Developments and needs of clinical psychology: applications in Spanish Public Health Service

Abstract

Starting with the analysis and reflection of the history of clinical psychology, this article takes a look at the current discipline together with the new demands and needs that it has to meet within a contradictory context. Such a context is defined by the confrontation between among alternatives available for future development of the Spanish Public Health System and by the increase in social demand for answers to the problems within the science of psychology. This demand is as much a consequence of new collective sensitivity as new scientific knowledge in the health sciences. Likewise, proposals for future development of clinical psychology in Spain are put forward linking them to the progress of the public health system and overcoming the scientific, political and social limitations which condition the progress of the discipline.