The meaning of clinical psychology.

Abstract

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, currently conceived, is at best only one of several divisions of applied psychology and, as such, overlaps upon occasion in content and technique with its elder siblings. But quite like all other subdivisions of applied psychological knowledge, it has for its foundation the scientific methods of experimental and statistical analysis inherited from its laboratory forebears. This neophyte in the family of professions-and some (10) offer 1917 as the date of its inception by virtue of the founding of the first professional organization for the study of clinical problemshas a goal which at this stage we shall only contingently define, namely, the bringing of the mentally abnormal back to mental health. It is necessary here to distinguish this goal from tnat of the mental hygiene movement which grades into religious or philosophical orientations, and, on the other flank, from education which aims to lead people to make optimal use of their potentialities for the benefit of themselves and of society. The clinician is to be found in all those areas of human endeavor-mental hospitals, child guidance clinics, industrial plants, community welfare agencies, prisons, courts, and the schools, to mention only a few-where problems of adjustment and human failure arise.