Date of Award

Summer 8-1-1988

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Michael Murphy

Abstract

Psychology has enjoyed tremendous growth and increasing professionalization in the years following WWII, with the major thrust of this growth being in professional practice. This period has also witnessed a rapid transformation in the educational and sociopolitical underpinnings of professional training and practice. Many authors have studied the growth of practice by periodically surveying practitioners and commenting on a wide variety of demographic, professional and practice-related characteristics. This paper reviews these surveys, noting trends in the characteristics of the human resource pool and the factors both within and external to the profession that have contributed to the shape of those trends. The results reveal significant changes in the personal characteristics and training of practitioners, tremendous growth and increased professionalism in the human resource pool, and expansion and diversification in the settings in which they work, the clients they see, and the theoretical orientations they endorse. While many of the trends appear positive for both the profession and the public it serves, several critical challenges confronting the field are apparent in the results. The ten most critical issues and challenges confronting the profession in the corning years are identified and discussed.

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