Social Processes in Clinical and Counseling Psychology

Even as psychology becomes increasingly splintered and specialized, as evi­ denced by the growing number of special interest divisions of the American Psy­ chological Association, many psychologists are devoting their energies to finding commonalities between traditionally distinct fields and building bridges between them. Developmental psychopathology, for example, has emerged as a synthesis of child development theory and clinical child psychology. Health psychology has resulted from the cooperation and collaboration of many psychologists from a number of fields, including clinical, counseling, social, developmental, and physiological. Within clinical psychology is a growing movement toward rap­ prochement that is dedicated to finding common themes among seemingly dis­ parate approaches to psychotherapy. Thus, integration among different fields has increased even as diversity in psychology has flourished. One such integration or interfacing effort that is related in several ways to the integrative efforts just noted involves social, clinical, and counseling psychology. Although this effort is not a new one (see chapter 1), it was given a new lease on life by the publication of the first issue ofthe Journal of Social and Clinical Psy­ chology in 1983. Since that time, several volumes and numerous journal article and book chapters have been devoted to the general notion that social psychologi­ cal theory and research has much to offer clinical and counseling psychology, such as greater understanding of psychological and everyday problems in living and insight into clinical and counseling activities such as psychotherapy.