Introduction
Clinical psychology is a profession still in its infancy, some might claim its adolescence, having only emerged as a recognised professional grouping in the post World War II era. Whilst other groups such as medics can trace their history, their professional rivalries and their current practices and politics back for centuries, sometimes choosing to underplay the role of the barber surgeons and alchemists who were their forefathers (sic), and emphasise their scientific roots in the writings of Hippocrates, clinical psychologists lean on the relatively recent foundations of the experimental psychologists of the early twentieth century. As descendants of those who pioneered testing and psychometrics, the early clinical psychologists acted in a limited sphere, operating very much under the umbrella of the medics, plying their craft as experts in psychometric testing and limited behavioural interventions. Yet in the late twentieth century all of this has changed, as clinical psychology has developed and grown into a profession of ‘scientist practitioners’, skilled in many different arenas, and operating at a number of levels of intervention often independent from any other professional grouping.