Clinical Psychology: As Discipline
Abstract
Distinguished professional members, delegates and friends,
It is a great honour for me to address this august gathering of professionals from all over India and from abroad.
This is the second time during this decade that the annual convention is being held at Ahmadabad. Although the venue of the convention has changed and the leadership of Dr. Rathna Vaya has made it possible for us to be here today. I like to place on record our appreciation to Dr. Vaya and her team from Raksha Shakti University and her efforts to collaborate with the Department of Psychology, School of Liberal Studies, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University for jointly hosting this conference despite of the fact that both the universities are yet to start a masters programme in Clinical Psychology. I appreciate the effort of both the universities for this initiative. The theme of this year's conference is “Paradigm Shift in Clinical Psychology from Mental Illness to Mental Wellness and Mindfulness”. This theme is reflected in the programs during the next three days. Apart from the invited talks and symposium on different areas of interest to us, there are 30 sessions, where 179 scientific papers will be presented covering seventeen different areas of interest and research by our members. I am glad that increasing number of members is taking active part in research in various aspects of the life of our people. We have reached the present stage of development of the field of psychology in India due to the continued effort of many of our predecessors who have toiled during the last several decades. At this moment I salute all those who contributed to the knowledge and development of Clinical psychology in the past. Indian Association of Clinical Psychology had its origin from several rounds of discussions before it was registered as a society in 1968. The stalwarts of the I A C P Dr. N. N. Sen and Dr. H. N. Murthy, Dr. Vinoda Murthy and Dr. G. G. Prabhu and many others contributed to the growth of clinical psychology in this country.
