pure" science as the only respectable practice.
 This changed when Lightner Witmer (1867–1956), a past student of Wundt and head of the psychology department at the
University of Pennsylvania, agreed to treat a young boy who had trouble with spelling.
 His successful treatment was soon to lead to Witmer's opening of the first psychological clinic at Penn in 1896, dedicated to
helping children with learning disabilities.
 Ten years later in 1907, Witmer was to found the first journal of this new field, The Psychological Clinic, where he coined the
term "clinical psychology," which he defined as "the study of individuals, by observation or experimentation, with the
intention of promoting change."
 The field was slow to follow Witmer's example, but by 1914, there were 26 similar clinics in the US.
 Even as clinical psychology was growing, working with issues of serious mental distress remained the domain of psychiatrists
and neurologists.
 However, clinical psychologists continued to make inroads into this area due to their increasing skill at psychological
assessment.
 Psychologists' reputation as assessment experts grew during World War I with the development of two intelligence tests,
Army Alpha and Army Beta (testing verbal and nonverbal skills, respectively), which could be used to screen large groups of
military recruits.
 Due in large part to the success of these tests, assessment became the core function of clinical psychology for the next quarter
century, when another war would propel the field into treatment.
World War II and the integration of treatment
 The US army conducts a psychological test developed by clinical psychologists for selection purposes.
The image is card IV of the Rorschach inkblot test.
 When World War II broke out, the military once again called upon clinical psychologists.
 As soldiers began to return from combat, psychologists started to notice symptoms of psychological
trauma labeled "shell shock" (eventually to be termed posttraumatic stress disorder) that were best treated
as soon as possible Because physicians (including psychiatrists) were over-extended in treating bodily
injuries, psychologists were called to help treat this condition.
 At the same time, female psychologists (who were excluded from the war effort) formed the National
Council of Women Psychologists with the purpose of helping communities deal with the stresses of war
and giving young mothers advice on child rearing After the war, the Veterans Administration in the US
made an enormous investment to set up programs to train doctoral-level clinical psychologists to help
treat the thousands of veterans needing care.
 As a consequence, the US went from having no formal university programs in clinical psychology in
1946 to over half of all Ph.D.'s in psychology in 1950 being awarded in clinical psychology
 WWII helped bring dramatic changes to clinical psychology, not just in America but internationally as
well.
 Graduate education in psychology began adding psychotherapy to the science and research focus based
on the 1947 scientist–practitioner model, known today as the Boulder Model, for Ph.D. programs in
clinical psychology.
 The Boulder Conference:
 In 1949, the historic Boulder conference took place, at which training directors from around the
country agreed that both practice and research were essential facets of PhD clinical psychology
training. It was decided with the following principles that a clinical psychologist should be both a
scientist and practitioner thus following
 The scientist-practitioner model:
• I. Clinical psychologists were to be trained at university psychology departments.
• II. They were to be trained as scientists first and clinicians second.
• III. They should be required to complete a one-year internship of full-time clinical work.
• IV. They should be trained in diagnosis, research, and therapy.
• V. They should be required to complete original research making a contribution to the field and
culminating in the PhD.
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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

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