The description of Penn's clinic in the last volume of The Psychological Clinic, 1935

The last edition of The Psychological Clinic appeared as vol. 23, in 1935. It consisted entirely of the "Report of committee of Clinical Section of American Psychological Association" (sic), which had two parts: "The definition of clinical psychology and standards of training for clinical psychologists"; and "Guide to psychological clinics in the United States."

The main conclusions of the first part were that there should be two levels of psychologist. A "psychologist" proper should have a doctorate in psychology, "shall have mastered the general technique of experimental and research methods, and shall be qualified to conduct and direct research independently," "shall be familiar with modern educational philosophy and methods, and shall have general knowledge in the fields of the biological and social sciences," "shall have gained at least one year's experience under clinical conditions where he shall have had adequate supervision, and shall be acquainted with a variety of clinical cases," and "shall have knowledge of court procedures in the commitment of cases."

An "assistant psychologist" should have a master's degree in psychology and one year's experience with supervision.

The second part of the report was based on a questionnaire sent to every known clinic, 150 of which were returned. (Apparently this was almost all clinics.) The following pages are the summary of the response from the University of Pennsylvania,


first page

second page

third page


Jonathan Baron
Last modified: Sun Feb 23 11:49:55 EST 2003