ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the history of professional practice and its evolution from academic psychology. Developments in the United States are described, followed by a description of the status of professional practice in some other countries. In the 19th century many individuals around the world provided psychological services, including what we would call intellectual evaluation, diagnosis, hypnosis and psychotherapy. The practitioners were called by a variety of names, including: phrenologists; physiognomists; characterologists; psychics; mesmerists; spiritualists; mental healers; and graphologists. Some practitioners began to be called psychologists, and that name gradually prevailed. For the first 60 years after its founding, the major focus in the American Psychological Association (APA) was on psychology as an academic discipline. The APA was small, exclusive and inward looking, with little interest in psychology as a profession. Despite the general lack of interest by their colleagues, some of the psychologists in the United States were interested in applying scientific psychology to the solving of human problems.
