Strengthening the scientific foundations of professional psychology: Time for the next steps.

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The field of professional psychology has been tremendously successful, although it has also been characterized by many competing preparadigmatic theoretical orientations, which have led to a great deal of contention as well as conflicting views regarding psychological development, functioning, and behavior change. There is now widespread agreement regarding scientific explanations of many psychological processes, however, and, consequently, it is time to update the basic conceptual frameworks used for professional psychology education and practice. Replacing the traditional reliance on an array of theoretical orientations with a sciencebased biopsychosocial framework would resolve many of the contradictions and conflicts that characterized the preparadigmatic era and would also provide a common perspective for unifying psychologists around a shared approach to practice, research, and training. Few would disagree that both the science and the practice of psychology have enjoyed phenomenal growth and success since their emergence just over a century ago and that the growth of professional psychology during the latter half of that period has been particularly impressive. As early as 1961, E. L. Kelly, the past president of American Psychological Association (APA) Division 12, noted that the growth of clinical psychology was “well nigh phenomenal. Before World War II, clinical psychologists were few in number, poorly paid, and had but little status.... Ours is a success story without counterpart in the history of professions” (p. 9). Since World War II, the number of licensed psychologists in the United States has grown from zero in 1945, when the first psychology licensure law was enacted, to close to 88,500 today (Duffy et al., 2002). Much of the dramatic growth in membership in the APA, which went from 4,173 to over 90,000 during that same period, is also attributable to the large increase in the number of professional psychologists, from a minuscule number before World War II to approximately two thirds of the membership today (APA, 2005b). Given the youth, reach, and dramatic growth of psychology as a field, it was inevitable that the evolving discipline would experience significant tension and discord and that the science and practice areas in particular would come into conflict, given their differing needs and orientations. At times, the disagreement has been so strong that it is easy to forget that much of the success of professional psychology is directly dependent on the scientific credibility of