History of Clinical Neuropsychology

From the perspective of contemporary psychology’s identity as both a biological/neurobiological and social science, it may be hard to imagine that it was only in the 1970s that clinical neuropsychology began its emergence as a clearly defi ned discipline in private practice and medical settings. Although many of the techniques and concepts that form the basis of modern practice of neuropsychological assessment were established between the World Wars, it is probably not coincidental that clinical neuropsychology saw its emergence as a coherent discipline in parallel with the cognitive revolution in psychology (i.e., the change in focus from behaviorism to cognitivism) and the explosion of the technology of neuroimaging, both of which began in the mid-1970s. In the few decades since that critical period, clinical neuropsychology has matured into a discipline with a number of subspecialties that include pediatrics, geriatrics, rehabilitation, education, and forensics. Its further growth and professional development is supported by a rich network of university-based graduate programs and clinical sites providing preand postdoctoral training, boards offering advanced clinical certifi cation, and the increasingly neuroscientifi c emphasis of basic research in academic psychology. To comprehend the remarkable rate of growth in this fi eld, one needs only to read the foreword of the fi rst general textbook on clinical neuropsychology (Reitan & Davison, 1974). Even in 1974, Reitan and Davison heralded the “large growth in substantive knowledge” in neuropsychology and neurosciences preceding the landmark event of the fi rst American Psychological Association (APA) Symposium on Clinical Neuropsychology in 1970. Their text introduced the power of empirically based approaches to neuropsychological assessment to what was probably the fi rst large postwar wave of clinicians who identifi ed themselves as specialists in neuropsychology. It today seems to be a gentle irony that at the time of that writing, fewer than six journals focused on clinical or experimental neuropsychology and the related medical discipline