An Identity for Counseling Psychology 361funds to the USPHS for an aggressive campaign of research,
training, and service to combat mental illness, and in the
process it created the National Institute of Mental Health
(NIMH). The VA offered significant financial and organiza-
tional support to psychology by supporting the creation of
accredited doctoral training programs in clinical and counsel-
ing psychology (Baker & Benjamin, in press).
The coordination of academic psychology, the APA, the
VA, and the USPHS was swift and best represented by the con-
vening of the Boulder Conference on Graduate Education in
Clinical Psychology in 1949. For 15 days, 73 representatives
of academic and applied psychology, medicine, nursing, and
education debated and discussed the establishment of the pro-
fessional psychologist. For many the most memorable out-
come was the endorsement of the scientist-practitioner model
of training. The conference, though, was about much more. In
very broad terms, it gave national policy makers the assurance
that professional applied psychology was prepared to meet the
mental health needs of the nation (Benjamin & Baker, 2000).
It is important to note that few distinctions were made be-
tween specialty areas in psychology, and if anything the call
was for an inclusive view. According to the report of the
Boulder Conference (Raimy, 1950),
the majority of the conference was clearly in favor of encourag-
ing the broad development of clinical psychology along the lines
that extend the field of practice from the frankly psychotic or
mentally ill to the relatively normal clientele who need informa-
tion, vocational counseling, and remedial work. Specialization in
any of these less clearly defined branches has now become an
open issue that must be faced sooner or later. (pp. 112–113)The conferees went so far as to offer a vote of support for the
recommendation that
the APA and its appropriate division should study the common
and diverse problems and concepts in the fields of clinical psy-
chology and counseling and guidance with a view to immediate
interfield enrichment of knowledge and methods. Consideration
should also be given to the possibility of eventual amalgamation
of these two fields. (p. 148)Obviously such an amalgamation never occurred. The
reorganization of the APA in 1945 brought clear divisions be-
tween those who identified themselves with clinical psychol-
ogy and those who identified with counseling and guidance.
Division 17, first known as the Division of Personnel and
Guidance Psychologists (quickly changed to the Division of
Counseling and Guidance), came into existence with the
reorganization, due in large part to many faculty members
at the University of Minnesota, including Donald Paterson,
E. G. Williamson, and John Darley (Blocher, 2000).
Soon after Boulder, substantial federal dollars went to
supporting the establishment of doctoral training programs
in clinical and counseling psychology at universities across
America. The Boulder vision of the professional psychologist
was most closely associated with clinical psychology, and
clinical training programs would be the first recognized by
the USPHS and VA. Counseling psychologists eager to make
their contribution and get their share of the funding windfall
received support for training conferences of their own with
funds supplied by the USPHS.AN IDENTITY FOR COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGYA conference titled “The Training of Psychological Coun-
selors” was held at the University of Michigan in July 1948,
and again in January of 1949. Under the direction of
Michigan faculty member and counseling center director
Edward Bordin, the participants sought to provide a training
model that would address the unique contributions that
counseling and guidance could make to a national program
of mental health. The proposals offered at the Michigan
meeting were passed along to Division 17, which along with
the APA sponsored the Northwestern Conference in 1951. In
an effort to produce a formal statement on the training of
counseling psychologists, the participants at Northwestern
University reviewed the recommendations of the Ann Arbor
group and the Boulder Conference. Upon deliberation, they
upheld the primacy of the PhD degree and advocated train-
ing in the fashion of the scientist-practitioner. In addition,
they identified those aspects of counseling and guidance that
made it unique. It was decided to change the name of the
division from “counseling and guidance” to “counseling
psychology,” a move no doubt in concert with a desire to
have the division look more similar to clinical psychology
than educational guidance. In addressing the roles and func-
tions of the counseling psychologist, the report (APA, 1952)
stated:The professional goal of the counseling psychologist is to foster
the psychological development of the individual. This includes
all people on the adjustment continuum from those who function
at tolerable levels of adequacy to those suffering from more se-
vere psychological disturbances. Counseling psychologists will
spend the bulk of their time with individuals within the normal
range, but their training should qualify them to work in some
degree with individuals at any level of psychological adjustment.
Counseling stresses the positive and the preventative. It focuses
upon the stimulation of personal development in order to
maximize personal and social effectiveness and to forestall psy-
chologically crippling disabilities. (p. 175)