Introduction

This chapter has five interrelated strands collectively designed to situate British child guidance some three decades after its inception. The first examines psychology's apparent victory as it sought to build on the professional and legislative advantages which had accrued in the 1940s. Second, we analyse the 1951 symposium at which child guidance psychologists and psychiatrists laid out their respective approaches. While some participants attempted to promote more collegial practice, others made little effort to conceal their scepticism about those who were clearly perceived as professional rivals. We then discuss how psychiatrists saw the way forward given their apparently beleaguered position. Many were unhappy about the course of events and continued to argue for the medical model albeit adapted to meet changing circumstances and recent disciplinary developments. But psychiatry also held certain professional advantages in that, first, some clinics continued to adhere to the medical model and, second, in that by the mid-1950s psychologists were experiencing their own crisis of confidence.

Fourth, an analysis is made of the Underwood Committee as it investigated the past, present and future of child guidance. Among the issues it tackled was the apparently widespread distribution of maladjustment. The Committee had been set up by the Ministry of Education and this, it will be argued, constrained its activities given that it essentially examined child guidance as part of the education system rather than as a broader social service.