Abstract

After Witmer's establishment cf psychological clinic at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896 and publication of Psychological Clinic, a Iot of changes oecured in the role of clinical psychologists. In the initial stage of development, the majority of clinical psychologists engaged in clinical work. They put special emphasis on helping school children who were suffering from social and academic adjustment problems. In 1949 APA Boulder Conference declared the role of clinical psychologists. According to it, first of all, they should be fully qualified as psychologists, and then two roles, as a practicing clinician as well as a researcher, were required. Unfortunately, there was a growing split between two required roles; Practicing clinicians who engaged in (work at) clinical settings neglected the clinical researchers' findings. They solely depended on trial and error methods or clinical insight in the clinical practice. On the other hand, Researchers were unlikely to engage in research which could influence practicing clinicians, As a result their research findings were incompatible with clinical realities. Recently APA Vail Conference had offered a new professional degree system for practicing clinicians, which might suggest the official full acceptance of seperated two roles rather than integrated ones. Realistically as well as idealistically, two roles should be integrated into one with two different aspects. In practice and conducting research, clinical psychologists have to realize the paramount importance of the single subject, N=1. This does not mean one of radical changes but a renaissance in the field of clinical psychology.