American Association for Applied Psychology

It was, ironically^{[clarification needed]}, at the 1936 meeting of the rival APA at Dartmouth College that a dinner meeting was held where it was decided to expand the ACP into a fully national organization called the AAAP. In 1937, the remnants of the old Clinical Section of the APA officially disbanded and re-formed as the first Division of the new AAAP. It was immediately followed by Divisions for Consulting, Educational, and Business/Industrial psychology. A Military Psychology Division was added later. The first president of the AAAP was Douglas H. Fryer. Later well-known presidents included Donald G. Paterson, Walter V. Bingham, Albert Poffenberger, and Carl Rogers. During World War II, the U.S. military had a great need of professionals to treat soldiers with battle fatigue and other mental illnesses. In response, a committee of the APA led by David Shakow, who had already started this work on a similar committee within the structure of the AAAP established formal guidelines for the training of the clinical psychologists. The guidelines established the scientist-practitioner model of training.^[1]

At the end of the War, the APA and AAAP merged to form a new APA in which scientists and practitioners had equal standing in the association.^[2] The new organization adopted the divisional structure of the old AAAP, adding twelve new Divisions to the old AAAP's five (there are now over 50). The new APA also held meetings to establish guidelines for clinical training, essentially adopting David Shakow's earlier document at a landmark meeting in Boulder, Colorado.