Lightner Witmer

Lightner Witmer (Philadelphia, 1867-1956) was an American psychologist usually credited with founding clinical psychology as a field. In 1896 he presented to the American Psychological Association a plan for putting experimental psychology to practical use, and that same year he set up the world's first psychological clinic at the University of Pennsylvania.

He trained with James McKeen Cattell in Pennsylvania and, after Cattell moved to Columbia, earned his doctorate under Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig in 1892. Back in Pennsylvania he ran the psychology laboratory, but his interests gradually turned toward practical application. In 1904 he helped form the Society of Experimental Psychologists with Edward B. Titchener, as an alternative to the American Psychological Association. In 1907 he launched a journal devoted to clinical psychology, and in 1908 he opened a small residential school near Wallingford, Pennsylvania, for children with developmental disabilities and emotional or behavioral disorders, later followed by a larger one in Devon.

His central view was that psychology should solve concrete problems, especially those of children with learning or behavioral difficulties, and that diagnosis and treatment required observing and controlling the child's environment. His influence endures in school psychology and special education, and in 1914 he also founded what is considered the world's first speech clinic.