346 Clinical Psychology
Clinical Psychology (Shakow, 1965). This committee rec-
ommended that courses for clinicians should include psy-
chotherapy and psychodynamics, with coursework in related
areas—for example, anthropology, medicine, and sociology—
germane to the particular student. These recommendations ap-
peared to extend the duration of graduate education beyond
the bounds of what was seemly, so in 1949 the APA held a con-
ference in Boulder, Colorado, to discuss training policies in
clinical psychology.
The Boulder Conference had 73 attendees, most of whom
were intimately involved in the graduate education of clini-
cians. It was the first national meeting to consider standards
for their doctoral training. Basically, the conference decided
to endorse a solid grounding in science and practice, and this
scientist-practitioner role for the clinical psychologist came
to be called the Boulder model. (It reflected David Shakow’s
own background, which included a lengthy research-clinical
apprenticeship at Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts,
a personal psychoanalysis undertaken in part to prepare for
research in that area, and a career dedicated largely to studies
of motor performance and attentional deficits in schizophre-
nia, both before and after he became chief psychologist at
NIMH.) Despite its endorsement of the scientist-practitioner
model, the Boulder Conference also urged graduate schools
to be flexible and innovative in their training (Benjamin &
Baker, 2000; Raimy, 1950). Of most significance was that
psychotherapy or treatment became an essential component
in the training of the clinical psychologist.
Since it is rare to find unanimity about anything, not all
clinicians welcomed this change in their profession. Hans
Eysenck (1949), for one, spoke against it. He gave three rea-
sons why it would be better for clinicians not to become ther-
apists: Treatment is a medical problem; training in therapy
reduces the time available for training in research and diagno-
sis; and becoming a psychotherapist biases the clinician from
studying its effectiveness objectively. His comments, how-
ever, had little immediate impact, and most students of clini-
cal psychology saw the learning of psychotherapy as the sine
qua non of their graduate education.
While there was concern about standards and models,
there was explosive growth in the profession. From a handful
of universities offering graduate training in clinical psychol-
ogy before the war, the number grew to 22 by 1947, 42 by
- Each of these programs reported it had far more appli-
cants than it could accommodate. This interest in clinical
psychology was spurred by a growing interest in psychologi-
cal matters in the culture through movies, literature, news-
paper accounts, art, self-help books, and so on. At the same
time, clinical psychologists were beginning a national drive
for legal recognition and protection of their field.
Within the states, legislators were being asked to enact
licensing and certification laws for psychologists. A certifica-
tion law restricts the use of the title “psychologist” by speci-
fying the criteria that must be met by those who wish to use
it. A licensing law restricts the performance of certain activi-
ties to members of a specific profession. Because some of the
activities of clinicians overlap with some of the activities of
other professions, the APA favored certification over licens-
ing legislation. The first state to enact a certification law for
psychologists was Connecticut in 1945; it restricted the title
of psychologist to those who had a PhD and a year of profes-
sional experience. In 1946, Virginia enacted a certification
law for clinical psychologists that required the PhD and
5 years of professional experience.
The passage of this legislation often encountered stiff re-
sistance from the medical profession. Many psychiatrists,
such as William Menninger, respected clinical psychologists
and felt they had a major contribution to give to the psychi-
atric team through their diagnostic testing and research. Ac-
cording to this view, clinical psychologists could even do
psychotherapy under medical supervision, but they should be
barred from the private practice of treatment because they
lacked the keen sense of responsibility felt by physicians for
their patients (Menninger, 1950).
Recognizing that certification or licensure by the states
would be a difficult, lengthy process, it was decided in 1946
to establish a kind of certification by the profession, and thus
was created the American Board of Examiners in Profes-
sional Psychology (ABEPP). The board consisted of nine
APA fellows who served 3-year terms, set and administered
standards for professional competence, and awarded diplo-
mas that signified professional recognition of the quali-
fications of the applicant. At its inception, these standards
required the applicant to have: a doctorate in psychology;
APA membership; satisfactory moral, ethical, and profes-
sional standing; 5 years of professional experience; and pass-
ing scores on written and oral evaluations that included
samples of the applicant’s diagnostic and therapeutic skills.
In 1949, the first ABEPP written examinations were held.
(Subsequently, in 1968, this group became the American
Board of Professional Psychology, or ABPP).
By 1949, it was generally accepted that the roles of the
clinical psychologist were psychotherapy, diagnosis, and re-
search. Since the VA had been involved in so much of the
training of clinicians and was a major employer, clinical psy-
chology had gone from being largely a provider of services to
children to being largely a provider of services to adults, of
whom the majority were males. The membership of the APA
had increased to 6,735, and there were 1,047 in the clinical
division alone. About 149 graduate departments offered some