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Function and Training of the Clinical Psychologist^*

Psychological Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Maudsley Hospital

^* This article owes much to the opportunities which the writer has had during a six months' visiting professorship at the University of Pennsylvania of investigating the growth and development of clinical psychology in the United States. Thanks are due to the authorities of the university, particularly Professor R. A. Brotemarkle, for their kindness in permitting the writer to travel widely during term time. The writer thus had an opportunity of inspecting mental hospitals, V.A. clinics and university departments engaged in the training of clinical psychologists in places as widely different as San Francisco and St. Louis, Los Angeles and Durham, Chicago and Philadelphia, New York and Washington. Thanks are also due to the many individuals, whether connected with the V.A. programme or in some other way concerned with the training of clinical psychologists, who discussed their problems, plans, and views with the writer, and who answered patiently many queries and objections which must have betrayed a good deal of ignorance, as well as a certain amount of prejudice. However critical one may be of certain details in current practice, it is impossible not to be impressed by the sincerity of those who are trying to transform clinical psychology into a genuine profession, and with the considerable success which has attended their efforts so far. If the writer is still convinced that the pattern of training currently followed at the Institute of Psychiatry (Maudsley Hospital, has certain advantages over the American system, this belief is now predicated on a much better realization of the very real differences which exist between the two countries with respect to many variables which affect the aims and purposes of such a training course.

ABSTRACT

Summary and Conclusions: This paper has described the present position of clinical psychology—firmly established and flourishing in the United States, just emerging and in need of careful nurturance in this country. A number of problems relating to the function and the training of clinical psychologists have been discussed, and the following main conclusions arrived at:

1. It appears desirable from many points of view, not least among which must be counted the future progress and present efficacy of psychiatry, that a strong and competent profession of clinical psychologists be called into existence, to co-operate with psychiatrists and social workers in teams devoted to the investigation and therapy of different types of mental disorder in adults and children.
   
2. A lengthy and well-balanced post-graduate training appears essential in order to guarantee such professional competence as is required to make clinical psychologists as acceptable in their own field as medical practitioners are in theirs ; such post-graduate professional training should concentrate on diagnostic testing and research design, but should not include therapy in the sense of "a prolonged systematic attempt by means of psychological treatment to produce a fundamental reorientation of the patient's outlook and behaviour."
   
3. Because of their complementary functions and because of the inability of the general public to differentiate between them, psychiatrists and psychologists have everything to gain, and nothing to lose, by the closest possible integration of knowledge, experience and working methods; the closer this integration, the more likely is the ultimate emergence of that unified body of knowledge which alone will be worthy of being called a science of psychology, and of that agreed body of principles of pathology, prognosis and treatment which alone will be worthy of being called the applied science of psychiatry.
   

Received for publication April 14, 1950.