written with the bias that anything older than five or ten years is not relevant. Those who attempt to take a long-range view of clinical psychology are sometimes able to recall the early development of the field in the 1930s and 1940s. In this text, I asked the authors to begin with a brief survey of ancient and medieval history to set the stage for a discussion of current research and developments in the field. I hope that a presentation of this sort will provide the reader-whether advanced undergraduate, graduate, or professional-with a sense of perspective and context from which to view and understand clinical psychology.