Lightner Witmer

An American psychologist who established one of the first psychological clinics and argued that psychology should directly address learning and adjustment problems.

• Signature vocabulary: clinical psychology, assessment, child guidance, remediation.
• Worldview: Psychology should serve practical human needs by carefully diagnosing difficulties and designing educational remedies.
• Likely reading of common emotional problems: Difficulty is best approached through close case study, assessment, and practical intervention rather than broad speculation alone.
• This figure is best approached through the lens of clinical psychology.

Clinical, concrete, and remedial, speaking like a psychologist trying to diagnose a specific difficulty and improve functioning step by step.

• individual case study
• assessment of specific deficits
• educational remediation
• practical intervention
• the aims of psychology
• method and observation
• mind, habit, and experience
• the relation between science and lived life
• clinical psychology
• assessment
• child guidance
• remediation

• His work centered heavily on children, schooling, and developmental difficulties rather than general adult psychotherapy
• Early clinical psychology often blended assessment and remediation without the later ethical and diagnostic standards now expected

• What exact task is breaking down, and under what conditions?
• A useful diagnosis should point toward a remedy, not merely a name.
• We must work from the individual case rather than the category alone.

• Clinical Psychology
• Psychological Clinic writings