The first S.E.P. meetings ( from 1963 to 1982), were dominated by works related to educational, clinical and industrial psychology, whereas at the later ones theoretical and experimental orientations predominated. At C.O.P.'s Congresses we also find a clear predominance of applied themes at the first meeting, especially on health, organizational, clinical and educational issues, whereas the second appears mainly to focus on history, basic psychology and assessment, together with highly specific professional issues (sports, traffic safety, forensic psychology...- Fdez. Ballesteros, 1990 -). The prevailing subjects in Spanish psychological journals are "Prevention and Treatment" (22%), "General Psychology, History, Systems, Methodology and Parapsychology" (19%), "Mental and Physical Disorders" (16%) and "Social Psychology" (12%), one can also see the great similarity of such data with those coming from the SEP meetings . It should be note that from 1976 to 1978, 493 documents were published per year, a figure which nearly tripled in the period 1986-1991 (ALCAIN, 1990). Ths was due to the setting up of many research groups at several universities where people are currently working in the field of psychology (MOYA & DIEZ 1989).
Current Spanish psychology, according to these data, seems to have developed along two main directions; an important movement towards applications, with a high concentration on clinical psychology (diagnosis and treatments included), and a second line towards theoretical psychology, with a lower concentration on experimental work.
The development of Spanish psychology has a set of characteristics. Let us remember some of those which have appeared in the preceding pages.
First of all, a relevant fact is the receptive, rather than creative character of early Spanish psychology, widely influenced by European workgroups. As a consequence, interest in applications had to come before interest in theory itself. Besides, the social context of a not fully developed country, in which psychologists had to go abroad during the fifties and sixties, favoured a low-level specialization training and the immediate application of expert-knowledge to concrete situations. The lack of powerful theoretical and research centres, only solved with the arrival of psychology to university departments, has probably been an added factor that has had a remarkable influence on our history.
Besides that, other professionals were carrying out the tasks of psychologists, in a process of role hybridization (BEN DAVID & COLLINS, 1966), which contributed to blurring the definition of the role.
Finally, though the history of psychology in Spain shows the existence of two well-defined periods, separated by the Civil War, one can see the real entity of a certain tradition, with a bridge built thanks to Germain's efforts between the initial and post-war phases. In Spain there has been a variety of theoretical viewpoints from the start, deeply influenced by a real understanding of the philosophical problems and the "humanistic" dimensions affecting the very roots of a psychology open to anthropological and philosopical issues. Besides that, although university and academic psychology has gone ahead independently from professional and applied psychology, in recent times both lines are connecting more and more with each other.
It is a tradition of social and personal coherence, continually interested in connecting psychology with other disciplines and always comparing their results with those coming from other research groups working beyond our frontiers.
JOSÉ RAMÓN CORREAS GONZALEZ
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LAST UPDATED Sunday 6 de August de 1995 - -