National Psychological Associations 547worked to increase the number of American Indian psycholo-
gists in North America. One notable success was the Indians
into Psychology Doctoral Education (INDPSYDE) started by
Arthur L. McDonald (b. 1934) in the mid-1980s. By the end
of the twentieth century, INDPSYDE programs were operat-
ing at several colleges and universities in the West and there
had been a noticeable gain in the number of American Indian
psychologists. SIP members also worked with the APA and
other ethnic minority psychology groups to support the de-
velopment of rural minority mental health programs. In 1986,
Logan Wright (1933–1999) was the first person of American
Indian heritage to be elected APA president.
The National Hispanic Psychological Association grew
out of an earlier organization of Hispanic psychologists, the
Association of Psychologists Por La Raza (APLR), which
was founded in Miami in 1970 during the APA convention
(Bernal, 1994). The founding group was very small, but that
number grew to around 40 as a result of an APLR symposium
on Hispanic psychology at the 1971 APA convention. Over
the next several years, Hispanic psychologists developed a
professional network through NIMH-sponsored conferences
and involvement with the APA’s Board of Ethnic Minority
Affairs. In 1979, the National Hispanic Psychological Asso-
ciation was formed and the first issue of the Hispanic Journal
of Behavioral Sciencewas published.
In general, all of the ethnic minority psychological associ-
ations were involved in prompting the NIMH to become
more involved with the support of training of ethnic minority
psychologists. The APA, while it initially needed to be prod-
ded by ethnic and minority psychologists, became a positive
force for promoting and supporting the diversification of psy-
chology. In 1979, the APA opened its Office of Ethnic Minor-
ity Affairs and remained a major collaborator with ethnic and
minority psychological associations.
A direct descendant of the National Council of Women
Psychologists (see above) was the Association for Women in
Psychology. The NCWP, after it changed its name to the
International Council of Psychologists, lost its main thrust of
advancing the cause of women psychologists. That charge
was taken up in the more radical and restive late 1960s by a
number of women APA members (Tiefer, 1991). The Associ-
ation for Women Psychologists (AWP) was founded by ap-
proximately 35 women and men at the 1969 APA convention.
In 1970, the group changed its name to the Association for
Women in Psychology. Many of the original members were
convinced that the APA was insensitive to the needs of
women psychologists and supported discriminatory, sexist
practices in both academic and professional psychology
(Tiefer, 1991). For the first years of its existence, the AWP
lobbied for change within the APA. Issues that were most
salient for the AWP in these years included abortion rights,
ending sexist hiring and promotion practices in acade-
mia, and adequate child care at the APA convention. One
participant-historian characterized the first years of the
AWP–APA relationship as a time of “the public airing of
women’s grievances with the APA and the profession of psy-
chology” (Tiefer, 1991, p. 637).
The AWP had immediate success in attracting many
women psychologists and a few male psychologists as mem-
bers. Thirty-five women and men formed the first membership
cohort; membership in the AWP grew to over 1,700 by the
year 2000. For many years, the AWP avoided a hierarchical
organizational power structure. All issues were open for dis-
cussion by any member during the annual meetings. The asso-
ciation was committed to feminist process and sought to be
participatory-democratic in its governance. This led to
lengthy business meetings but little activity between meet-
ings. Like other organizations of its time, tensions existed
over whether the organization should seek efficiency or
democracy as its main governing principle. A compromise
was reached in 1979 when the leadership structure was
changed to governance by the Implementation Collective.
This was a small number of AWP members who volunteered
to serve in specific roles in order to facilitate specific AWP ini-
tiatives. The collective set policy, financial guidelines,
and guidelines for forming committees to carry out various
projects. Much of the work of the AWP was carried out by
members who served on committees, most of which were gen-
erated by members themselves and not by the leadership.
The AWP worked on such salient issues as the passage of
the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), abortion rights, and the
removal of antiwoman diagnostic categories in the various
revisions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders. Members also developed guidelines for feminist
therapy and worked to reduce racism and promote multicul-
tural perspectives (Tiefer, 1991).
One major outcome of the activities of the AWP in its
early years was the formation of the APA Task Force on the
Status of Women in Psychology. The task force worked for
two years, and its report recommended that the APA act to re-
dress the inequities women faced in organized psychology. A
specific recommendation was the formation of a division to
represent the interests of women in psychology (APA, Task
Force on the Status of Women in Psychology, 1973).
Despite some resistance from the APA Council of Repre-
sentatives, some of whose members suggested that a division
for women’s issues would only ghettoize and segregate
women psychologists, the petition for a women’s division
was approved. Division 35 was approved in 1973, and its
charter called for it to work to advance the cause of women in