Lightner Witmer: Little-known founder of clinical psychology

McReynolds, P. (1987). Lightner Witmer: Little-known founder of clinical psychology. American Psychologist, 42(9), 849–858.

Lightner Witmer started the first psychological clinic in 1896 and was important in establishing the field of clinical psychology. He took his doctorate under Wilhem Wundt and was a charter member of the American Psychological Association. Even though he is an important figure in the history of psychology, little information about him has been available. In 1892, in the age of 25 Lightner Witmer returned from Europe where he had earned a PhD in psychology under Wilhelm Wundt. Witmer was returning to the University of Pennsylvania as it was previously agreed that he will take over the laboratory there if he successfully finished his doctorate in Leipzig. Thus in 1892 he began his term on the Pennsylvania faculty that was to last 45 years. In the same time Angell inaugurated experimental psychology at the recently founded Stanford University, and Titchener replaced Angell at Cornell while Münsterberg begun his term at Harvard. American psychology was taking on a shape that it would hold in following years. The American Psychological Association (APA) was also founded in 1892 and Witmer together with G. Stanley Hall, William James, George Ladd and Cattell, was one of its charter members. The first annual meeting of APA took place at the University of Pennsylvania in the same year and Witmer read two papers what was the beginning of his professional career. Witmer founded the world’s first psychological clinic at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896. Witmer’s most important accomplishment was not a specific event but the insight that the new psychology might be of direct help to people. Even though he contributed a lot to the field of psychology he somehow remains little-known figure. There are three possible explanations for that. First, histories of psychology, following the model of Boring’s (1950) History of Experimental Psychology put emphasis on experimental psychology. Thus, despite the fact that clinical psychology is the largest field of psychology most history texts devote little attention to the history of clinical psychology. Second, Witmer’s clinical orientation was one with contrasting dominant clinical perspectives, which helped in not creating strong interest for him. He was also not in sympathy with Freudian dynamic model which later strongly influenced clinical psychology. And third, Witmer is unknown because there are no papers of the kind professors usually accumulate over a career. He is probably the least documented of all the founders of American psychology.

Biography

Witmer was born on June 28, 1867, in Philadelphia. He was the eldest of three children and his father, David Lightner Witmer, was a highly successful pharmacist, who graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1862. The Witmer family was intensely oriented toward education; all three children earned doctoral degrees. Witmer entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1884 and graduated in 1888. After he obtained BA, Witmer was teaching history and English at secondary school in Philadelphia for two years. During that time he was also taking some classes in low and political science at the University of Pennsylvania.

When James McKeen Cattell joined the Pennsylvania faculty, Witmer took work with him, quit teaching and entered graduate school full time. Even though he expected to obtain his doctorate under Cattell, as Cattell shifted to Columbia, Witmer went to Leipzig to obtain his doctorate. When Witmer returned to Europe, he was perceived by himself and others as strictly an experimental psychologist. During his first years on the Pennsylvania faculty was giving courses, conducting researches (on individual differences in sensory-perceptual variables, and other more interesting for him were psychological aspects of pain), and presenting papers in experimental psychology. In 1894 the University organized a course for public school teachers in which Witmer was involved. One of his students presented a case of her student, 14-year old boy who was having difficulties with spelling. Witmer took the case of the boy and that marked the beginning of Witmer’s clinical work. He also gave a course on methods for working with mentally defective, blind and criminally disturbed children which was the beginning of clinical work-even though that term was not used.

Under Witmer’s supervision, Anna J. McKeag wrote a dissertation on pain perception; she was one of the first women to receive PhD in psychology in America. The other student, Edwin B. Twitmyer, studied patellar reflex for his dissertation, and in the process discovered what was later known as conditioned reflex. No one, including Witmer as well as James did not realize the significance of this finding. In the 1904 Witmer married Emma Repplier, graduate of highly respected Agnes Irwin School. In 1907 Witmer founded a journal titled The Psychological Clinic-for several decades the only clinical psychological journal. In 1908 Witmer established a residential school for the treatment of retarded and troubled children. In the same year Witmer published criticism of what he believed to be unscientific mental health movements. In 1920, Morris Viteles (1974) a Witmer graduate extended the coverage of clinic establishing first vocational guidance. Viteles’s work led him to an interest in industrial psychology, the field in which he made numerous contributions. In 1934-1935 and 1935-1936 Witmer was president of newly formed Pennsylvania Association of Clinical Psychologists. When he retired from the university in 1937 at the age of 70, Witmer was awarded the honorary degree of Doctoris in Scientia. Witmer died in 1956 at the age of 89 as the last surviving charter member of APA.

Development of psychological Clinic began with the case of 14-year old boy with a spelling problem that had been brought to Witmer by his student-boy’s teacher Margaret Maguire. She believed psychologist should be able through examination find out the causes of deficiency in spelling and recommend appropriate treatment which was in accord with Witmer’s point of view. Witmer examined Charles (that is how he called the boy) at length and worked out a special program for him. During the 1896 Witmer started examining other children who were referred to him as well. Charles’s problem seemed to be an inability to fix in his memory the form of words, a condition that Witmer called visual verbal amnesia.

Today Charles’s condition would be described as learning disability, diagnosed as dyslexia or developmental reading disorder. The case of P. –young boy who never learned to speak properly , short attention span and acute sense of smell together with the case of Charlie have been elaborated because of their historic significance at the beginning of Witmer’s clinical career. Witmer was emphasizing the concept of the individual person and he was also responsible for number of theoretical conceptions, mainly in the field of intelligence and personality. Another key term was what Witmer called “surpassionism”-view which held that individuals have the tendency to surpass themselves, to develop their abilities to the fullest which appears to be predecessor of the later self-actualization concept. Witmer is considered as the founder of clinical psychology even though some might argue Freud, Rogers, Binet, or Skinner had a greater impact on the field. Witmer is considered as a father due to these 6 achievements:

1. He was the first who pointed out the idea that psychology could be basis of a new helping profession.

2. He established developed psychological clinic

3. He proposed term clinical psychology

4. He conceptualized and organized the first program to train clinical psychologists

5. Through his founding of a journal The Psychological Clinic he shaped the field and attracted young persons to it

6. Through his activities he served as a role model for early members

There is a good reason to believe that he was profoundly self-confident, with a personality that could be described as forceful and assertive, or domineering and dogmatic. Those who worked with him greatly admired his clinical skills and respected him. It is also true that his influence on the clinical movement decreased in later phase of his career mostly because he was busy with intelligence testing and psychoanalytic theory. Clinical psychology today is much different than it was in Witmer’s time.