International Perspectives on Psychotherapy

Abstract

After returning from Wilhelm Wundt’s laboratory in Germany, Lightner Witmer introduced the term Clinical Psychology in an article published in The Psychological Clinic (Witmer, 1907). In this article, he explained: While the term ‘clinical’ has been borrowed from medicine, clinical psychology is not a medical psychology. I have borrowed the word ‘clinical’ from medicine, because it is the best term I can find to indicate the character of the method which I deem necessary for this work (p. 251). Witmer, who later became one of the cofounders of the American Psychological Association, thought that the goal of clinical psychology should be similar to that of medicine to improve the human condition (Witmer, 1897). This notion significantly expanded the boundaries of the young discipline, which was primarily defined by experimental psychology to simply study the nature of psychological phenomena (McReynolds, 1997).