The disappearance of ‘Medical Psychology’ and the controversy over the Medical Section during the early 1950s

Abstract

In the 1950s the Medical Section of the British Psychological Society (BPS) was riven by a dispute which began with issues over the criteria for membership of the Section, and the editorial policy of the British Journal of Medical Psychology, but led to debates about the nature, and the future, of ‘medical psychology’ itself. These developments are documented in an archive of the BPS which is now held by the Wellcome Trust, an archive that has been hitherto overlooked by historians of psychology and psychiatry. This paper will provide some reasons why this debate occurred at this particular moment in history, concluding that this is a critical period of study for those interested in the recent histories of psychology and psychiatry within the United Kingdom, which was one of the major international centres for research in the mental sciences during the immediate post-war period. It will go on to suggest that the relationship between psychiatry and psychology in the UK can be used to make sense of the historical developments that have helped to shape psychology and psychiatry as distinct disciplines.