CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGISTS AS PSYCHOTHERAPISTS - HISTORY, FUTURE, AND ALTERNATIVES

As managed care and other cost-containment strategies become central f eatures of the American health care system, doctoral-level clinical ps ychologists will be increasingly supplanted in the role of psychothera pist by lower cost provider's such as social workers, marriage and fam ily counselors, and masters-level psychologists. To provide one basis for clinical psychologists to make judgments about their role in psych otherapy, this article describes what the field was like before psycho therapy became a core activity, and then compares the present transiti on with its historical counterpart: the opening up of the psychotherap y profession to doctoral-level clinical psychologists after World War II. History suggests that efforts to resist the current changes will b e unsuccessful and that the most adaptive coping strategy for clinical psychologists is to take advantage of the transition by reenvisioning training and practice of clinical psychologists.