The Representation of Counseling versus Clinical Psychology in Introductory Psychology Textbooks

Abstract

The major purpose of our study was to determine how counseling and clinical psychology are represented in introductory psychology textbooks and to compare this representation with what is known about clinical and counseling psychology as specialties. We found that introductory psychology textbooks' representations of counseling and clinical psychology were generally consistent with existing empirical data. There was some evidence, however, of a shift in the representations of counseling psychology between the 1970s and the 1980s. Textbooks tended to provide more coverage of clinical than counseling psychology. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.