The Professional Challenges Facing General Psychologists

Abstract

Working towards a general psychology presents the usual challenges one would expect from an intellectual pursuit, and there is no way around that. However, it also presents a host of professional challenges not faced by those who choose a more narrow specialization, and there is the possibility of reducing that additional hurdle. An effort needs to be made to provide generalists with something akin to the institutional infrastructure that facilitates the careers of specialists. The professional difficulties faced by people pursuing careers as generalists is as big of an obstacle to our achieving a general psychology as are any of the difficulties in creating comprehensive theory.