History of Psychology

© 2021 American Psychological Association 2021, Vol. 24, No. 4, 323–349

ISSN: 1093-4510 https://doi.org/10.1037/hop0000201

“A Backdrop for Psychotherapy”: Carl R. Rogers,

Psychological Testing, and the Psycho-Educational Clinic at
Columbia University’s Teachers College (1924–1935)

Catriel Fierro
National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Faculty of Psychology, National University of Mar del Plata
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
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Carl Rogers’ work in clinical psychology and psychotherapy has been as influential as it is
vast and varied. However, as a topic of historical inquiry Rogers’ approach to clinical psy-
chology is beset by historiographical lacunae. Especially vague have been Rogers’ own
reflections about his student years (1925–1928) at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
Rogers claimed that he received the “backdrop” for the development of his approach to psy-
chotherapy at the College. However, most historical literature has overlooked Rogers’ early
years by focusing on his later work. This article aims to shed light on Rogers’ initial aca-
demic education by delving into his backdrop idea. I explore Rogers’ early years at
Columbia by using his retroactive appraisals as a conduit for reconstructing his first formal
institutional context—Columbia’s highly active but short-lived psycho-educational clinic.
By drawing on several archival sources and unpublished materials, I will argue that the
College’s intellectual and institutional climate fostered Rogers’ appreciation of experiential
and cognitive learning while stimulating his intellectual independence as a clinical psychol-
ogist. The clinic put him in contact with real children, trained him in psychological tests,
offered concrete professional role models, and pointed him toward his lifelong concern with
human individuality. This contextual reading of Rogers’ education allows for a deeper,
more informed understanding of both his academic origins and his immediate intellectual
context amid American clinical psychology during the interwar years.

Keywords: clinical psychology, Carl Rogers, psychological testing, history of psychother-

apy, philosophy of clinical psychology

This article was published Online First September 13, 2021.

Catriel Fierro https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7635-7012
This work is part of the research project “The Roots of Scientific Research in Psychotherapy: The Applied
Psychology of Carl R. Rogers in the Context of the Philosophical Debates on Psychological Science
(1920–1946)” funded by Argentina’s National Council of Scientific and Technical Research through a
postdoctoral grant. I thank Carola Ossmer and Aixa Galarza for their helpful and encouraging comments on a
previous version of this article. I also wish to thank Ian Nicholson, who gently provided me with relevant
bibliography on Rogers’ early years. Finally, I thank Frances Fuchs for her warm encouragement and her kind
words regarding my research on her grandfather. I am nonetheless responsible for any of the article’s limitations.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Catriel Fierro, Faculty of Psychology,
National University of Mar del Plata, Deán Funes 3250, Fifth Building, Third Floor, “Secretaría de Investigación
y Posgrado,” Buenos Aires B7600, Argentina. Email: catriel.fi[email protected]

323
 324 FIERRO

In 1984, less than 3 years before his death, Carl Ransom Rogers briefly recollected his student
years (1925–1928) at Columbia University’s Teachers College. He stated that the institution
and its teachers had introduced him to “a humane perspective in clinical psychology” (Rog-
ers, 1984, p. 22). He also argued that at Teachers College he had received “the backdrop for
the development of a client-centered/person-centered approach to psychotherapy and to group
facilitation” (Rogers, 1984, p. 22). But what did Rogers mean by “backdrop”?
Rogers’ work has been as influential as it is vast and varied: he published approximately
230 papers, 150 book sections, and 33 whole books during a 60-year time span. There is not
even a clear consensus about what is to be encompassed by “Rogerian,” “client,” or “person-
centered” psychotherapy (Raskin et al., 2011). This same ambiguity in seen in Rogers’ few
allusions to his time as a graduate student at Teachers College: it allegedly was a “fountain of
innovation,” an institution that challenged the “stifling influence of most schooling” by
encompassing both “experiential and cognitive learning” and fostering “independent, coura-
geous persons” (Rogers, 1984, p. 22). Rogers argued that the individuals who had influenced
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him the most were not charismatic teachers, scholars, or treatises but his “clients and the peo-
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ple I’ve worked with” (Rogers & Evans, 1975, p. 109). Who were those clients and people?
Such lack of clarity has been passed on to secondary literature. Marks (2017, p. 4) and
Rosner (2018, p. 182) have recently pointed out that, as a topic of historical inquiry, Rogers’
approach to clinical psychology is full of historiographical lacunae. His stay at Teachers Col-
lege has been completely omitted from most historical reconstructions, whether on the history
of clinical psychology (Benjamin, 2005; Reisman, 1991; Routh, 2000), on the history of psy-
chotherapy (Cautin, 2011; Taylor, 2000), on the history of humanistic psychology (Watson et
al., 2011) or on the history of the client-centered therapy (Raskin et al., 2011). Indeed, histori-
cal scholarship on Rogers or his school of thought has focused on his later work (Barrett-Len-
nard, 2012; McCarthy, 2014). But that is not the whole picture. Rogers majored in education
and psychology, and the PhD he obtained in 1931 was the culmination of two distinct phases
of graduate research and practice: a 1-year stay at Teachers College’s Institute of Child Wel-
fare Research (ICWR) from 1926 to 1927 and a 1-year stay at the New York Commonwealth
Fund’s Institute for Child Guidance from 1927 to 1928. In fact, he argued (Rogers, 1974) that
he had been a practicing psychologist since 1927: that is, since obtaining his MA at the
ICWR. Strikingly, his participation at the Institute is barely mentioned in his publications:
only in his doctoral dissertation Rogers stated that his interest in measuring personality adjust-
ment resulted from his experience at the Institute during “the latter part of 1926” (Rogers,
1931, p. 3). But that is all. The ICWR and its psycho-educational clinic are completely absent
from Rogers’ published autobiographical recollections, and even from his biographical
accounts (Cohen, 1997; Kirschenbaum, 2007). This neglect is part of a broader trend given
that both the ICWR and its clinic have been historically neglected (cf. Fierro, 2021).
In the context of such lacunae, the point of this article is to shed light on Rogers’ initial
academic education by delving into his vague backdrop. My aim is not to reconstruct Teach-
ers College’s epistemological or theoretical influence over Rogers’ work as a whole. Rather, I
aim to explore Rogers’ early years at Columbia by using his retroactive appraisals as a con-
duit for reconstructing his first formal institutional context—Columbia’s psycho-educational
clinic. By drawing on several archival sources and unpublished materials, I will focus on illu-
minating the intellectual and institutional climate Rogers (1984) vaguely referred to when he
pinpointed the origins of his psychotherapy—a climate marked by the early professionaliza-
tion of clinical psychology, its overlap with child and developmental psychology, and its em-
phasis on the examination and testing of children (Routh, 1994; Smuts, 2006). The resulting
narrative allows for a deeper, more informed understanding of both Rogers’ academic origins
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 325

and his immediate intellectual context amid American clinical psychology during the interwar
years.

Background and Origins of Teachers College’s Psycho-Educational Clinic,

1895–1924

In the late 1910s, the emergent field of clinical psychology in the United States was clearly
heterogeneous and diverse. Clinical psychology as such constituted overlapping “aspects of
psychiatry, social work, nursing, pastoral counseling, school guidance, and other professions
in the mental health field” (Taylor, 2000, p. 1029). The epistemological nature of clinical psy-
chology (Wallin, 1919a, 1919b), the professional relationships between psycho-clinicians,
educators, and psychiatrists (Sylvester, 1913), and whether the ideal clinical subjects where
children or adults (Mitchell, 1919) were some of the hotly debated topics. Nonetheless, most
clinical psychologists agreed on one issue: the relevance of practical training (Doll, 1920).
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For leading authorities, practical, scholarly education in the clinical method was paramount.
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However, during the early 1910s most graduate training programs for would-be clinical psy-
chologists were “masters-level at best and tended to emphasize diagnostic testing” (Bu-
chanan, 2003, p. 227). This prompted the establishment of psychological clinics that provided
research and training opportunities to clinical candidates besides providing service to the
community. As a field, clinical psychology developed out of these pre-World War I clinics.
Clinics proliferated between 1909 and 1920: by 1921 there were hundreds of them in the
United States (Farreras, 2001). A rather small subset of those clinics was university-based:
however, by 1920 most major American universities that offered clinical courses ran clinics
at their psychology or education departments, usually in connection with public schools and
hospitals (Hollingworth, 1921). These clinics were varied, and ranged from single rooms for
applying Binet tests to well-equipped laboratories for diagnosing and reeducating individuals.
Nonetheless, they all had several common features: first, the term “clinic” always signified “a
place and personnel for the physical or mental examination and guidance of individuals for
purposes of educational adjustment” (Hollingworth, 1921, p. 224). Second, a psychologist
always served as clinic director (Napoli, 1981). Third, and because clinical psychology
encompassed school, counseling, developmental, and educational psychology, the clinics’
usual subjects were children and their families (Wells, 1922). The vast majority of these clin-
ics usually involved two sets of activities: practice—examination of children, illustration of
mental and physical defects, diagnosis, analysis of etiology, proposals for appropriate treat-
ments and reeducative measures—and research, mainly on devising new tests, perfecting
older ones, and pursuing applied investigation on mental abnormalities (Wallin, 1914b).
Indeed, the central aim of psychological clinics was seen as providing psychological diagno-
sis, consultation, and advice regarding mental cases, particularly of children. Finally, given
that first-hand experience was seen as the cornerstone of the clinician’s education, active
involvement was expected from psychology trainees at the institutes: students were not only
to attend the clinics, but also to conduct clinics of their own with what historical actors
deemed “defective” and “deviant” children of various kinds (Wallin, 1919b). This was the
kind of training that qualified students to become expert examiners.
New York was one of the states with the most psychological clinics in the country (Boya-
kin, 1926). Nonetheless, by 1920 every attempt to set up a place for practical clinical educa-
tion at Columbia University had failed or had folded. As head of Columbia’s psychology
department James McKeen Cattell attempted but failed at establishing a psychological clinic
there in 1895 (Cattell, 1937). From 1909 to 1911 a clinic was run at the Vanderbilt Clinic, the
 326 FIERRO

outpatient department of Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, but its demonstra-
tions of impaired children at Teachers College were minimal, most examinations being con-
ducted for the physicians at Vanderbilt (Anonymous, 1910). Besides, this clinic was
conducted only during the summer sessions, was not a stable part of the College’s mandatory
curriculum, and was dissolved in 1911 (Anonymous, 1911). In the most comprehensive
national survey on psychological clinics and laboratories conducted during the 1910s, Teach-
ers College was listed as one of the institutions “which do absolutely no clinical work in psy-
chology or education (or at most a very negligible amount of it), but which either give some
attention to the study of mentally exceptional children” (Wallin, 1914a, p. 27). Thus, after
two failed attempts, by 1920 there was no dedicated laboratory or facility that could provide
clinical research and training opportunities at the College. Consequently, Columbia students’
clinical training was limited by the availability of external institutions such as the Vanderbilt
Clinic or the New York’s Bellevue Hospital, where clinical psychologist and Teachers Col-
lege professor Leta Hollingworth supervised her graduate students once a week beginning as
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early as 1918 (Hollingworth, 1918).

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Two events concurred in the first half of the 1920s that led to the establishment of a psy-
cho-educational clinic at Teachers College. First, in June 1924 the Laura Spelman Rockefeller
Memorial (LSRM) gave the College a 5-year grant for a total of $250,000 to establish a pro-
gram in child welfare research and parent education. The College promptly used the grant to
formally establish the Institute of Child Welfare Research. As revealed by unpublished docu-
ments on the venture, the ICWR began operating in September 1924 under executive secre-
tary Bess Cunningham and temporary director Otis Caldwell, who was charged with hiring a
more suitable, full-time director.1
The objective of the LSRM’s program was to foster research and training on normal child
development: the guidance of the “normal child” was one of its declared aims (Smuts, 2006;
Thompson et al., 2012). Preexisting ties between the Rockefeller Foundation and Columbia
University, as well as Teachers College’s national standing in the training and education of
psychologists made it an ideal setting for establishing an institute devoted to research and
training in child development (Fierro, 2021). From the outset its projects and undertakings
had a clear clinical, remedial aspect: to obtain data and make follow-ups for the Institute’s
researches at public schools, the researchers “had to set up individual procedure looking to-
ward correction of undesirable situations” (Caldwell, 1924, p. 37). Moreover, while not the
main focus of the Rockefeller-funded projects and institutes, the unavoidable clinical, preven-
tive, or remedial aspect of child development studies was acknowledged by the foundation as
a desirable aim (Coffman, 1936). This remedial aspect of philanthropy had also been empha-
sized by leading clinical psychologists Lightner Witmer and John Edward Wallace Wallin
throughout the 1910s. The emphasis extended well into the 1920s, when clinicians argued for
the establishment and continuation of clinics at both bureaus and institutes of child welfare and
at private foundations which dealt with the welfare of the young (Hollingworth, 1921, p. 225).
The availability of newly acquired funds at Teachers College concurred with a second
event. Parallel to the establishment of the Institute, several members of the faculty of the Col-
lege’s School of Education were “drawn upon for advice and professional service” regarding
educational and clinical problems in the New York community (Leonard, 1925, p. 16).
Indeed, by 1924 associate professor Leta Hollingworth was offering psychological and educa-
tional guidance to children and adolescents referred by courts, social agencies, and school

1
Chronology of the Child Development Institute (Institute of Child Welfare Research; unpublished
manuscript), 1929. William F. Russell Collection, Gottesman Libraries Archive, Teachers College, Columbia
University, NY, United States (WRC).
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 327

authorities, and appeared before hospital boards, boards of education, state legislature, and
several related commissions (Hollingworth, 1943). David Mitchell, another College faculty
member, was the director of psychological research at New York’s Bureau of Educational
Experiments: besides working as a clinician in independent practice, Mitchell lectured on
educational psychology at the College and taught Hollingworth’s clinical courses from 1922
to 1924. Rudolf Pintner, a professor who taught in mental tests at the College, also taught
extramural courses on educational psychology in the New York area. In July 1924 Bess Cun-
ningham, who had been Pintner’s doctoral student, was approached by the U.S. Public Health
Service and asked to participate in its Public Health and Preventive Medicine program. Cun-
ningham accepted and taught courses on child hygiene and the psychology of childhood for
clinical and health-related workers (Anonymous, 1924). Finally, Mary T. Whitley was assist-
ant professor of educational psychology at the College, and during the early 1920s was
approached by public and private organizations and asked to deliver lectures on child study
and child psychology at public hospitals, religious organizations and normal schools (Anony-
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mous, 1925a, 1925b).

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The innovation brought by the Institute, backed by a massive grant by the country’s lead-
ing funding agency in child welfare research, cast a new light on the clinical and educational
opportunities at the College: the institution had valuable psychological experts as well as
researchers and scholars within its ranks at a time when applied psychologists publicly mar-
keted their services as providers of adjustment and adaptation (Napoli, 1981). As stated by
the Dean of the College’s School of Education, “the opportunity for clinical work in the Insti-
tute is one which members of the staff cordially welcome. It permits contact with professional
problems of great importance and assures students of clinical materials not otherwise readily
available” (Leonard, 1925, p. 16).
These events account for the fact that the first tentative draft of the ICWR written
between June and September 1924 proposed establishing a “Psycho-Educational
Clinic” at the College. The chosen name was not incidental: Psychological clinics asso-
ciated with schools and universities were called psycho-educational clinics because the
diagnosis attempted was both psychological and educational, and because what was
sought by the diagnosis was the pedagogical training, the correct educational classifica-
tion and the improvement of the mental hygiene of the educationally exceptional child
(Wallin, 1920). Clinics at institutions for those deemed “feebleminded” or “insane,” on
the other hand, were referred to as “psychological laboratories” (Hollingworth, 1921).
The fact that the College chose the first designation shows its attempt to focus on the
so-called normal or maladjusted, rather than children deemed feebleminded, backward,
or insane: a focus that was coherent with the College’s clinical faculty claim that study-
ing, diagnosing, and treating badly adjusted although “normal”—that is, not psycho-
pathic or insane—children was clearly “within the province of psychology” (Mitchell,
1919, p. 329). The Clinic seems to have been designed to fit the scope of the Rockefel-
ler funding.2
As conceived in the 1924 draft, the Clinic’s function was threefold: it would provide pro-
fessional advice to children and adolescents, opportunities for “research in methods of clinical
work [and] the evaluation of such methods,” and a space for training clinicians in scientific

2
Simultaneously, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial also initiated a program of scholarships in Child
Development at Teachers College for those interested in pursuing work in clinical and child psychology
(Leonard, 1925). The committee responsible for overseeing candidates included Patty Smith Hill, Leta
Hollingworth, Bess Cunningham and Ruth Andrus. See Letter from J. Russell to B. Cunningham, undated, 1925,
WRC.
 328 FIERRO

methods “both of diagnosis and remedial treatment.”3 Furthermore, the Clinic planned to es-
tablish a nursery school, to provide services to the community while simultaneously provid-
ing opportunities for child study under controlled, supervised conditions to graduate students
in child development.
These formal plans were refined during the second half of 1924; when a “Clinical Com-
mittee” was appointed to start and operate the clinic. The committee included representatives
of several academic fields taught at the College: educational psychology, nutrition, nursing,
and health and elementary education. The Committee, which included Leta Hollingworth,
devised an experimental procedure of examining children and developed a system of case
records to retain relevant information for training and research purposes. Up to December
1924, members of this committee freely gave their services for the psychological, health, and
nutrition examinations of children.
Psychologists argued that psycho-educational clinics “should be directed only by experts
trained for the work” (Smith, 1914, p. 152). In Wallin’s (1919a) terms, no psychologist could
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direct or train students in clinical diagnosis and treatment unless they had had “actual-first
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hand clinical experience and are devoting some of their time to clinical examination” (p. 92).
As revealed by the staff’s unpublished correspondence, the Committee at Columbia strongly
agreed. After discussing the issue, on December 1, 1924, the Committee formally recom-
mended that an executive officer be appointed to direct the actual running of the Clinic.4 The
Committee further recommended 42-year-old “Bess” Virginia Cunningham for the job, who
had been appointed Executive Secretary of the ICWR 2 months before.5
Cunningham had obtained her PhD at the College in 1924 under Rudolf Pintner, one of
Wundt’s last doctoral students. After establishing himself in the United States, Pintner turned
to applied psychology and focused on tests of mental performance. Under his direction, in
1921, Cunningham devised a paper-and-pencil test for measuring skills and abilities of first
graders (Pintner & Cunningham, 1923). For her doctoral dissertation, she assessed the valid-
ity, reliability, and prognostic value of the test through a longitudinal, comparative study that
had exposed her to first-hand contact with plenty of clinical subjects (Cunningham, 1923a).
Her experience with these subjects convinced her that “close contact with actual children”
(Cunningham, 1927, p. 814) was an essential part of the training of students preparing for
professional service in clinical psychology. Starting in 1923, Cunningham worked as an in-
structor on measurement and experimentation in kindergarten and first grade at the College,
where she also offered courses on the psychology of childhood in the summer session. In her
measurements course, students were trained in the statistical treatment and interpretation of
results of tests and scales for measuring abilities of children from 4 to 7 years of age
(Cunningham, 1923b). Given these credentials, the Committee saw Cunningham as an expert
and as a clear fit for the role of supervisor at the Clinic.
To gather experience from previous ventures in psychological clinics and child welfare
institutions and to put that experience to use in improving the Clinic, the Committee recom-
mended Cunningham visit several American clinics during December 1924. Her national tour
included stops at the clinics at Yale and Harvard; at the Judge Baker Foundation (directed by
Augusta Bronner and William Healy); at the Merrill-Palmer School in Detroit where Helen
T. Woolley was an associate director; Bird Baldwin’s Iowa Child Welfare Research Station;

3
Institute of Child Welfare Research. Tentative Draft of Organization and Administration, 1924, pp. 3–4,
WRC.
4
Letter from B. V. Cunningham to O. W. Caldwell, December 2, 1924, WRC.
5
Harvey and Ogilvie (2000b) erroneously state that Cunningham was appointed as supervisor of the Clinic in
1923.
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 329

and, finally, the first psychological clinic in the United States: Lightner Witmer’s clinic in
Philadelphia. Most if not all of these clinics enacted the spirit of clinical psychology: the
application of scientific principles to preventing, diagnosing, and treating mental and behav-
ioral impairments (Cautin, 2011). As such, they were the “role models” that informed execu-
tive decisions at Columbia.6
These plans, however, were kept private during 1924. In a letter addressed to Caldwell,
Cunningham stated that the Clinic Committee, possibly because the final result was uncertain,
recommended that the Faculty “should make no public statement in regard to the Clinic until
sometime later in the year.”7 Caldwell agreed, stating that it was wise not to make a public
announcement regarding the Clinic at that time: “It is better to let the thing be born and get a
good look at it before announcing it to the pubic.”8 Both Cunningham and Caldwell were
likely conscious of the previous failed attempts at setting up a psychological clinic at Colum-
bia. The Clinic was publicly announced toward mid-1925; after about 6 months of effective
functioning. In early July, the College officially announced Helen Thompson Woolley’s
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appointment as director of the ICWR and Cunningham’s appointment as Supervisor of the

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Clinic and assistant professor of education at the College.

This official release contained the first public statement of the Clinic’s three aims and func-
tions: research, child service, and student training “in the technique of securing and compiling
scientific data regarding children.”9 Besides producing data on child development, one of the
ICWR’s objectives was to train and prepare workers in clinical work with young children, “ei-
ther in psychological clinics or in public health clinics in which a knowledge of habit forma-
tion and behavior problems is stressed” (Anonymous, 1927, p. 633). The educational clinic
was the operative space or “work phase” that aimed to fulfill such an objective: from the outset
it was conceived as a formal venture where graduate students would conduct scientific
research on children, train in scientific methods of psychological research, and apply the newly
acquired insights into the treatment and reeducation of clinical cases (Anonymous, 1925c).
Although she had been working there since December 1924, Cunningham was formally
appointed as supervisor of the Clinic on May 26, 1925, along with two part-time assistants,
and the place began operating under the guidance of the Educational Clinic Advisory Com-
mittee, composed by Rudolph Pintner, Leta Hollingworth, Hugh Rowell, Mary Rose, and
Cunningham.10,11 According to available financial and budgetary records, under Cunningham
the Clinic hired stenographers and case workers, bought a limited number of books—Gesell’s
1925 Mental Growth and Lewis Terman’s 1920 revision of the Binet-Simon intelligence tests
—and was equipped with special psychological and clinical equipment for diagnosis and
research purposes: psychological and physiological apparatus, form boards, scoring blanks,
peg boards, color tests, and anthropometric scales.12
The Clinic was devised on a tight budget: it ran with a yearly $12,000, less than a quarter
of the LSRM grant. It functioned with part-time and full-time services of physicians, psychol-
ogists, psychiatrists, educationalists, dietitians and nurses. In 1926, the staff was composed of
seven people: supervisor Cunningham, physician Mary Walsh, nurse Virginia Platt, and four

6
Letter from B. V. Cunningham to O. W. Caldwell, December 2, 1924, p. 1, WRC.
7
Op. cit.
8
Letter from O. W. Caldwell to B. V. Cunningham, December 3, 1924, p. 1, WRC. Emphasis added.
9
Release on the Institute of Child Welfare Research, July, 1925, p. 2, WRC.
10
Bess V. Cunningham Academic Card, 1933, p. 1. Card Index: Academic and Administrative Collection,
Gottesman Libraries Archive, Teachers College, Columbia University, NY, United States (CIA).
11
Letter from W. F. Russell to O. W. Caldwell, August 11, 1925, WRC.
12
Budged Estimate for 36 Weeks of Operation of Nursery School and Educational Clinic, 1924. WRC.
 330 FIERRO

research associates in psychology: Ethel Waring, Josephine Kenyon, Myrtle McGraw, and
Janet Fowler Nelson.13 The staff and the Clinic Committee met weekly throughout the aca-
demic year: together, they reviewed, assessed and recommended procedures for all examined
cases.

Exploratory Research and Psychological Examinations at the Psycho-

Educational Clinic, 1925–1926

By focusing on normal children from 2- to 6-years old, the child welfare program of the
LSRM aimed at establishing child development as a field of scientific research that would
produce useful applications in parental education and social reform (Smuts, 2006). Child wel-
fare institutes were the operative spaces where concrete data, facts, and norms of development
on children could be obtained, gauged, and applied to professional fields through graduate
training (Varga, 2011). The rise of the study of the ‘normal’ instead of the abnormal, delin-
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quent or feebleminded child during the 1920s as well as the focus on early environmental and
character influences directed the Memorial and its institutes toward devising developmental
norms for understanding what constituted a normal child and for improving rearing practices
(Ossmer, 2020).
However, until Woolley’s arrival in New York in September 1926, neither the ICWR nor
the Clinic had a clearly articulated research program: under Caldwell’s direction between
1924 and 1925, the ICWR attempted “initial effort[s]” directed to “discover the types of work
in which future years may best be spent” (Caldwell, 1925, p. 47). As a result, during its first 2
years, the Institute only carried out exploratory projects. These were mostly individual studies
on maladjusted children, on the relation between home environment and pupil maladjustment
in schools, and on language learning; by mid-1926 only one of those studies had been pub-
lished (Woolley, 1926).
As a distinct activity or “facility” at the ICWR, the Clinic initially encompassed two sepa-
rate, operative spaces: two nursery schools, and a service clinic for spontaneous or referred
clinical examinations. Both were intended for research and training purposes: “The chief
function of the Educational Clinic at the outset was compiling research material. Such [clini-
cal] service as is necessary for research purposes was included in the legitimate function of
the Clinic” (Caldwell, 1925, p. 48). The two nursery schools at the ICWR were first estab-
lished in October 1925 (Child Development Institute, 1934).14 Described in official leaflets as
“a demonstration of a typical all-day nursery school,” the Institute’s nursery school aimed to
provide fieldwork and research opportunities to graduate students at both the Institute and
Teachers College.15
The nursery school provided opportunities for the education and intensive study of the
social and psychological aspects of the lives of children between 2 and 4 years of age.16
Regarding the educational clinic proper, ever since it started operating in the fall of 1924 it
was open to any agency or individual who sought help in connection with “problem” children
from 2 to 18 years of age whose issues were not “obviously medical in nature” (Cunningham,
1927, p. 815).

13
Staff of the Institute of Child Welfare Research, 1925, pp. 1–3. WRC.
14
The nurseries predated Woolley’s arrival at Teachers College, contrary to what is stated by Harvey and
Ogilvie (2000a).
15
Nursery Education in the Child Development Institute, 1933, p. 2, WRC.
16
Release on the Institute of Child Welfare Research, July, 1925, p. 2, WRC.
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 331

From their inception, both the nursery school and the educational clinic were perceived as
supplementary activities with different provinces. While they both trained child experts, the
nursery school trained mostly teachers, while the educational clinic trained clinical psycholo-
gists. The nursery school provided a laboratory for demonstrating and practicing child care,
treatment, and reeducation of behavior problems, while the educational clinic guided children
and parents and helped them change home environments, usually through outside agencies.
In other words, the clinic aimed at training scholars in clinical research and service, not at
demonstrating child caring procedures. Methods of analysis and case follow-up were also dif-
ferent. Regarding sample sizes, the number of children in the nursery school was limited: as
such, the clinic “adds to the number of cases, extends the age range, and adds variety to the
problems studied” (Cunningham, 1927, p. 818), even acting as an experimental control group
for studies aiming to assess nursery school procedures. And although they were supplemen-
tary activities, administratively the nursery school was initially defined as a part of the clinic
and its activities, the former being defined as “really a part of the Clinic in that it affords op-
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portunity for child study under controlled conditions.”17 This vision was the backbone of the
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ICWR’s program from 1924 to early 1926.

The Clinic’s staff, its Committee, and supervised graduate students were in charge of the
“scientific examinations” administered to every child at both the nursery school and the
Clinic. These examinations involved an initial physical and medical examination by the pedi-
atrician, a regular check on physical growth, a daily inspection by a nurse for prevention of
communicable diseases, a nursing service if needed, experimental psychological tests at the
entrance and after 6 months, skilled management, training and modification of behavior, pos-
ture examinations, and dietary studies (Child Development Institute, 1929; Teachers College,
1930). These examinations provided data on five developmental fields: physical growth of
the children, formation and breaking of habits, the psychology of emotions, fears and mental
sets, the developing activities of children (such as play and speech) and the parents’ care of
the child.
The Clinic policy as contained in the first administrative draft explicitly stated that gradu-
ate students would be “used generously with advantage to themselves and to the clinic.”18
The dynamic of seizing upon available students for clinical work was underlined even by the
authorities at College, who were anxious to take advantage of the installations at the ICWR.
The College’s own Dean, James Russell, insisted that the Educational Clinic and its nursery
schools should make “still more extensive use of students in training than the plan as yet
seems to include.”19 In his correspondence to director Caldwell, Russell argued that both
institutions could benefit from a close collaboration: students needed experience, training and
cooperation in investigations, and the Institute needed people to take care of its many services
and activities. Russell even appealed directly to the clinic’s Committee to stimulate students’
participation and cooperation.20
Russell’s anxiety echoed the Clinic’s own opinion and needs: during its first year the
Clinic found “needs greatly in excess of its capacity to meet them” (Caldwell, 1925, p. 48).
Indeed, as already mentioned the chief function of the Clinic was the compilation of research
materials for scientific and training purposes. To compile such materials, the Clinic had to
provide clinical services (individual psychological examinations). However, in a period of a
few months, from around January to May 1925, the Clinic had conducted thorough studies of

17
Institute of Child Welfare Research. Tentative Draft of Organization and Administration, 1924, p. 4, WRC.
18
Institute of Child Welfare Research. Tentative Draft of Organization and Administration, 1924, p. 4, WRC.
19
Letter from O. W. Caldwell to the Lincoln School Staff, July 27, 1925, p. 1, WRC.
20
Letter from O. W. Caldwell to James Russell, August 6, 1925, p. 1, WRC.
 332 FIERRO

75 clinical cases, at a rate of four cases per week: a rather considerable number for a staff of
seven people. This high amount could be explained by the fact that by 1925 there were
approximately 11 million people in the New York State, but only 24 psychological clinics in
the State besides the College’s (Boyakin, 1926).
Most of the clinic’s cases were male children between 2- and 7-years-old, but one out of
every five was 10 years old or older, with some reaching 14, 15, and 18 years of age. While
some of these kids had been referred by the College’s staff, such as Leta Hollingworth and
Josephine Kenyon, those cases amounted to less than 10% of the sample. Instead, more than
three quarters of the cases had reached the Clinic independently or had been referred either
by the New York Diet Kitchen or by a New York teacher. The Clinic quickly became known
in the city, especially to the members of the public school system.
Children at the clinic were first submitted to physical and medical evaluations. They were
then tested for intelligence. The reasons for reference, described in Table 1, illustrate the type
and range of issues the Clinic attempted to study and correct toward 1925. Most children had
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been reported as unruly, “nervous,” maladjusted or ill-behaved: the “problem children”

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amounted to more than two thirds of the sample. Children brought to the clinic because they
were “bright” or gifted, or because they lacked proper progress in school, were minimal.
“The entire range of child problems” was included in the sample (Cunningham, 1927, p.
815), allowing training in various psychological issues.
Intelligence testing was a cornerstone of clinical psychology in the 1920s (Benjamin,
2005). Columbia’s clinic was no exception, and until 1926 it focused on assessing mental de-
velopment through cross-sectional research on intelligence in normal children according to
age differences. However, research was soon hindered by several issues. A first issue

Table 1
Reasons for Reference of Children at the Institute for Child Welfare Research Psycho-Educational
Clinic, 1925
Reason for reference Amount Percentage
Unruly 14 13.7
Tantrums 12 11.76%
Interested in general rating 12 11.76%
Not making proper progress in school 9 8.8%
Problems of adjustment to group 8 7.8%
Bright 7 6.8%
“Nervous” 7 6.8%
Special problems of sleep 4 3.9%
Physical 4 3.9%
Masturbation 3 2.9%
Fears 3 2.9%
Reading disability 2 1.9%
Reported spelling disability 2 1.9%
Speech problems 2 1.9%
Twitching and manifesting nervousness of that type 2 1.9%
Cannot concentrate 2 1.9%
Vocational guidance 2 1.9%
Steals 2 1.9%
Does not want to group up 1 0.98%
Problem of adoption 1 0.98%
Problem of day dreaming 1 0.98%
Incorrigible in school 1 0.98%
Speaking and hearing child of deaf parents 1 0.98%
Jealous of mother 1 0.98%
Total 102 99.9%
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 333

stemmed from the lack of a clear definition of what normal meant. During the 1920s health
workers defined normal in terms of the absence of illness, but social reformers and philan-
thropists could not work with such a definition (Ossmer, 2020). The research-driven techni-
ques for improving children’s care and rearing that interested the philanthropists would be
efficient only insofar they were rooted in research data that resembled the majority of the pop-
ulation. Thus, executives at the LSRM first defined normal children as those who were
socially representative: normality was not only a clinical but also a statistical matter. How-
ever, leading researchers in child psychology admitted that until scientific research had estab-
lished norms of child development and a range of usual deviations neither parents nor
scientists could judge the progress of the children: in Carl Seashore’s terms, “nobody knows
what constitutes a normal child” (1915; cited in Smuts, 2006, p. 126). And how was one to
find a normal sample to build developmental norms if one did not know what a normal sam-
ple was?
As a way out of this circular dilemma, psychologists abandoned any attempt at a theoreti-
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cal definition of what normal meant and, as the Memorial itself did, they placed the emphasis
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“on the average child” in the sense of “middle-class children” (Smuts, 2006, p. 158). The av-
erage child meant the aggregate child, which resulted from tabulating variations as they were
present in the whole range of the relevant individuals. Consequently, normal research clearly
required a varied, representative sample to work on. This led to “dragnet” research practices:
the attempt to obtain representative samples by including almost every nonill child available.
This, however, led to a second issue: how exactly to achieve such representativeness?
The Columbia clinic’s initial research on intelligence clearly reflects this dilemma: the
sample that had reached the clinic in 1925 was statistically problematic. First, as reconstructed
in Figure 1, the intelligence ratings did not exactly fit into the expected normal curve: there
were many more superior children and markedly fewer inferior children than expected. But

Figure 1
Percentage Distribution of 71 Clinical Cases at Columbia’s Psycho-Educational
Clinic According to Intelligence (IQ) as Measured by the Stanford-Binet and as
Compared With the Expected Normal Statistical Distribution, 1925

Note. Actual cases (in percentage) are represented by the blue bars and the red frequency
polygon. The black line represents the approximate statistical normal distribution as recon-
structed by the data on the distribution of school children tested with the Stanford-Binet by
Lewis Terman and provided by Leta Hollingworth in The Psychology of Subnormal Children
(MacMillan, 1921, p. 7). See the online article for the color version of this figure.
 334 FIERRO

Figure 2
Percentage Distribution of Clinical Cases According to Intelligence (IQ) as
Measured by the Stanford-Binet at Teachers College’s Psycho-Educational Clinic
(Red) and at Clinics in the New York State as According to Boyakin (1926) (Blue),
1925–1926
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This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

Note. See the online article for the color version of this figure.

the sample not only contrasted with the theoretical normal distribution: it also differed from
the actual distribution of the children in the New York, as illustrated in Figure 2. While
around 25% of the Clinic’s subjects had an IQ of 94 or less, around 73% of the children of
the State had an equivalent IQ (Boyakin, 1926). So, the Clinic received less than one-sixth
the expected number of “feebleminded” and more than six times the amount of “bright” or
“superior” children than other New York State clinics.
This meant that the cases that reached the Clinic in its initial 1924–1925 effort to compile
research material for scientific research were not representative of the New York population:
in terms of the ICWR’s director, the intelligence ratings “represent a group that is better than
average” (Caldwell, 1925, p. 50). The children were normal in a psychological sense—they
lacked clear, overt mental defects. But they were not normal in a statistical sense because
they did not adjust to either a theoretical (Gaussian) normal distribution or to New York’s
real, empirically verified distribution. Given that the sample did not reflect the reality and va-
riety of New York children, any research drawn from it would not be valid. After a thorough
selection, only one of every three children brought to the clinic was found “useful for pro-
longed research” (Caldwell, 1925, p. 50). As a result, the staff recognized the need “to devise
means of obtaining fully representative children” (Caldwell, 1925, p. 50). I analyze these
means in the next section.
Intelligence testing was but one part of the research process at the Clinic. Physical and
psychological examinations led the staff to discover physical handicaps in children who had
been previously regarded as sound, or corroborated the existence of previously noted undesir-
able, concrete behaviors such as masturbation or “twitching.” Therapeutic and remedial rec-
ommendations corrected handicaps and undesirable behaviors for about 90% of the children
during the clinics’ first year (Caldwell, 1925). Finally, all these numerous cases needed follow
ups. Already in its founding draft the Institute had admitted that few North American psycho-
logical clinics, if any, were equipped “to follow up studied cases and make the service valua-
ble for examiner and examinee alike.”21 Such follow up, however, was essential for assessing
the validity of diagnoses and the effectiveness of the therapeutic procedures; it was also
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 335
22
essential to modify, redirect, or adjust the treatment if needed. Graduate students were
employed for this aim. As revealed by archival sources, the Clinic had initially hired psychol-
ogist Helena Stewart as an associate in charge of the case records and the follow-ups.23 How-
ever, by late 1925 it had become evident that one person was not able to handle the full
workload, and following Russell’s aforementioned recommendation students were used for
following up the cases. From 1925 to 1926, 21 graduate students followed a case each as an
assignment for their courses. Thus, by the time Carl Rogers enrolled at Columbia, graduate
students at the College were seen as key resources at the Clinic, especially in conducting fol-
low-ups.24

From Religion to Clinical Psychology: The Psycho-Educational Clinic as a

Laboratory During Rogers’ Studies

Intending to become a minister, Carl Rogers began his graduate studies at New York’s Union
Theological Seminary (UTS) in 1924. Initially defining it as an “incredibly free” institution
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(Rogers & Russell, 2002, p. 86), Rogers found the UTS had an implicit but effective psycho-
logical dimension: its offered courses involved basic reflections on topics such as group dy-
namics, personality, and learning. Several of Rogers’ instructors such as Harrison Elliot and
Goodwin Watson were Teachers College faculty and published on learning, personality and
education, while several other psychiatrists and psychologists often lectured at the Seminary.
In settings such as the UTS, pastoral care and religious guidance often overlapped with edu-
cational psychology and clinical counseling (Nicholson, 1994). At the UTS Rogers acquired
“a real acquaintance with the range of psychological and personal problems which exist in
the ordinary community” (Rogers, 1971; cited in Kirschenbaum, 2007, p. 46).
Rogers acknowledged the influence of Columbia faculty at the UTS. From 1925 to early
1926 he also took courses at Columbia’s Teachers College on the philosophy of education
and clinical psychology from William Kilpatrick and Leta Hollingworth, respectively. The
College allowed nonmatriculated students to attend, although in this case they were not
regarded as candidates for a degree or a diploma (Teachers College, 1926b).
Rogers soon found independent thinking incompatible with religion, even its most liberal
branches, and came close to a religious crisis. By 1926 he started to reject belief as a prerequi-
site for belonging to a professional group: he stated that “religious work became less attrac-
tive” and he felt “a little bit phony” when working in religious settings (Rogers & Russell,
2002, p. 93). Through psychology work at the UTS he realized that “one could do the kind of
thing that I was drawn to, namely, helping people to change [. . .] [helping them to] grow, de-
velop, live more satisfying and better lives. That didn’t have to be done in a church” (Rogers
& Russell, 2002, p. 89).
After 2 years at the UTS, the 24-year-old Rogers permanently left the seminary, enrolled
at Columbia and began his formal, full time graduate studies there in the fall of 1926. He
began his Winter session classes on September 23, 1926, attending both the Winter session
(September 1926 – February 1927) and the Spring session (February 1927 – June 1927;
Teachers College, 1926a). He received his MA degree on Teachers College’s

21
Institute of Child Welfare Research. Tentative Draft of Organization and Administration, 1924, p. 4, WRC.
22
Follow-ups were also crucial as longitudinal research methodology for obtaining developmental norms;
however, Columbia’s institute did not aim at developing such norms until late 1926: see next section.
23
Staff of the Institute of Child Welfare Research, 1925, p. 2, WRC.
24
During its first year of existence, the Clinic was used as a model for other similar ventures in North-
America: see Letter from W. Blatz to L. Frank, March 5, 1925, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial records,
“Appropriations – Child Study and Parent Education” Collection, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow,
NY, United States.
 336 FIERRO

Commencement Day, June 1, 1927 (Fackenthal, 1932).25 Thus, Rogers’ activities at the Col-
lege developed between September 1926 and around May 1927, his arrival matching the psy-
cho-educational clinic’s second operative year.
Rogers’ arrival coincided with a reorganization of both the ICWR and the Clinic. First, in
1926 the ICWR along with the clinic and both nursery schools were relocated to the remod-
eled Speyer School building in Manhattan, shown in Figure 3. The new building provided
better facilities and resources for the Institute’s staff: as shown in more detail in Figure 4, the
building’s original structure included classrooms, kindergarten space, dining rooms, and sev-
eral studies. This is where Rogers trained and worked.
More important, beginning in February 1926 Woolley’s administration modified the orig-
inal work scheme at the Institute. While up to 1926 the nursery school had been a component
of the educational clinic, Woolley now placed the nursery school on an equal standing with
the Clinic. In her first annual report as director of the ICWR, Woolley argued she pursued
practical aims—the training of leaders in child development—and calling the opening of the
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nursery schools “the most important new development of the Institute” (Woolley, 1926, p.
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43). Second, and in line with the LSRM’s aims, Woolley devised a new program for the Insti-
tute, centered on “studies of various phases of the life of the preschool child, and in the
closely related field of parental education” (Woolley, 1926, p. 41). Woolley’s broader policy
regarding the entire Institute stressed practice, training, and service in child development and
parent education rather than research. While research was pursued at the Institute, it was
deemed as a secondary function, subsidiary to the training in child development, and mostly
relegated to the Clinic (Woolley, 1929, p. 51). Also under Woolley’s direction, the staff at the
nursery schools was expanded and doubled the Clinic’s; moreover, the former’s budget was
expanded and greatly surpassed the latter’s.26
Two further changes were introduced in 1926. Regarding the Clinic’s internal function-
ing, in early 1926 the responsibility for clinical examinations was transferred from the Clini-
cal Committee to the regularly appointed staff members and to graduate students
(Cunningham, 1927). The decentralization boosted the clinic’s autonomy regarding research
and training practices, although some members of the original Clinical Committee such as
Hollingworth and Cunningham kept using the Clinic as a laboratory for their own students.
Second, Woolley made the aim of the Clinic to secure sets of developmental norms and stud-
ies on child psychology, directing the Clinic to stress longitudinal research rather than treat-
ment (Woolley, 1926). Indeed, by early 1927 the securing of those norms was defined as the
“chief task” of the clinic (Anonymous, 1927, p. 634). But considering both the nonrepresenta-
tive nature of the spontaneous sample that had reached the Clinic toward 1925 and the diffi-
culty of following-up with so many children, the staff quickly changed their modus operandi.
As a measure to extend routine clinical services to unselected (representative) normal chil-
dren, from 1926 onward the Clinic did not accept and study cases as they were spontaneously
referred. Instead, it encouraged mothers to bring their normal children from 1 to 3 years of
age to the Clinic. The staff then selected, assessed and decided which cases it would study,
aiming at achieving a balanced, representative sample.27
To develop psychological norms, each child in the Clinic’s nursery school was subjected
to a systematic study by the staff, including two medical examinations and at least one

25
Recent accounts (Brady-Amoon, 2012; Castelo Branco, 2019) have erroneously claimed that Rogers
obtained his MA in 1928.
26
Salaries and Expenses for the Institute of Child Welfare Research, 1925–1926, 1926, WRC.
27
This made Columbia one of the very few clinics which studied babies and 1-year-olds during the 1920s, the
other notable exception being Yale’s psycho-clinic (Smuts, 2006).
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 337

Figure 3
The Speyer School Building in 1906
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Note. In 1926 the Institute of Child Welfare Research (ICWR), along-

side with its nursery schools and the educational clinic, was relocated to
the building. The American Architect and Building News, 89 (1582),
p. 147. In the public domain.

complete psychological examination. A nutritional record was kept for each child, while stu-
dents retrieved children’s developmental history and family background through inter-
views. A total of 75 one-year-old babies and a smaller number of 2 and 3-year-olds
were examined in 1926–1927. For approximately half of the children, graduate students
and research fellows conducted complete personality studies, studying individual differ-
ences and behavior patterns among the infants. Because only half of the examined chil-
dren fell within the limits of healthy weight, the staff provided dietary and behavioral
instructions to parents to improve the children’s situations, and applied therapeutic
reeducation for correcting bad eating habits and undesirable social reactions. Follow
 338 FIERRO

Figure 4
Building Plans for the Speyer School
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Note. The building had four floors specifically designed for managing the education of young children. The
American Architect and Building News, 89 (1582), p. 139. In the public domain.

ups after 6 months allowed to both assess changes in children’s physical and psycholog-
ical health and gather further developmental data.
As mentioned above, in 1926 Woolley relegated the research function to both the nursery
school and the clinic. However, the latter still functioned as a training hub for psychologists.
Parallel to the research program on psychological norms, starting in 1926 the Clinic main-
tained a “small service clinic” (Anonymous, 1927, p. 633) one afternoon a week “chiefly to
meet the demands of advanced students for clinical experience” (Woolley, 1926, pp. 42–43).
Indeed, from 1925 to early 1926 such demand had kept growing and, according to Woolley,
had not been adequately provided for. Toward 1926, at least five different courses involved
practice at the Institute: Hollingworth’s clinical psychology course, Pintner’s major course on
mental and educational tests, Woolley’s course on mental development of the preschool child,
Cunningham and Ruth Andrus’ course on clinical child welfare research, and the collective
course on research in child development that Woolley taught with the staff of the Institute. To
meet student demand, between 1926 and 1927 the Clinic was to be used “by students of child
psychology” (Woolley, 1926, p. 43), being defined as a “laboratory facilit[y] for practice as
well as minor research” (Andrus, 1927, p. 48). It was in this “laboratory” where Rogers
started his training a clinical psychologist. But what did the activities at the laboratory entail?
Although during the 1920s clinical psychologists focused on assessment, their role was
largely limited to administering and scoring the tests, especially at those clinics directed by
psychiatrists. Clinical psychologists could not interpret the test results, turn them into diagno-
ses and recommend some kind of treatment: this was only acceptable “in some settings”
(Benjamin, 2005, p. 13). Columbia was one of those exceptions. Director Cunningham
argued that the first essentials of clinical procedure included “interview[s] with parents, psy-
chological tests, standard and experimental, health examinations, anthropometric measure-
ments, tests of gross motor coordination and analysis of diet” (Cunningham, 1927, p. 816).
Graduate education in clinical and child psychology at the Clinic was organized accordingly,
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 339

the course of study involving psychological testing, casework and suggestions for treatment.
Each graduate student was first assigned to a “problem child.” The student then arranged for
the necessary physical and psychological examinations of the child. They then conducted
these examinations under the supervision of psychologists and physicians (the supervision
scheme was changed in 1927: see below). Students then interviewed children and parents and
visited school and homes to gather observational data. Afterward, the results of the psycho-
logical examinations were integrated with the information contained in available case records.
Students then presented their cases for group discussion. All students took part in the staff dis-
cussion of cases: the fact that the specialized contribution of each student was considered in
the light of findings from other areas and other scholars fostered an interdisciplinary approach
to clinical phenomena. Students then made recommendations for treatment. Finally, they con-
ducted follow-ups, visiting the children’s homes, assessing the reach of their recommenda-
tions and reporting on the progress of their cases.
By 1926 Rogers was seeking training in “helping individuals,” but shunned dogma and
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restrictive environments: in his own terms, he “wanted to find a field in which I could be sure
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my freedom of thought would not be limited” (Rogers, 1967, p. 355). He found Columbia a
very congenial setting. Leta Hollingworth’s “Clinical Psychology” course that Rogers
attended during the Winter session of 1926 was one of the courses that used the Clinic as a
training laboratory, and clearly enacted what Rogers seems to have been looking for. Holling-
worth’s was the only specific course on clinical psychology at the College, and possibly Rog-
ers’ most training-oriented course: it functioned as an advanced, invite-only course consisting
of “lectures, readings and supervised case studies” that aimed to “teach case-taking to stu-
dents intending to become professional psychologists” (Hollingworth, 1926, p. 37). Holling-
worth must have seen Rogers’ initial aptitudes and aims as satisfactory enough as to invite
him to attend.
By 1926, Leta Hollingworth had one of the longest and richest careers among Amer-
ican psychologists, even by the highest professional standards (e.g., Wallin, 1919b).
She had had first-hand contact with practically every stage of psychological develop-
ment, from newborns to adults, in university, hospital, and school settings (Klein,
2001). She had conducted hundreds of clinical examinations (Hollingworth, 1943). Last
but not least Hollingworth was, in Wallin’s (1914a) terms, “temperamentally adapted
for the work” (p. 114). Technical knowledge was not enough in clinical psychology: a
true clinical psychologist had to be “genial, friendly [and] sympathetic” (Wallin, 1914a,
p. 114) to pacify the nervous children and incite the timid ones. It was Hollingworth’s
“humane’ dimension that most struck Rogers during his graduate studies. He qualified
her as a concerned, “warm, rather motherly sort” and as a humane scientist: although
she was “a competent research worker” (Rogers, 1967, p. 355), she was “primarily a
person relating to a person” (Rogers & Russell, 2002, p. 92).
Hollingworth designed her clinical psychology course in accordance with her decades-
long professional experience. The clinical psychologist had to be trained to render “individu-
alized instruction” to his or her subjects, which in turn required recognizing and assessing
individual differences (Hollingworth, 1921, p. 224). She also argued that clinical work (exam-
ination, testing, and assessment) with real subjects was of utmost importance for the training
of clinical psychologists (Hollingworth, 1926). Consequently, students at her course had a
special, 2-hr weekly slot for participation in clinical work at the psycho-educational clinic. As
Hollingworth’s graduate student Rogers and his fellow students acted as observers, both of
children’s behavior and of the professional activities of the staff. They also acted as student
assistants in tasks such as registering behavior, administering basic tests, interpreting data,
 340 FIERRO

and discussing cases. It was through this small, purely clinical slot left by Woolley’s policy
that Rogers came to psychology as an examiner of individual children as clinical cases.
The Clinic resorted not only to intelligence but also to aptitude, performance, and
achievement tests in line with the nationwide diversification of clinicians’ interests and com-
petences (Napoli, 1981). The children at the Clinic were usually examined through a fixed
battery consisting in tests such as the Kuhlmann revision of the Binet scale, the Merrill-
Palmer performance and ability tests, Gesell’s development tests, Goodenough’s drawing
test, and Van Alstyne’s picture vocabulary test.28 Training in these tests was provided by
courses taught at the College and at the ICWR. Rogers attended both: he took Pintner’s, Cun-
ningham’s, and Ruth Andrus’ courses among others.29 Pintner’s courses on mental testing,
for instance, emphasized training in “the most useful tests, such as the Binet and Performance
Scales, Group, Mental, and all kinds of educational tests [. . .] with as much practice as possi-
ble” (Pintner & Spence, 1926, p. 40). In these courses Rogers was trained in both the theory
and the administration of a wide array of tests beyond the Binet-Simon.
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During the fall of 1926, Rogers was assigned a case-study from the Clinic in Hollin-
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worth’s practicum. Rogers administered several psychometric tests to children, conducted

lengthy interviews with both children and their parents, and wrote a thorough, systematic
analysis from a psychological standpoint (Rogers, 1971; as cited by Kirschenbaum, 2007, p.
53). However, statistics were only part of the work. As mandated by both his training and his
professors, Rogers was concerned not just about quantitative aggregates or test scores but
mainly about the individual him or herself: tests were only means to an end, the end itself
being to understand and to help the children. Through its institutes the LSRM had aimed at
seeing the child as a whole: that is, as a complex object of study and not “as one more source
of data, as academics [had] used rats or fruit flies to pursue their own narrow interests”
(Smuts, 2006, p. 158). This required in-depth, longitudinal analysis through multiple methods
and in different contexts. Rogers enacted the Memorial’s agenda, emphasizing the children’s
singularity as distinct from animal subjects: when describing his practicum, Rogers stated that
he not only tested the child but also talked to him, dealt with him as a fascinating object of
study, and “help[ed] to make plans for [his] welfare” (Rogers, 1967, p. 355). Working as an
interviewer and psychological examiner for young children at the clinic, this was Rogers’ first
supervised, formal training in clinical and child psychology in an institutional setting: moving
beyond his previous experiences on religious settings, it was under Hollingworth’s supervi-
sion that he “first came in actual clinical contact with children” (Rogers, 1967, p. 355; empha-
sis in the original). And it was during this experience in the latter half of 1926 when he first
had the idea of devising emotional tests for children for his doctoral dissertation (Rogers,
1931).
In a sense, clinical psychology had first emerged when the experimental technology used
by psychologists and the pedagogical tools used by educators were adapted to diagnostic
ends (Reisman, 1991). Tests produced measurable and comparable results based on perform-
ances and behaviors, and as such allowed circumventing the “inaccessibility of the child”
(Ossmer, 2020, p. 522)—the child’s unsuitability for experimental, introspective psychologi-
cal methods. Testing came to solve the methodological deficiencies of previous child study,
insofar they were “rational scientific techniques of data gathering and analysis” (Varga, 2011,
p. 144). As a result, research and training in psychological tests were central activities at most
psychological clinics. However, there existed the risk of training clinicians only in the basic

28
Letter from L. H. Meek to W. Russell, March 28, 1930, WRC.
29
Carl R. Rogers, “Biographical Sheet,” filled January 9, 1928. Carl R. Rogers papers, Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C., United States (LOC), Box 123, Folder 4.
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 341

rudiments of each test, qualifying them only in administration and scoring. This restricted
role was pejoratively called as “Binet testing” by more seasoned examiners (Wallin, 1919a,
1919b). Indeed, toward the same year Rogers began his training at the Clinic, a survey con-
cluded that there were “very few psychological clinics, as such, in the state of New York
where exhaustive examinations are given” (Boyakin, 1926, p. 405; emphasis added).
Clinical faculty at Teachers College strongly opposed such a restricted role (e.g., Mitchell,
1919). As such, Columbia’s clinic went beyond producing “Binet testers,” favoring a more
systematic, thorough education instead; an education which was championed by virtually ev-
ery one of Rogers’ professors. Clinicians had to be able to conduct “psychological examina-
tions” (Wallin, 1920, p. 116)—integrated, thorough and detailed analyses and interpretations
of the individual’s mental, behavioral, and attitudinal habits. The psychologist had to use myr-
iad tests (intelligence, psycho-motor, mental, educational, anthropometric, attitudinal, and
performance) to obtain a complete picture of the subject. It was through the application of
such tests that trainees such as Rogers came in close contact with individual children in their
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full, real dimensions.

Besides Hollingworth and Pintner, this “enlarged” program for clinical psychology was
also upheld by Ruth Andrus, another central figure at the Clinic and one of Rogers’ profes-
sors. Andrus had obtained her PhD at the College in 1924 with a dissertation on the invention
of an inventory of the habits of children from 2 to 5 years of age (Andrus, 1924). In 1925 she
was appointed lecturer in kindergarten and first-grade education, and put in charge of the
course on measurement and experimentation in the kindergarten and first grade, previously
taught by Cunningham. Under Andrus, the course now included “the fundamentals of test
construction” (Andrus, 1925, p. 43) and required the development of new test materials. The
following year, Andrus was appointed by Woolley as director of the program of parental edu-
cation at the Institute. Starting in 1926, Andrus also taught a course on research on children
in kindergarten and first grade, which emphasized methodological training for researchers. In
November 1926, Andrus was promoted to assistant professor of education.30 By January
1927 director Woolley had suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized for the
entire year. Andrus was immediately appointed by Dean Russell as acting director of the
Institute and promoted to associate professor of education.31 She also replaced Woolley in
her four courses on child development, mental development, young childhood, and behavior
problems. Thus, Andrus was in charge of the Institute during Rogers’ studies in 1927.
Under Andrus, the Institute continued to serve as a place for clinical instruction and
research. During the academic year 1926–1927, 295 students of Teachers College conducted
observations at the nursery school and the Clinic, while 226 students took classes in “Mental
Development,” “Research in Child Development,” and “Mental Testing of the Young Child.”
As described by unpublished reports, between 1926 and 1927 and under Cunningham’s
supervision the Clinic served as a laboratory for the training of twenty-three students in clini-
cal psychology, Rogers being one of them.32 The year 1927 also marked the first time the
College granted masters’ degrees with majors in child development, and the first time matric-
ulation examinations for doctorates working at the Institute were offered. Rogers belonged to
the first group, receiving one of the three MA’s that involved work at the ICWR. Indeed,
from March to May 1927 he explored his original idea from 1926 and tested children 5- to 7-

30
Ruth Andrus Academic Appointments, 1928. CIA.
31
Letter from J. Russell to R. Andrus, January 21, 1927. WRC.
32
Ruth Andrus, Report of the Institute of Child Welfare Research for the Year 1926–1927 for the Laura
Spelman Rockefeller Memorial (unpublished report), 1927. WRC.
 342 FIERRO

years-old on both word-association and reactions to success and failure with the general aim
of devising a useful method for measuring children’s attitudes.33
During the following year, and still under Andrus’ direction, clinical activities at the Insti-
tute kept expanding. From June 1927 to June 1928, 67 students, several of whom were major-
ing in psychology, had a total of 3.015 clock hours of practical experience in the nursery
school—a 65% increase regarding the previous year (Andrus, 1928). The nursery schools
were again used as a laboratory for student observation during 1.364 hr. During these hours,
students conducted thorough physical and psychological examinations: special emphasis was
placed on diagnosing and improving children’s postures, sleeping and eating habits, and
behavior difficulties. However, Andrus acknowledged that children enrolled at the nursery
schools were still not statistically representative: most of them were only children of parents
who held university or college degrees. Regarding mental ability, 71% of the children ranked
in the 98th percentile of the normal distribution for the general population. Thus, they still
comprised a select group. In any case, students in clinical psychology had a steady group of
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subjects for practice and research activities. The reported number of clock hours of clinical
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practice suggests that from 1926 to 1928 each graduate student in clinical psychology, Rogers
among them, had at least between 41 and 45 hr of practical experience annually in clinical
observation, examination and diagnosis. For comparison purposes, expert clinical examiners
devoted an average of 1.5 hr to the analysis and diagnosis of each of their cases (Wallin,
1914b).
Other initiatives furthered the students’ status as training clinicians. Beginning in January
1927, and under Andrus’ tenure as the Institute’s acting director, Cunningham reorganized
the nursery school, enabling psychologists themselves to conduct psychological examinations
supervised only by the Institute’s director, herself a clinical psychologist.34 Trainees did not
need the physician’s supervision or guidance when testing children: a change that furthered
psychologists’ self-determination and autonomy. Under Cunningham and Andrus, Rogers
was subjected to this new policy when conducting further testing with research purposes at
the clinic from March to May 1927.
In her yearly report as director of the Institute for the year 1927, Andrus argued that the
training of the professional worker in Child Development demanded “intensive work in a
wide variety of laboratory situations” (Andrus, 1927, p. 49). To Andrus, advanced students
“should have the opportunity to participate in, not merely observe, the many phases of work
at the Institute”: this meant they “should be permitted to act as laboratory assistants in this
manner” and should be directed toward some “degree of specialization” (Andrus, 1927, p.
49). She and Cunningham would apply this work scheme to their course on clinical child wel-
fare research—that Rogers took—where students selected problems through clinics or nurs-
ery schools, conducted research and casework, and followed up special clinic cases (Andrus
& Cunningham, 1926). Toward 1927, Teachers College’s graduate students such as Rogers
participated in staff meetings and discussions, debated research methods, conducted inter-
views and psychological examinations, developed and applied new tests, trained in actual
research, conducted casework, recommended treatment options, and were in charge of follow
ups. In other words, they pursued studies in all three “aims” of clinical examinations: classifi-
cation, prescription, and prognosis (Wallin, 1919a). The reach of such education is reflected
in the portrayal of the clinician in the Institute’s official policy: along with the doctor, the
nurse, the social worker, and the nutritionist, the psychologist was one of the listed experts

33
Carl R. Rogers, Outline of Dissertation, October 17, 1927. LOC, Box 41, Folder 6.
34
Letter from B. V. Cunningham to W. F. Russell, January 26, 1927. WRC.
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 343

“ready to be consulted by the parent and to give his best judgment about the child” (Child De-
velopment Institute, 1929, p. 7).
In May 1927, Rogers and other clinical psychology students who had carried out research
under staff supervision reported their work to the Institute (Andrus, 1927). On June 1, 1927,
Rogers was awarded the master’s degree. Three months later he submitted the outline of his
intended doctoral dissertation to Teachers College, with Hollingworth and Andrus as mem-
bers of the dissertation committee.35 Immediately after, Rogers won a fellowship for the year
1927–1928 at the Commonwealth Fund’s Institute for Child Guidance, and completed his
doctoral work through his internship there. By 1928 Rogers’ research plan was singled out by
Woolley’s yearly review of the ICWR as one of the two doctoral dissertations at the College
that “promise[d] interest” (Woolley, 1929, p. 57). However, by June 1927 Rogers’ tenure at
the Institute’s clinic was effectively over.

The Varieties of Clinical Experience: Dissolution, Reabsorption, and

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Reorganization, 1928–1935
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Rogers reached the ICWR in a very peculiar and even unique moment in its history: a tempo-
rary configuration that quickly shifted as soon as he had finished his work there. Just weeks
after Rogers had been awarded his MA in June 1927, Hollingworth took a year’s leave of ab-
sence. Cunningham also took a leave from her post as supervisor of the Clinic (Andrus,
1927), the impact of her absence reflected in the fact that there was no mention of the educa-
tional clinic either in the official 1928 report (Andrus, 1928) or in following unpublished
reports.36 Cunningham and Hollingworth comprised two-fifths of the Clinic Advisory Com-
mittee, so their absence undoubtedly affected executive decisions; in a methodological sense,
their leaving also undermined the principles of uniformity, continuity, and “naturalness” that
were crucial to child development research and that were guaranteed by the constancy and
temporal permanence of researchers themselves (Ossmer, 2020). Also during 1928, high
enrollments at the ICWR tied with the Institute’s “already excessively limited space” pre-
vented several courses such as Cunningham’s from making use of the nursery school, hinder-
ing the students’ first-hand contact with children.37
The College’s psycho-educational clinic was perceived as an irreplaceable venture (Cun-
ningham, 1927, p. 818). However, as suggested by both published and unpublished reports, it
slowly ceased operating and was quietly replaced by both the nursery school and a new psy-
chological clinic established at Columbia’s psychology department. In late 1929, Goodwin
Watson, Rogers’ doctoral sponsor, approached the ICWR, now renamed as the “Child Devel-
opment Institute” (CDI), with a plan to develop a clinic in the College’s psychology depart-
ment (Meek, 1930). Watson requested an office, examination rooms, and a conference room.
The CDI complied, further providing the new clinic with social workers, medical services,
nutritionists, and psychologists for preschool children; thus, effectively transferring most of
its resources to Watson’s clinic.38 The “Consultation Clinic” started operating in the fall of
1930, with Watson as its director.
Although the CDI described it as a clinic for the study of problems of children, the scope
of Watson’s clinic was far broader: it provided individual help both to young children and

35
Carl R. Rogers, Diagnostic tests of emotional conflict in children, 1927, LOC, Box 41, Folder 6.
36
Report of the Institute of Child Welfare Research, 1928. WRC.
37
H. B. T. Woolley, Report of the Institute of Child Welfare Research (unpublished manuscript), 1928: 1.
WRC.
38
Cooperation and Inter-Relations with Other Departments of the University, 1933. WRC.
 344 FIERRO

parents regarding their everyday psychological and emotional problems. The scope of service
included all ages from preschool children through college and adult life, although the Center
still stressed that it was “not for the parent with a child who is an extreme behavior problem
and who [should] be taken to a clinic” (Anonymous, 1930a, p. 372).
The Consultation Center quickly attracted most of the College’s clinically-trained staff.
By October 1930, just 5 months before Rogers obtained his PhD, 43 experts were listed
among the staff and consultants, and more than 30 individuals ranging from 3 to 30 years of
age had applied seeking counsel regarding vocational aptitudes, personality improvement,
choice of schools, and parental reeducation (Anonymous, 1931). Staff members were pooled
together in weekly meetings to discuss each of the individual’s problems: the clinical proce-
dure involved thorough personality assessments to find the “strong points” in the personality
of each subject and carry “through a long period of guidance toward satisfactory adjustment”
(Anonymous, 1930b, p. 201). Lengthy follow ups were conducted to “keep a check on [the]
patients for years to make sure the cure is permanent” (Anonymous, 1932, p. 1).
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In early 1933, the Center moved into new quarters in the Teachers College buildings. Ten
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rooms were set up and specially equipped for psychological testing purposes, including a
one-way vision room for observation-based child research. As the boundaries between the
Institute’s and the College’s clinical undertakings blurred, the justification for having two sep-
arate clinics at the same institution weakened. The Center operated as a new, broader and bet-
ter equipped clinical venture: the old Clinic at the CDI had been superseded.
From 1928 onward the CDI continued to provide opportunities for conducting
research in child development and for training in clinical examinations of young chil-
dren, but as an activity strictly under the nursery school. Starting in late 1928, gradu-
ate courses such as Pintner’s and Hollingworth’s entirely dropped any mention of
practical training at the clinic. In 1929, Woolley admitted that her original plan of
establishing developmental norms had been a failure: sample representativeness could
not be achieved because most children’s parents were well educated and had univer-
sity degrees and high incomes (Woolley, 1929). It was recognized the nursery school
“inevitably recruits a set of children who are above average in inheritance and in eco-
nomic resources” (Child Development Institute, 1929, p. 5). In other words, while
child development as a field aimed for normal, average children, Columbia could
mostly offer “superior” children. Even Rogers himself inadvertently contributed to
this “upward” bias by placing his 1-year old firstborn David in one of Columbia’s
nursery schools in 1927—the kid had an IQ of 138 and a mental age of an approxi-
mately 4 years old.39 As a result, the research purpose of the Clinic was eventually
dropped altogether: in 1930, the Institute’s official outline simply mentioned that it
provided clinical service to children in the form of “help and guidance” (Teachers
College, 1930). By early 1933 it was only conducting “a nursery school and a guid-
ance nursery” for children under four (Anonymous, 1933, p. 151).
The overlapping of clinical activities at the Center, at the College and at the Institute
eventually prompted further changes. From 1933 to 1934, the Consultation Center, along
with other psychological and psychiatric services at the College, was reorganized and central-
ized under the new Guidance Laboratory (Brown et al., 1935). Under the direction of Esther
Lloyd-Jones, the integrated laboratory offered diagnostic and clinical teaching, research
opportunities and training in clinical service for graduate students. Regarding the CDI itself,
it ceased operating in 1936; the year the Rockefeller funding ended.

39
Carl R. Rogers, “Psychological Tests - Rogers, David E.,” LOC, Box 4, Folder 8.
 A BACKDROP FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY 345

Conclusion

By 1924, and after several previous failed attempts, institutional innovations backed up by
private philanthropies and the revaluing of Columbia’s clinical faculty allowed for the estab-
lishment of a stable clinic at Teachers College. From 1924 to late 1927 the ICWR managed
successfully to run the clinic while providing research and practice opportunities for its psy-
chology graduates.
Carl Rogers was attracted to Columbia at a time when he strongly valued pluralism, truth
seeking, and freedom of thought in the broader context of his interest in helping real, concrete
individuals. He found what he was looking for: during his 1-year tenure at the Clinic, Rogers
benefited from the intellectually permissive environment advocated by scholars such as Hol-
lingworth, Andrus, and Cunningham. Their courses fostered the kind of concrete and wide,
encompassing experience with real-life subjects that was a necessary condition for training
scholarly, self-determined clinical psychologists. Rogers took part on most of these activities:
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he valued the clinic’s pluralistic and facilitative environment as well as the staff’s experience
and human warmth.
The Clinic, however, showcased uneasy internal dynamics. The venture struggled to fully
achieve its aims from its very inception: albeit focused on normal children, research samples
were not representative of the broader population and hindered research efforts. Moreover,
the clinic’s priorities often switched between research, practice, and clinical service. Although
Rogers capitalized all three functions, at an institutional level such switching led to conflicts
between aims, staff, and resources. Such conflict was in turn a local expression of the
LSRM’s “apparently irreconcilable goals” of training practitioners before any reliable body
of scientific data had become available (Smuts, 2006, p. 154). Toward the end of the clinic’s
third year of existence and soon after Rogers earned his Masters’ degree, its key psychologists
temporarily or permanently left their appointments. The clinic’s staff and resources were
absorbed by the College’s new Consultation Center in 1930 and by the new, centralized
Guidance Laboratory in 1934.
Although a short-lived enterprise, the Institute’s psycho-educational clinic was one of the
few university-based active psycho-educational ventures in the United States in the 1920s. It
provided opportunities for thorough, systematic clinical training and research at the country’s
most influential university in psychology at the time. Regarding Rogers’ particular case, his
own concept of the College as a backdrop for his psychotherapy was quite nuanced and com-
plex, and as such it is difficult to draw definite conclusions about Columbia’s long-term influ-
ence on his whole work. Nonetheless, it is clear that the College’s intellectual and
institutional climate fostered his appreciation of experiential and cognitive learning while
stimulating his intellectual independence. More concretely, the institution put him in contact
with real children, trained him in psychological tests, offered concrete professional role mod-
els and pointed him toward his lifelong concern with human individuality. Rogers’ brief ten-
ure at the clinic had ended by the time he became a fellow at the Institute of Child Guidance
and wrote his doctoral dissertation. However, it was at the College where he originally
became a clinical psychologist.

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Received September 4, 2020

Revision received June 30, 2021
Accepted July 1, 2021 n

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