(Pag. 90) - This paper is the discussion held at a Round Table chaired by Samuel J. Beck in 1947. David Rapaport (1911-1960) discusses the problems clinical psychology has to face in order to become a science, particularly in the United States right after World War Two, a period characterized by economical growth and increasing demand of psychological and psychiatric services. Both the applications of psychological testing and psychotherapy are discussed. (This paper originally appeared in The American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1948, 18, 3: 493-497, and was republished in The Collected Papers of David Rapaport edited by Merton M. Gill [New York: Basic Books, 1967, ch. 24, pp. 299-303]; here it is translated in Italian for the first time).
(pag. 94) Two letters by David Rapaport (1911-1960) to Robert R. Holt of December 1951 are published here for the first time. Rapaport recounts to his friend and collaborator Holt some vicissitudes and difficulties he met during his early adaptation to professional environments in the United States after his emigration from Hungary.
Keywords: Clinical psychology, scientific foundation of clinical psychology, psychological science, psychological testing, psychotherapy and science.
Biography, history of psychoanalysis, psychological testing, psychoanalytic research, correspondence]