psychology_Sons_(2003)

27

Clinical Psychology 35

Counseling Psychology 37

Industrial Psychology 38

School Psychology 38

A “PROFESSIONAL” JOURNAL WITHIN APA 39

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING INITIATIVES 40

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT 40

TWO ASSOCIATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS 41

The APA Congressional Science Fellowship Program 41

APAGS 41

THE PRESCRIPTIVE AUTHORITY (RXP-) AGENDA 41

THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 43

REFERENCES 43

There was a profession of psychology long before there was
a science of psychology and even before the term “psycholo-
gist” came into public use. In early nineteenth-century
America (as in centuries before throughout the world), there
were practitioners who counseled people about their mar-
riages, advised individuals about possible careers, aided par-
ents in the rearing of their children, advised companies about
employee selection, and offered to cure a host of psychologi-
cal illnesses through myriad treatments. These practitioners
worked under various labels, including phrenologist, charac-
terologist, spiritualist, graphologist, mental healer, physiogn-
omist, mind reader, and psychologist.
To “get your head examined” was big business in
nineteenth-century America. Phrenologists, often using a
system marketed by brothers Lorenzo and Orson Fowler,
measured skull shapes. Phrenology clinics worked with busi-
nesses for employee selection, with schools for hiring of
teachers, with lawyers for evaluating clients, and with indi-
viduals for vocational counseling and advice on marital part-
ners. Thus, there were individuals practicing in most of the
venues in which psychologists practice today and offering
many of the services that are provided today by clinical,

counseling, school, and industrial-organizational psycholo-

gists. However, whether such individuals were “psycholo-

gists,” and whether they represented a “profession” at that

point, are different matters.

WHAT DEFINES A PROFESSION?

Originally, there were three professions: law, medicine, and

the clergy. These fields of endeavor were distinct from

“trades” in that they required highly specialized areas of edu-

cation, created their own languages—generally not under-

stood by the populace at large—and developed their own sets

of practices, ethics, and so forth. As opposed to science,

which traditionally published its newfound knowledge, pro-

fessions kept their knowledge to themselves. For example,

the priests of the Mayans knew by their sophisticated astron-

omy when the eclipses of the sun and moon would be and

used their predictive powers to ensure that citizens paid their

appropriate taxes.

In time the word professionwas not used exclusively for

the three original fields but for any career requiring higher

CHAPTER 2

Psychology as a Profession

LUDY T. BENJAMIN JR., PATRICK H. DELEON, DONALD K. FREEDHEIM, AND GARY R. VANDENBOS

WHAT DEFINES A PROFESSION? 27
PIONEERING APPLICATIONS OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 28
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NEW PROFESSION
OF PSYCHOLOGY 29
The Business Psychologist 29
The Counseling Psychologist 30
The School Psychologist 31
The Clinical Psychologist 32
WORLD WAR I AND THE GROWTH OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL PRACTICE 33
THE 1920s: THE DECADE OF
POPULAR PSYCHOLOGY 34
STRUGGLES FOR PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY 34
POSTWAR GROWTH OF THE PRACTICE
OF PSYCHOLOGY 35