A House, a Home, an Interface

Abstract

Psychology is a vast house of many mansions, but few would call it a happy home. This special section calls for integration among the three specialties of counseling, clinical, and social psychology, but I fear that the request for interface represents more of a plea than a real trend. The conservative nature of training programs does not currently suggest an integrative tendency. Indeed, the increase of professional schools of psychology suggests the opposite. In addition, historically, the asocial nature of social psychology does not lend hope that it can or will contribute to an integration. Social psychology did not contribute to the creation of community psychology. There is no reason to expect that it can do better by counseling or clinical psychology. Nevertheless, even though the reasons for pessimism seem to prevail over optimism, this special issue is satisfying because it testifies that some psychologists, and perhaps many, still want the house of psychology to become a home.