The history of school psychology is developed with an analogy to human growth and development. "Conception" occurred, after several false starts, with the establishment of the psychological clinic at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896. "Gestation" extended until 1937 when certification for school psychologists was available in two states, and employment in the schools increased. "Infancy" lasted through the 1940s to the Thayer Conference in 1954. The increase in employment opportunities in the late 1950s and 1960s is comparable to the rapid growth of childhood. With accreditation by APA and the availability of diplomas from the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP), adolescence began. The significant persons in the field from 1895 to 1970 receive special attention.

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The clinical psychology internship training year is certainly a stressful, confusing, exciting, and busy year for clinical trainees. A number of writers have described the nature of the stress and strain that is associated with the internship year and have suggested ways in which to make the process of applying for and completing an internship less stressful and more rewarding (e.g., Grace, 1985;Kaslow & Rice, 1985;Plante, 1987).Surprisingly, the American Psychological Association's (APA; 1979) guidelines for internship training sites and the Association of Psychology Internship Centers (APIC; 1986) directory contains no specific minimum national standards for APA-approved internship training sites in numerous salient areas. Thus stipends, insurance benefits, the number of days allotted for vacation, sick, and professional/educational leave, office space, the ratio of direct service to supervision hours, the nature of clinical supervision, and the titles of interns are not guided by APA-generated standards. The only current specific national requirement is that trainees receive 2 hr of supervision by a psychologist each week (APA, 1979). There is tremendous variability among training sites in regard to these training issues. For example, stipends currently range from nothing to over $20,000 for the internship training year (APIC, 1986), and the number of days allotted for sick and professional/educational leave vary from none to over 30. Trainees are called interns, fellows, residents, students, doctors, and so on, depending on the training facility and staff. Interns receive a large amount of individual clinical supervision at some training sites and no individual supervision at others. Unfortunately, stipends and benefits often tend to be inversely proportional to the quality, status, and perceived desirability of the training site. Thus attending a high-quality, well-respected, and prestigious training site often means accepting significantly lower stipends and fewer benefits. Certainly many excellent applicants cannot even consider many of these sites because of financial constraints.Low stipends and few insurance and professional benefits not only contribute to the stress and strain of the internship training year but may also adversely affect the intern's professional self-confidence and esteem at a time in his or her career when professional identity and confidence may be most vulnerable. In order to decrease the stress associated with the internship training year, as well as fostering an appropriate professional identity with self-confidence and self-respect, the establishment of minimum national standards for all APAapproved internship training sites in the aforementioned areas should be considered by APIC and APA. These standards should reflect the fact that professional self-respect demands minimum standards of stipend, benefits, and service to supervision ratios. It is important for psychology interns to develop early in their careers the identity of a competent and valued professional with skills tha...

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