548 Professional Organizations
psychology and to develop knowledge about women’s psy-
chological lives. Although Division 35 was born from the
tense relationship between the AWP and the APA, it was from
the first independent of the AWP. The division developed an
organizational structure that had little overlap with the AWP
(Mednick & Urbanski, 1991; Russo & Dumont, 1997). In its
first year of existence, Division 35 voted to develop a journal
to serve as the primary publication of research in the field of
feminist psychology. The division’s journal, Psychology of
Women Quarterly,began publication in 1976.
Division 35 started with over 800 members and grew
rapidly, becoming one of the largest divisions within the APA
with more than 6,000 members by the year 2000. The growth
of the division reflected the changing gender composition of
American psychology. For example, in 1971, women earned
24% of all psychology doctorates compared to 66% in 1991
(Kohout, 2001). Between 1977 and 2000, the percentage of
women APA members increased from 26.7% to 49.0%, and
the high percentage of women in graduate programs suggests
that this percentage will continue to grow.
Accreditation and Credentialing Organizations
In the United States, the growth of psychology as a mental
health profession after World War II created the need for or-
ganizations or structures to regulate and credential psycholo-
gists engaged in the practice of professional psychology. The
licensing of psychologists became a state matter and will not
be discussed here.
With the rise of professional psychology after the Second
World War, a number of organizations developed to facilitate
graduate training in professional psychology and to certify
excellence of professional skills. These included the APA, the
American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP), the As-
sociation of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers
(APPIC), the National Register of Health Service Providers
in Psychology (NR), the Association of State and Provincial
Psychology Boards (ASPPB), and the Veterans Administra-
tion (VA) (Laughlin & Worley, 1991).
The APA accepted the mandate proposed by the VA and
the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) immedi-
ately after the World War II to develop an accreditation
process to identify those universities that were qualified to
train clinical psychologists (Capshew, 1999, Pickren &
Dewsbury, 2002; Sheridan, Matarrazo, & Nelson, 1995).
Twenty-two universities formed the first cohort of accredited
graduate clinical training programs in 1947. That number ex-
ceeded 700 by the year 2000. The scientist-practitioner train-
ing model adopted by APA and accepted by the VA and
USPHS was based on the work of David Shakow, which was
formalized at the Boulder Conference in 1949 (Raimy, 1950).
The issue of accreditation philosophy and guidelines was re-
visited over the years at a number of conferences. The 1954
Thayer Conference on School Psychology addressed the de-
sirability of accrediting school psychologist training pro-
grams. The 1973 Vail Conference on Levels and Patterns of
Professional Training laid the groundwork for the accredita-
tion of schools of professional psychology offering the doctor
of psychology degree. By the end of the century, APA
accreditation was the standard for all doctoral-level training
in the practice of psychology, including the predoctoral
internship.
Problems with the predoctoral internship led to the estab-
lishment of the Association of Psychology Internship Centers
in 1968 (Fox, 1990). The name was later changed to the As-
sociation of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers
(APPIC). The major issue that the APPIC addressed initially
was matching intern candidates with appropriate training
sites. The APPIC established a uniform notification date, the
second Monday in February. In the early 1970s, the APPIC
began publishing its internship directory. The directory
proved to be one of the most valuable contributions made by
the association. APPIC is not an accrediting agency. Rather, it
works to facilitate high-quality pre- and postdoctoral intern-
ship training.
The American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP)
was established in 1947 as the American Board of Examiners
in Professional Psychology. The APA realized that it could
not serve as the credentialing body for individual psycholo-
gists. Yet, in order to certify proficiency in psychological
practice and to protect the public from charlatans, an inde-
pendent credentialing body was needed. The ABPP was
funded through the 1950s by the APA and through the collec-
tion of examination fees.
The ABPP established the diplomate status as the level
of certified proficiency in a psychological specialty and
left the establishment and recognition of basic competence
to the universities and eventually to the state licensing
boards. Thus, the diplomate in professional psychology was
established as a higher level of professional excellence. Three
original specialties were recognized: clinical, personnel-
industrial (later industrial-organizational), and personnel-
educational (later counseling). School psychology was
added in 1968. The ABPP acknowledged that there were
many psychologists who had developed professional compe-
tence prior to its establishment. Over 1,000 of these profes-
sional psychologists, most of them clinicians and about half
of them women, were grandparented in as the first to receive
diplomate status (see the 1949 APA Directory for a complete
listing).