When Rollo May's "little band" of New York psychologists fought back against organized medicine's attempts to control psychotherapy.

Abstract

At a time when New York was best positioned to influence the development of the profession of psychology in the mid-twentieth century, efforts to pass licensing or certification in Albany floundered for more than 15 years due to opposition from physicians and psychiatrists. That changed when Rollo May emerged as the leader of New York psychologists' lobbying effort in 1952, and he turned their losing and defensive campaign against organized medicine into a winning and offensive one. He inspired his fellow pioneering psychologists to withstand the "overwhelming power" of organized medicine and see their profession through its "frontier struggles," which culminated in the Empire State's psychologist regulation law in 1956. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).