Delineation of the Roles of Clinical Psychology: A Survey of Practice in Pennsylvania

In a survey conducted as part of a role delineation for clinical psychology, 302 Pennsylvania practitioners who were members of the clinical division of their state psychological association rated tasks from a description of their specialty developed by a team of experts. Ratings of time spent on, and importance of, each task were used to form profiles of practice for the overall sample and groups based on primary professional role, level of experience, and type of professional training. Discriminant function analyses indicated that (a) therapists spend more time on and ascribe more importance to direct client services, and nontherapists spend more time on and assign more importance to administrative tasks, (b) experience is negatively related to the time therapists spend on direct client services but positively related to the time nontherapists spend on administrative tasks, (c) as experience increases, therapists become more concerned with standards and client welfare, and (d) nondoctoral nontherapists spend more time on client information-related responsibilities. Implications of these results for training, evaluation, and continuing education are discussed.