History of the Field

It is difficult—if not impossible—to trace the beginning of the field of clinical psychology to one person or exact time frame.

Trull and Prinstein (2013) follow the lead of other researchers, who felt it was most useful to suggest that the roots of clinical psychology lie within the reform movement of the 19th century. It was during this time that the plight of the mentally ill patient came to the forefront, and humanitarian efforts began for the proper and humane treatment of these patients.

Prior to that time, mentally ill persons were stigmatized and mistreated. In the Western Hemisphere, many believed that they were possessed by demons or deserved their illness due to flaws in their character (Pomerantz, 2024).

The textbook gives a broad overview of the field in several core areas:

• Diagnosis and Assessment

  • Categorizing mental illness has been at the heart of the field of Clinical Psychology since the earliest inception of the field.  The field has evolved significantly; the earliest "diagnoses" included only two:  Neurosis and Psychosis.  The current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) is over a1000 pages long!

• Intelligence Testing

  • Early psychological pioneers debated over over the nature of intelligence and how to measure it.  Intelligence testing emerged within the field, starting with the work of Alfred Binet in the early 1900s and his well known mathmatical algorithm used to determine IQ.

• Personality Assessment

  • Early attempts to understand the core elements of humanity led to the development of tests thought to tap into many aspects of personality.  Early tests sought to bypass psychological defenses and were known as "projective" tests. The most famous of these is the Rorschach (often referred to as the inkblot test).  Later tests were questionnaires that are collectively called "objective" personality tests.  Objective personality tests are typically more straightforward in their scoring and interpretation.

• Psychotherapy

  • The practice of psychotherapy lies at the heart of the field of Clinical Psychology.  Although most early psychologists were academic, by the middle of the 20th century, psychotherapy took on prominence within the field.  The primary therapeutic models that we will discuss in this course include Psychodynamic, Humanistic, Family Therapy, Group Therapy, and the Cognitive-Behavioral Approach.

• Development of the Profession

  • The lesson provides an interactive timeline to accompany the text in order to give an overview of the field's history. Highlights from the areas we are studying (diagnosis and assessment, interventions, and the profession) will be part of the timeline and should be studied in order to take the quiz at the end of the lesson.