1930 Congress authorized President Herbert Hoover to establish the Veterans Administration to “consolidate and coordinate government activities affecting war veterans.”

1940 The VA Annual Report describes construction underway for 6500 additional beds under a grant from the Public Works Administration with plans for an additional 14,000 beds. Of patients hospitalized on June 30, 1940, 58% were being treated for neuropsychiatric disorders with an average length of stay of 579 days.

1944 Passage of Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (G.I. Bill of Rights) legislation authorized occupational, educational, and health assistance for veterans.

1945 The Division of Psychologists in Public Service was established as one of 19 charter divisions in APA and became a division of interest to VA psychologists.

1946 Congressional legislation (Public Law 293) established the Department of Medicine and Surgery within the VA giving this department responsibility for providing medical care to veterans and officially creating an organization of professional departments or services within the VA. Clinical psychology became a division in the new Neuropsychiatry Service. In some hospitals, psychiatry was a division under medical service.

1946 VA Memorandum No. 2 permitted affiliations with medical schools and universities to help train professionals needed to work in VA hospitals. Affiliations with 63 of the nation’s 77 medical schools were developed.

1946 James Grier Miller, M.D., Ph.D. was appointed the first Chief Clinical Psychologist for the VA Central Office, and outlined his vision for VA psychology in an American Psychologist article.

1946 Maurice Lorr, Ph.D. was appointed the Assistant Chief Clinical Psychologist for Research in VA Central Office.

1946 The VA adopted the doctoral degree and internship as minimum qualification standards for clinical psychologists.

1946 First appointments were made of students in a part-time employment status for VA training in clinical psychology (200 positions).

1946 The APA Division of Psychologists in Public Service (18) was established and became an APA home for VA psychologists.

1948 Harold M. Hildreth, Ph.D. was appointed Chief Clinical Psychologist in VA Central Office to succeed Dr. Miller.

1949 Quinter Holsopple, Ph.D. was appointed Assistant Chief Clinical Psychologist in VA Central Office.

1952 Vocational Counseling became an independent service and program in the VA. Robert S. Waldrop, Ph.D. was appointed Director of Vocational Counseling in VA Central Office.

1953 The VA adopted the doctoral degree and internship as minimum qualification standards for counseling psychologists.

1953 First appointment of students for VA training in counseling psychology (55 positions).

1956 Max Houtchens, Ph.D. was appointed Chief Clinical Psychologist in VA Central Office to succeed Dr. Hildreth.

1956 The Psychiatric Evaluation Program (PEP) headed by Lee Gurel was established as the first system-wide organized evaluation project in the VA. The project documented the important role of long-term treatment for psychiatric patients and served as precursor to the VA Cooperative Study research program.

1956 The VA’s Deputy Chief Medical Director presented a report at the APA convention noting that one-third of all research in the VA was being carried out by psychologists and that the VA employed 20% (628) of all psychologists in the country who met VA qualification standards (doctoral degree and internship).

1957 Four VAMCs participated in a study to look at the impact of having an independent psychology service in the field. This study eventually led to the establishment of independent services in most VA medical centers with the Chief of Psychology reporting directly to the Chief of Staff.

1958 VA Cooperative Research Study on phenothiazines was established initially headed by psychologist Jack Lasky and later by psychologist Jim Klett.

1959 First publication by VA of the Newsletter for cooperative research in psychology. This quarterly publication continues in 1961, as the Newsletter for research in psychology and in 1973 becomes the Newsletter for research in mental health and behavioral sciences, which was discontinued in 1976. Preceding these publications (from 1956 ? to 1959) was the Newsletter for Psychologists in Tuberculosis.

1960 Publication by VA of Manual of Group Therapy, authored by Abrahams Luchins, Lewis Aumack, and Harold Dickman at the VA in Roseberg, that was one of the first “how to” manuscripts in conducting group therapy.

1962 Cecil Peck, Ph.D. was appointed Chief Clinical Psychologist in VA Central Office to succeed Dr. Houtchens.

1963 VA psychologist John Atthowe at the Palo Alto VA began token economy programs with chronic schizophrenic patients. Joseph McDonough, also at Palo Alto, later adopted the program to acute psychiatric patients.

19__? Earl Taulbee, VA psychologist at Tuscaloosa, AL, developed an attitude therapy program that directed staff to use one of four assigned interaction approaches in contacts with patients.

1963 The VA Psychology training stipend program was started in which psychology trainees were no longer part-time employees but were paid from funds specially appropriated for training students.

1966 Public Law 89-785 made education a part of the VA’s mission along with patient care and research, including a mandate to train health professionals for the nation in addition to its own staffing needs.

1973 The Office of Academic Affairs was established in VA Central Office. Elton Ash and administration of the VA training program was transferred out of mental health into this new office.

1973 The TIGER Program (Training in Individual and Group Effectiveness and Resourcefulness) was established to provide leadership and interpersonal training throughout the VA. The program was headed by Philip Hanson, Ph.D. and a group of other psychologists at the Houston VA Hospital.

1974 The psychology training program at the VA Hospital in Topeka, Kansas was the first VA training program to receive APA accreditation for pre-doctoral internship training.

1975 The VA reorganized the Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences Service with Cecil Peck, Ph.D. promoted to Deputy Director.

1976 Charles A. Stenger, Ph.D. became the Associate Director for Psychology in VA Central Office.

1977 The VA Section was established within the Division of Psychologists in Public Service in APA.

1979 In Public Law 96-22, Congress authorized the establishment of the Readjustment Counseling Service and its Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Counseling Program. Small treatment teams of mental health professionals and paraprofessionals were set up in what were commonly called Vet Centers to provide counseling to Vietnam Veterans, and the program was assigned to the Mental Health and Behavioral Science Service in VACO headed by psychologist Donald Crawford.

1980 Joseph Mancusi, Ph.D. succeeded Charles Stenger as Associate Director for Psychology in VA Central Office.

1981 Public Law 97-37 established special treatment examinations and benefits for former prisoners of war.

1981 The VA Psychology training program became focused on internship training and required 1900 hours of training and provided interns with a $10,000 stipend. Practicum training funds were severely reduced.

1982 The VA established the doctoral degree in clinical or counseling psychology from a graduate school approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) as the credential for employment as a psychologist providing health care. An APA approved internship was also required as was state licensure or certification within two years of appointment.

1983 John (Jack) Davis, Jr., Ph.D. succeeded Cecil Peck as Deputy Director of the Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences Service in VACO.

1983 The Association of VA Chief Psychologists piloted a leadership training program for new Chiefs of Psychology, which became an annual event continuing to the present.

1987 Edward Sieracki, Ph.D. was appointed Deputy Director of the Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences Service in VA Central Office.

1989 Congress designated the Veterans Administration a cabinet level department and the agency was renamed the Department of Veterans Affairs.

1991 VA funds first postdoctoral psychology fellowship training positions in substance abuse.

1992 Martha Rae Barnes, Ph.D., was appointed Deputy Director of the Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences Service in VA Central Office.

1992 VA funded the first postdoctoral psychology fellowship training positions in geropsychology.

1997 The Association of VA Chief Psychologists was renamed the Association of VA Psychologist Leaders with membership expanded to all VA psychologists in management, supervisory, or other leadership positions.

1998 The first three Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Care Centers (MIRECCs) were funded by the VA.

1998 Mary Jansen, Ph.D. assumed the top leadership position in psychology in VACO. This position was renamed the Deputy Chief Consultant of the Mental Health Strategic Health Group under a reorganization in VA Central Office.

1998 The first annual VA Psychology Leadership Conference was held in Dallas, jointly sponsored and funded by the Practice Directorate of APA.

1999 The post-doctoral psychology training program at the VA medical center in San Antonio, Texas was the first VA training program to receive APA post-doctoral accreditation and the third such approved program in the nation.

1999 VA requests proposals to expand the number and types of postdoctoral psychology training programs for the 2000-2001 training year.

With the end of WWII, 16 million veterans were brought back into the mainstream of American society, many looking to re-direct their social and vocational lives. Many also needed treatment of medical and psychological problems resulting from their war experience. In 1946, Congressional legislation (Public Law 293) established a coordinated health care mission for the VA in creating the Department of Medicine and Surgery within the VA.

Several problems faced the new department. The 1944 passage of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (G.I. Bill of Rights) authorized occupational, educational, and health assistance for veterans, but the staff and other resources to deliver on these benefits were not well established. Poor salaries and delays in recruitment under Civil Service made recruitment difficult. Many physicians and nurses had left the VA in order to join the military, and, late in the war, the VA had to ask the Army to detail enlisted personnel with limited time in the military to VA medical centers. At the end of the war, over three-quarters of the VA’s 2,300 physicians were “on loan” from the military serving out their military obligation and would soon be leaving (Moore 1992).

The majority of hospitalized veterans were being treated for neuropsychiatric problems. Treatment for these veterans was primarily provided by neuropsychiatrists and psychology technicians, the latter primarily serving as psychometricians. Although psychology had established its value to the military in personnel selection and placement for the Army in WWI (Seidenfeld 1966), the VA had not made any real use of doctorally trained psychologists. Prior to 1946, none of the psychologists in the VA were doctorally trained. Return to the Top

1946 was a pivotal year in the history of the VA and VA psychology. Two critical events have already been noted. The first was the passage of Congressional legislation on January 3, 1946 that established the Department of Medicine and Surgery in the VA. That legislation also resulted in the establishment of the Division of Clinical Psychology in the new Neuropsychiatry Service. The second event (and subject of our presentation) occurred less than a month later. The publication of VA policy Memorandum Number 2 on January 30, 1946 created a system of affiliations of veterans’ hospitals with medical schools, still in effect today. The outline of that memorandum assigned the VA responsibility for the care of patients and gave the medical school responsibility for graduate education and training. Both parties benefited from the arrangement. The VA acquired faculty members as patient care attending staff, and medical residents helped provide care and benefited from the clinical training and financial support received from the VA.

The third critical event in 1946 was the establishment of the VA psychology training program due to the efforts of James Grier Miller, the first Chief of the Division of Clinical Psychology in the VA.[3] After his appointment, Miller began looking for ways to include psychology training in the VA. Although Memorandum Number 2 technically established affiliations only with medical schools for the training of medical residents, Miller decided that Public Law 293 allowed psychology students to be employed as part-time staff with a training assignment in delivering psychological services. Miller was able to convince General Omar Bradley, then Administrator of the VA, of this interpretation, and the basis for the VA psychology training program was established.

1946 also marked the year that the VA decided to adopt the Ph.D. as the credential for employment as a clinical psychologist. Earlier in the year, Miller had asked a group of consultants to work with him in developing the VA psychology program. This included George A. Kelly from Ohio State, the first appointed VA psychology consultant. Also in his planning group were C. M. Loutitt (also from Ohio State) and Lowell Kelly from the University of Michigan. Miller and his consultants successfully argued that doctorally trained psychologists were able to provide valuable psychotherapy services to patients and noted that psychologists were beginning to seek licensure status in some states permitting independent psychological practice. He also was convinced that doctorally trained psychologists with their research skills could conduct important research and program evaluation in the VA that would benefit individual patients. These arguments clearly anticipated the basis for the scientist-practitioner model that came out of the 1949 Boulder Conference. The VA’s decision to adopt the Ph.D. as the credential for VA employment as a clinical psychologist also helped establish doctoral training as the journeyman credential for psychological practice in the United States.

The last critical 1946 event involved the recruitment of the first psychology students for the VA training program. Miller had been able to create 200 funded training positions for psychology students for the fall of 1946. The selection of these students needed attention. Miller was critical of the lack of an appropriate graduate training model in clinical psychology among universities that fit both the clinical and academic training that he was promoting for VA psychologists. He was clearly interested in not only training psychology students but recruiting them for jobs in the VA when they finished their doctoral training. He sought APA’s assistance in identifying universities that were training their graduate students in both scientific and clinical areas. At the VA’s request, APA helped identify 22 universities that could provide students with this dual clinical and academic training focus to fill these positions. It is generally acknowledged that this request eventually led APA to begin its accreditation process. Return to the Top

The VA Training Contributions

The first 200 VA psychology training positions in 1946 were allocated among the 22 schools identified by APA according to their enrollment capacity. The schools selected candidates for the VA training program according to their allotment and the candidates were then reviewed by VA Central Office for final approval. Following almost routine approval, the student was then hired by the VA and detailed to the VA facility nearest to their university.

Students were expected to work half-time in the VA. They were initially hired in their training positions at one of four levels of hourly rate employment based on their level of academic preparation. The first and second year appointments were generally what we would regard as practicum training with 3^rd and 4^th year appointments devoted to full-time internship training.[3] In addition to helping the VA train future staff psychologists, the support of paid psychology students also helped graduate schools support the financing of graduate education for their students.

From 1946 to 1950, the number of VA trainees grew from 200 to 650. In July of 1952, the VA began developing formal vocational counseling programs in its hospitals. The experience of clinical psychology in finding counseling psychologists with the needed credentials led the VA to make parallel decisions in counseling psychology. The doctoral degree was established as the minimum credential and a counseling psychology training program in the VA was begun in the fall of 1953 with 55 training positions.

The process of selecting psychology students for the VA’s training program underwent a number of changes. A multi-level stipend program was established in 1963 with universities still selecting students to receive practicum or internship training in the VA. The final change in the administration of the training program, in use today, gave the training funds to VA hospitals to select and fund students from APA approved graduate programs in clinical or counseling psychology.

From 1977 to 1985, the VA began to de-emphasize funded practicum training and instead used most of its psychology training funds to support internship training. In 1966, Public Law 89-785 made education a part of the VA’s mission with a mandate to train health professionals for the entire nation in addition to meeting its own needs. In the fall of 1977, 13 VA medical centers had independent APA approval of their internships and this figure grew to 84 by 1985. In 1991, the VA was funding 348 predoctoral psychology internship positions and represented over one-third of all APA approved internship training programs in the country (summary statistics in APIC Directory, 1991). 1991 also represented the first year the VA started funding post-doctoral internship training.

The VA training program had enabled the VA to “grow it’s own” psychology work force with the majority of its psychology staff having received professional training in working with veterans. At the end of 1946, the VA had 146 staff psychologists (not all yet doctorally trained). By 1958, the VA employed 742 doctorally trained psychologists, 612 in clinical psychology and 130 in counseling psychology. At the time of the passage of Public Law 89-785 in 1966 that mandated the VA to train health professionals for the nation, the VA was meeting its staffing needs by hiring 30% of those completing the Psychology Training Program. With 70% of VA psychology students taking jobs outside of the VA at that time, VA trained psychologists were indeed helping the nation meet its need for well-trained psychologists in many areas of clinical practice and leadership.

Although the VA had started funding post-doctoral training in 1991, there was an administrative issue hanging over all funded VA post-doctoral programs. The VA Office of Academic Affairs required that funding for training in the VA should be done only in programs that had a national accreditation status. This requirement was the focus of conversations with APA starting in the 80s when the VA first started to consider the need and importance of post-doctoral training. As was the case with pre-doctoral training accreditation, the VA again pushed APA to establish a post-doctoral training accreditation program. The first funded VA post-doctoral training programs were given a waiver by the VA for the national accreditation status requirement with the promise that APA would soon have an accreditation program for post-doctoral training. The VA in San Antonio became the first “legally” funded post-doctoral program in 1999 when it received accreditation for its post-doctoral training program, the first VA program and the third accredited post-doctoral training program in the country. Return to the Top

Some Brief Comments on the VA Treatment Contribution

The VA also became a leader in influencing treatment approaches used throughout public sector hospitals. In 1960 a Manual of Group Therapy was published by the VA, authored by Abraham Luchins, Lewis Aumack, and Harold Dickman. Luchins was a VA university consultant working with Aumack and Dickman at the VA in Roseburg, Oregon. The manual was considered one of the first “how to” manuscripts in conducting group therapy. In the mid-60s, John Atthowe came to the Palo Alto VA as a research associate and, together with Joseph McDonough, helped established token economy programs which were reproduced in other VAs and public sector hospitals throughout the 70s. The work by Earl Taulbee at the VA in Tuscaloosa, AL on attitude therapy similarly influenced many other VA and non-VA public sector treatment settings. The establishment of day treatment centers and night hospitals supporting vocational rehabilitation treatment was still another treatment approach with its start in the VA.

The Research Contribution

Along with the new affiliations with graduate schools to assist in training, faculty members from the schools could be appointed as consultants not only for training or supervision of students, but they could also consult on VA research projects or conduct research themselves in the VA.

Miller’s vision to have psychologists involved in research was primarily focused on program evaluation. One of the first large-scale program evaluation projects undertaken by the VA was the Psychiatric Evaluation Project (PEP). To pick up on the VA research story, I introduce you to Lee Gurel who was asked to head that project in 1956.

I have to tell you first that, when I received the invitation to participate in this symposium, my reaction was not unlike that of the fabled old fire horse -- the one who had long ago been replaced by the motorized fire engine but still wanted to race out of the stall at the sound of the bell. Attending another APA meeting in this lovely city may also have had something to do with my acceptance.

Our approach to the topic of VA research contributions will involve noting some key individuals and groups and the various measurement techniques, patient care programs, and researches with which they were identified. I will limit myself, this being a Division 26, History Of Psychology, program, to roughly the first 25 years of VA psychology. Even then, time constraints will require that I neglect efforts otherwise deserving of mention. Further, I will address the specific charge I received to note the collaborative studies conducted under VA auspices. Finally, I will try, as we go along, to highlight some core issues and threads of communality, particularly administrative themes, running through the range of research with which VA psychologists were involved.

In the earliest days of VA psychology, the late 40's and early 50's just noted by Dr. Baker, most VA psychology research involved trainees doing their master's and doctoral research. That statement today elicits an "Of course; so what?" But the impact of that early arrangement had lasting significance for both the VA and for the university and, hence, for psychology as a profession. Those of us in the early cadres I think simply accepted that research and service went together – a marriage of necessity perhaps, but there they were, side by side.

Still we should recall that the trainee role was that of learning through providing clinical service. There was no formal provision for research, albeit informal arrangements might be made locally to permit the trainee to devote a small portion of his/her time -- say, 10% -- to research, degree-related or otherwise. And, for the most part, the research was directly related to the assessment or treatment functions being performed within the VA setting. That connection had the important advantage of justifying the research, should it be questioned, as an attempt to better understand and thus to improve patient services – it was not just "sciencing around." (The term, program evaluation, by the way, was not yet in common use.)

The lack of provision for trainee research time was also true for full-time clinical staff, and it would be many years before the VA supported a pool of research-funded psychologists. I mention that fact to give recognition to the clinicians who did produce some research. I was not one of them. As a clinician, I had set aside Friday afternoon as my time to do research, but Friday afternoon rarely happened. My point is that research was bootlegged and had to be smuggled in through the back door. Psychologists may have seen service and research as going hand-in-hand, but the VA administrative structure and its overwhelming need for service did not encourage that union.

To be sure, there was considerable variation across the different facilities in the VA system. However, the intimate connection of trainee clinical work and trainee research seemed to have fit nicely, and to have supported, the scientist-practitioner philosophy newly articulated by the 1949 Boulder Conference. Variations across VA facilities notwithstanding - and I have to repeat that caveat – an attitude developed out of that coupling of research and service which held that meaningful clinical research flows from practice-derived questions and that a psychologist’s practice should, to the extent knowledge permits, be empirically grounded --a tradition which, of course, survives to this day.

The scientist-practitioner paradigm may today have its critics and its supporters; we need not address that issue here. We should, however, note some of the implications, which were of importance 50 years ago. For one thing, psychologists, even as trainees, developed a reputation, not only for knowing how to ask good questions, but also for knowing how to find answers. What may only have been our naïveté and uninformed enthusiasm came to be identified by other staff as our ability as problem solvers, a recognition which carried with it a dollop of prestige. I am thinking here of the several collaborations with nursing – for example, Bob Ellsworth’s Aide Performance Evaluation -- and our collaborations with medical staff at VAH Downey and VAH Martinsburg on the complex behavior problems shown by patients with tuberculosis. I apologize for doing so, but I cannot resist telling you that my first post-PhD paper dealt with TB patients and was presented at an Eastern Psychological meeting in Boston 50 years ago last April.

Whatever little recognition was generated locally was importantly enhanced by the university consultants who visited the VA training sites. Of course, they were only there to see to the progress of their students: Was the student in fact achieving professional growth via the practicum? Was the dissertation research coming along? But what was in reality an expected supervisory task was often perceived by staff in the VA facility as evidence that the trainee and the training program mattered. This was particularly true in those installations distant from the university. After all, why would a presumably busy professor come all that distance if what the trainee was doing wasn’t of considerable importance? Certainly not for what was then – and may still be, for all I know -- the 25 or 50-dollar honoraria. I have no formal data to support the observation, but it is an experience, which other trainees of that vintage have reported. The faculty representatives may have been there to monitor student progress, but they were often perceived by non-psychology VA staff as prestigious professionals – important big-wheels. Return to the Top

Conversely, just as the VA psychology program profited from the ties with the university (and we can only scratch the surface today), the university derived important benefits from the liaison. I am indebted to Jack Lasky for reminding me that, early on, more than a few of the faculty had limited clinical experience, particularly with the major mental illness found in the VA. They learned along with the trainees, and their enhanced competence no doubt benefited them and the students they saw in class.

More generally, we can speak of reciprocal contributions, of one hand washing the other as the expression goes. A favorite personal example is Victor Raimy, one of the world’s truly fine humans, He was pleased to have Fort Lyon VAH as a placement for his University of Colorado students, and he was gracious enough to say how much he, too, was learning. Which I can tell you was far less than what he added to the psychology department’s program, particularly in building and reinforcing interdisciplinary ties.

So much, though, for the first decade or so. I would like to turn now to the several cooperative studies of the mid- and late-1950’s, those that were centrally organized and directed. Perhaps the first of these, and one, which seems to me to have been inadequately recognized, was Maurice Lorr’s work on identifying and systematizing the measurement of psychopathology. Among other contributions, including the POMS (the Profile of Mood States), he identified the dimensions underlying his IMPS (Inpatient Multidimensional Psychiatric Scale). It was that factor structure which John Overall then developed into the widely used BPRS (Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale).

The largest of the cooperative studies was, of course, the series of drug researches initiated after the introduction in the mid-50’s of the phenothiazines. The studies were organized starting in 1958 out of a headquarters unit at Perry Point VAH, headed first by Jack Lasky and later by Jim Klett. The need for centrally organized, scientifically credible studies was illustrated for me by a clinical paper presented at one of the earliest Cooperative Studies Conferences. The presenter reported his assignment of subjects into experimentals and placebo controls; the controls consisting of those patients that he knew weren’t going to get any better anyway! I note the incident here to underline the advances in methods of drug evaluation accomplished by Lasky and Klett and their co-workers – which would include advances in measurement, e.g., Gil Honigfeld’s development of the NOSIE (Nurses’ Observation Scale for Inpatient Evaluation.

The last of the cooperative studies to be noted here is the Psychiatric Evaluation Project, the PEP project, the effort with which I was associated. Leaving PEP for last is definitely not a case of saving the best for last. Having joined the study after it was already underway, I have no problem in identifying some of its shortcomings along with its accomplishments. In fact, I have reported at length on the problems and limitations in a chapter in Struening and Guttentag’s Handbook of Evaluation Research.

The major objective of the first PEP study was to compare 12 hospitals distinguished by architectural style, size and staffing. A team of psychologist, social worker, and research assistant would follow newly admitted patients for five years. Patient outcomes would then define hospital effectiveness, which in turn would be related to the characteristics serving as independent variables. As data collection wound down, this first study was followed by a number of other centrally directed studies. In time, the group was expanded to 18 hospitals so as to better sample nursing home placement programs. Its final incarnation was as Program Evaluation Staff in the Office of the Assistant Chief Medical Director until June 1969.

It had become apparent that such a large, specially funded operation of that size could not be sustained. Through its several reorganizations and expansions, the PEP staffing structure had resulted in a professionally outstanding group. Unfortunately, as grades and salaries increased, that excellence came to a very high dollar cost. The rationale of attempting to minimize error variance by having an elite staff of data collectors, albeit logical enough, simply failed a cost/benefit analysis. The model for the Cooperative Chemotherapy program where data collection was done via voluntary local participation proved to be more workable.

One might argue that the major accomplishment of the PEP organization was a result of what was initially viewed as a device for recruiting superior people. In addition to collecting centrally directed data -- by no means a full-time commitment, PEP staff were encouraged to conduct their own research within a broad rubric of program evaluation. Recalling what was noted earlier about limited research support at the time, it should not be surprising that an outstanding staff was recruited—from Jack Cohen in New York to Len Ullmann at Palo Alto, with other soon-to-be-known people in between. Nor should it be surprising that a compilation of PEP output—some in association with non-PEP collaborators—showed about 350 publications and 120 papers read at professional meetings.

In closing, let me offer some generalizations about evaluation studies – lessons learned, if you will, from the PEP study—with the proviso that we keep in mind that evaluation efforts can be conducted at various levels of methodological sophistication, but that we are dealing here with evaluation that employs rigorous research methodology.

Mounting such evaluation research requires the most thoroughgoing kind of planning and, specifically, close examination of the motivations and expectations of the participants, be they sponsoring authority, program manager(s), program staff, or evaluator(s). Without such scrutiny and advance understandings and agreements, one risks the kind of evaluation none wants: one that ends up addressing the wrong questions, i.e., issues not of major interest to program sponsors and/or managers. That is especially likely when evaluation is actually research in disguise and does not have a built-in assurance of the policy implications sought by managers. Also to be avoided is the evaluation whose financial and other resource costs are disproportionate to the issues addressed. For example, the discrepancy between the manager asking what is thought to be a simple question capable of being addressed by a quick-and-dirty study and the evaluator seeking to do a much more exhaustive effort. Noble people though they may be, evaluators tend to neglect Parkinson’s Law about work – and research – expanding to fill time, i.e., consume available resources and then some. The reverse of that situation is, of course, the evaluator who holds out the hope that the quick-and-dirty he/she offers will provide more than superficial answers to complex issues. Several variations of the scenarios just noted are possible and need not detain us further.

I want to assure that my comments here, while presented within the framework of VA contributions, are eminently generalizable. They are offered in hopes that attending to what has gone before will allow psychologists newly engaged in research and evaluation to avoid the pitfall made famous by Santayana which I paraphrase as “Those who do not remember the errors of past research are condemned to repeat them.”

I will return the microphone to Dr. Baker now, but hopefully, we will have enough time to entertain any questions you may have. Return to the Top

1. As some of you may know, when the VA was established in 1930 by President Hoover to consolidate and coordinate government activities affecting was veterans, many of the new VA hospitals were designated as facilities for the treatment of tuberculosis or had large tuberculosis treatment services. In the 1950s, VA psychology researchers collaborated in a Cooperative Study based out of the Martinsburg VA that looked at psychological issues in treatment of tuberculosis. It was one of the first comprehensive and large-scale psychological studies to look at the psychological aspects of a medical problem. The research team met monthly for over a year with Janet Taylor Spence in her role as consultant to the project.

2. By 1956, one-third of all research in the VA was being conducted by psychologists. A Newsletter for Psychologists in Tuberculosis was started and was continued as the Newsletter for Cooperative Research in Psychology in 1959 to reflect the expanding research topics being carried out by psychologists.

3. A 1965 study at the Downey VA by Jon Cummings, Robert Barrell, and A. S. DeWolfe paid attention to staff attitudes toward the care of physically ill patients.

4. Psychologists Barry Sterman (Sepulveda VA and UCLA) and Robert Thatcher have contributed fundamental work to normative data and computerized interpretation of the EEG as well as cortical development as reflected in the EEG.

5. VA psychologists have been involved in a variety of Health Services Research and Development (HSR&D) studies, a focused research program in the VA begun in the 1970s to promote research connecting clinical practice and administrative processes. One of the first HSR&D funded studies was conducted by psychologists Mike O’Leary and Dennis Donovan who studied the role of neuropsychological function and length of stay for alcohol dependent veterans. Another early HSR&D study in Seattle conducted by psychologist Bill Carter involved efforts at changing adherence behavior on improving flu shot rates among vulnerable veterans.

6. In 1998, the VA funded the operation of three Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Centers (MIRECCs). These were to serve as centers of excellence involving VA and affiliated medical school and university faculty. There are now six such centers in the VA.

Dr. Gurel and I have hopefully filled in some of the blanks of the ways VA psychology has contributed to the development of American psychology since WWII, with specific mention of the important role of the VA affiliation process started in 1946. The story of VA psychology research and treatment programs joins the better-known story of the VA psychology training program in documenting those contributions. The partnership of academic psychology with VA psychology benefited both. Academic psychology received an important source of funding for their students as well as had the opportunity to better appreciate some of the clinical treatment issues facing seriously mentally ill patients. VA psychology benefited from training and research consultation. The partnership continues today with both partners helping to serve the behavioral and mental health training, research, and treatment programming needs of our country.

[1] Prepared by Rodney R. Baker, Ph.D., Chief of Psychology at the South Texas Veterans Health Care System in San Antonio, Texas. Appreciation is due to Dana Moore who compiled most of the training information items in her chapter on the VA training program in History of Psychotherapy, Ed. Donald Freedheim, APA Books, 1992. Readers with suggested items to add to this list are encouraged to do so by sending items to rodbaker@att.net or by mailing to 10710 Old Blue Lane, San Antonio, Texas 78230.

[2] Presented as part of a Division 26 symposium entitled “Growth Stimulus: Federal Funding of American Psychology after World War II” for the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Toronto, August 2003.

[3] Henry A. Murray was initially offered the job. In a handwritten letter dated January 7, 1946 Murray described the job to a friend as “an opportunity to influence the course of psychological developments for a generation” but that it did not interest him. Relevant portions of this letter are in the VA psychology archive collection in the Archives of the History of American Psychology at the University of Akron.

[4] Among the first students selected for the VA training program were Cecil Peck and Charles Stenger who later served distinguished leadership roles in the VA psychology program in VA Central Office.