Summary 363In response, the division set about regrouping and taking
stock. The result was the convening of the Greyston Confer-
ence. Named for the Greyston Mansion, a gift to Teachers
College, Columbia University, the meeting was held over a
3-day period in January 1964. In an interview (Baker, 2001),
one of the organizers and authors of the conference report,
Albert S. Thompson, describes the nature and significance
of the meeting:
We wanted a group that would be representative of counseling
psychologists. There were 60 and it certainly was an interesting
group. When you think of it, they were a terrific group, 10 were
previous presidents of Division 17 and 11 of them later became
presidents. The conference was well organized and Don Super
really gets the most credit for that. At the end of the conference
we came up with 32 recommendations. Some were for Division
17, some for APA, some for universities, some for practicum and
internship settings, and some for employers. Most were designed
to be practical. I would like to go record to say that the recom-
mendations did stimulate further developments such as American
Board of Examiners of Professional Psychologists (ABEPP) cer-
tification, a brochure put out by Division 17 on what counseling
psychology is, and criteria for internship. There was general
agreement that counseling psychology had a special substance
and emphasis in training, which were not necessarily included in
the current preparation. (p. 318)Greyston if nothing else helped to unite counseling psy-
chologists in a spirit of shared mission. After Greyston, there
was less talk about disbanding and more talk of identity.
The brochure that Thompson referred to appeared in 1968
(Jordaan, Myers, Layton, & Morgan, 1968). The document,
affirming the tenets of the Northwestern Conference, de-
fined the counseling psychologist in terms of three central
roles: the remedial/rehabilitative, the preventative, and the
educational/developmental.
Moving Ahead
However, it was not that simple. The expansion of private
practice, a decline in federal support of training and research,
and retrenchment in academia contributed to continued self-
doubt and a lingering unease about the future and direction of
counseling psychology. Whiteley and Fretz (1980) invited a
distinguished cohort to comment on the future of counseling
psychology, and the forecast was gloomy. Counseling psy-
chology’s lack of a clear identification with a particular role,
function, or setting made it difficult for many of the contri-
butors to see a future that made any sense. But in spite of
decades of an entrenched identity crisis, the division has
grown. There are over 2,500 members (APA, 2001), 67 active
APA-accredited doctoral programs (APA, 2000), and two
major journals (The Journal of Counseling Psychologyand
The Counseling Psychologist). Counseling psychologists are
found in higher education, industry, government, and health
care (private and nonprofit). As an organization, counseling
psychology has a unified existence within Division 17, which
provides a forum for debate, sets policy through coordinated
meetings and conferences, reorganizes itself to the demands
of the times, and recognizes its members through a variety of
awards and honors (Blocher, 2000; Meara & Myers, 1999).
Since its inception, the division has worked on the issue of
identity, the most recent definition of counseling psychology
appearing in 1998 (APA, 1999):Counseling psychology is a general practice and health service-
provider specialty in professional psychology. It focuses upon
personal and interpersonal functioning across the life span and
on emotional, social, vocational, educational, health-related, de-
velopmental and organizational concerns. Counseling psychol-
ogy centers on typical or normal developmental issues as well as
atypical or disordered development as it applies to human expe-
rience from individual, family, group, systems, and organiza-
tional perspectives. Counseling psychologists help people with
physical, emotional and mental disorders improve well being,
alleviate distress and maladjustment, and resolve crises. In addi-
tion, practitioners in the professional specialty provide assess-
ment, diagnosis and treatment of psychopathology. (p. 589)SUMMARYPerhaps it is most important to know that counseling psy-
chology does have a history, one that is embedded in the
American experience of the twentieth century that stressed
the triumph of turning raw materials into finished products
with precision and efficiency. The application of this to the
human experience, while a desired goal, was a messier
proposition.
The genesis of counseling psychology can be found in the
vocational guidance movement, a Progressive Era develop-
ment that sought to add a humane element to the science of
efficiency. Its adherents and practitioners saw in the progres-
sive ideal a chance for a better and more satisfying life for all
people of all ages.
Embracing the applied study of individual difference,
these prototypes of the professional psychologist found their
calling in the theory and practice of measurement of human
abilities, aptitudes, and interests. Their work had applications
in all corners of society, especially in those areas concerned
with education and rehabilitation. Over time, these coalesced
into an identify as a health service profession, aligned with a