The Boulder Model: History, rationale, and critique.

Abstract

Although the current philosophy of education in clinical psychology allows for the existence oj a program of training clinical psychologists who primarily want to be practitioners in conjunction with the more traditional scientist-practitioner (Boulder Model) program, departments of psychology have been reticent to adopt two-track programs. Indeed, the controversy as to the heuristic value of the scientist-practitioner program versus the practitioner program continues. The criticism of the Boulder Model is that the rationale for requiring clinical psychology students to learn to do research as well as train to be clinicians was spurious; the Boulder Model trains students as researchers, a role that is incompatible with their interests and abilities. The history of the development of the Boulder Model was reviewed as were the data regarding the personality traits, interests, and abilities of people interested in research versus service work. These data indicate that the objections of the critics are well-founded.