Therapist Unlimited Blog

Since 1975, the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs (CCPTP) has had two important functions. One has been to represent the interests of counseling psychology in virtually any forum that might affect training. The second has been to support its members by disseminating training-relevant information and by providing a vehicle to communicate with one another. Qualified counseling psychology programs have institutional membership in CCPTP and are represented by Training Directors, who hold voting privileges.But individual faculty members also may join CCPTP as nonvoting members. In so doing, they have access to CCPTP services and activities. Membership information can be found in the Manual of Policies and Procedures.
In late 1974 or early 1975 (no written correspondence remains from this prehistoric time) Barbara Kirk alerted Division 17 of the growing rapport and influence of the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology with the APA Governance and Structure.
She encouraged the Division to explore collaboration of counseling psychology directors with this group.
Bruce Fretz represented the Division at the next Executive Board meeting of the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology.
The requests for possibilities of collaboration or joint membership were politely, although not enthusiastically, received.
The greatest concern was expressed over the identity of what constituted a counseling psychology program.
If it were to be limited only to APA-approved programs, there was little concern; but since that was not such a stipulation (i.e. APA-approved) within their own group, that seemed an unlikely viable arrangement.
Alternatively, a more inclusive definition of counseling programs was not acceptable to the group.
Subsequent correspondence from the group suggested that collaboration, even with the directors of APA-approved programs, would result in (to paraphrase) "the camel’s nose in the tent."

In discussing this reaction of the clinical directors with the Division 17 Executive Committee, one possibility that was explored was that of the development of a parallel group, that is, an association of the directors of counseling psychology training programs.
Arrangements were made for the division to lend its support to the establishment of discussion hours at upcoming APGA and APA meetings to determine whether a group of program directors would be interested in starting such a group.
While each of these 1975 open meetings was attended by a dozen or more persons, a small group indicated sincere interest in working for the development of such a group.
In order to maximize numerous programs’ involvement in the early stages, loose organizational structures were chosen, allowing any person who was interested in developing a counseling psychology program to become a member of the mailing list, with the mailing list serving as the "membership" list during the formative years.
The steering committee for the 1975-76 year included Bruce Fretz of the University of Maryland serving as chair, Charles Krauskopf at the University of Missouri serving as secretary, and Paul Banikiotes of Notre Dame University serving as survey coordinator.
Members-at-large included Fred Borgen of Iowa State University, Vincent Harren of Southern Illinois University, Bernard Katz of New York University, Michael Patton of the University of Utah, Lyle Schmidt of Ohio State University, Helen Stevens of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Richard Wiegel of Colorado State University, and Earl Wilson of the University of Nebraska.
Most of this steering committee remained as the guiding force of the organization until the formation of the by-laws in 1978.
In 1977 Steven Danish of Pennsylvania State University replaced Helen Stevens who was no longer able to maintain membership on the steering committee.
Paul Banikiotes and colleagues developed, in the initial years, a survey of internship placements, course structure, and other matters.
This survey was distributed to all counseling psychology programs that could be identified.
The survey, either in long form or short form, has remained an annual feature of the Council.
In 1976, Division 17 of the APA became official collaborator in the survey.
With the regular collection of data, year-by-year trends are able to be monitored.In the early years, the Council also engaged in a great many liaison relationships, sending liaison representatives to the APA Education and Training Board, the Conference of University Counseling Center Directors and the Association of Counselor Educators and Supervisors. Relationships were developed with NIMH, the Veterans Administration, the National Register for Health Service Providers in Psychology, the Association of Psychology Internship Centers, and the Association for Advancement of Psychology. During the early years a number of actions and positions were initiated and a number of reactions provided to inquiries from these groups concerning matters of mutual interest. Summary statements of these actions appear in the annual reports and/or the minutes of the organization; actual correspondence is available in the organization’s archives file, which resides with Bruce Fretz at the University of Maryland.
 

Those interested to learn more about the organization just visit their official website at http://www.ccptp.org/home.html.