ABSTRACT
In 1995, officers of the APA Division of Clinical Psychology (Division 12, now called the “Society” of Clinical Psychology) decided to identify the person they considered the “Clinical Psychologist of the Century.” At the end of their surveys and deliberations, they chose two luminaries: Paul Meehl and Hans Eysenck. Meehl’s contributions were uniformly recognized. I doubt that anyone questioned his selection. Eysenck was equally well known. He had first come to international notice among psychologists during World War II as head of the only notable clinical psychology program in Great Britain. His was a sternly “scientific” operation at the Maudsley psychiatric institute, devoted exclusively to the functions Eysenck considered useful and appropriate for clinical psychologists: research and assessment, valued in that order. Psychotherapy, popular among clinicians in America, was specifically excluded from clinical psychology as Eysenck defined it. To him, psychotherapy was a nondescript “healing art” of dubious value.
