ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the training of health service providers, that is to say, clinical psychologists, would better be carried out in the context of a frankly professional setting and orientation. A separate degree for practitioners would go a long way toward eliminating the hostile interchanges between the scientist and practitioner sides of psychology over conceptual issues as licensing and designation. Completion of a professional training program, as the practitioner side of the scientist-practitioner program certainly is, generally presumes at least implicit certification of the suitability of the graduate for practice–usually for general practice. The obvious failure of the strong version of the scientist-practitioner model, that is that clinicians would be actively engaged in both activities, appears to have led to the acceptance of a default, weak version. Few academics have the time or the inclination to provide good, close clinical supervision of the kind that ought to be implemented in practitioner training programs.
