The role of psychology department clinics in the development of the discipline of clinical psychology is discussed, and an ideological and structural framework for enabling such clinics to facilitate the integration of research and practice is provided. The University of Massachusetts Psychological Services Center is described as an example of a clinic operating within this framework. Several examples of clinical scholarship that have evolved in this setting are offered. Some of the key characteristics of a training clinic subscribing to the objective of training clinical psychologists with scientist-professional ideals and capabilities are reviewed.During the past several decades, there have been important changes in the training of clinical psychologists. Central to this training has been the departmental clinic, where most psychology trainees receive their initial clinical experience. As the field of clinical psychology has faced changes and challenges, so have these departmentally administered clinics. Our purpose is to provide an ideological and structural framework for psychology department training clinics that will enable them to be more responsive to the demands of a growing field and changing society. We examine the ways in which this ideological and structural perspective has been brought to bear on a clinic that has been in operation for 23 years. On the basis of this examination, we consider ways of strengthening the potential for this and other clinics to provide experiences that foster the integration of scientific and professional concerns.
The Department Clinic and the Boulder ModelIn 1896 Witmer launched the profession of clinical psychology from his newly founded psychological clinic at the University of Pennsylvania (Brotemarkle, 1947). He had been educated in the experimental tradition, but he believed that by attempting to mitigate everyday human problems, psychologists could also advance the scientific objectives of their HAROLD JARMON is professor of psychology and founder and Director of the Psychological Services Center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He teaches courses in psychoanalytic theory and practice and supervises psychotherapy trainees and psychotherapy supervisors in the center. RICHARD P. HALGIN is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he serves as Associate Director of the Psychological Services Center. His scholarly work focuses on clinical training, integration of different therapeutic models, and attitudes toward obtaining professional psychological help. THE AUTHORS THANK Harold Raush for his help with the manuscript.
