Origins of Professional Psychology in Canada (1925-1965): Reflections of a Pioneer

Edward C. Webster was one of the earliest vocational guidance and industrial psychologists in Canada. He opened his practice in 1936 and was also a long-time professor of psychology and university administrator. During the last decade of his life, he began to document his perspective on early professional psychologists-almost all of whom he had known personally-and the nature of the profession, its origins and evolution in Canada, and the interplay between the emergence of psychology as a profession and the development of the Canadian Psychological Association.

Sometime after Edward died in 1989, his son and the executor of his estate, William G. Webster, found his drafts, notes, and correspondence with others. As a retired academic psychologist himself, William felt that his father had a most interesting story to tell. Working with his son, David E. G. Webster, William compiled Edward's recollections of and reflections on the early years of the profession, those pre- and immediately post-World War II, and those through to the mid-1960s, when a pivotal conference set the trajectory for professional psychology and professional psychologists in Canada.

With new information not previously published by Edward Webster or others, Origins of Professional Psychology in Canada (1925-1965) brings forward the thought-provoking, authentic reflections of a man whose ground-breaking contributions to applied psychology forever changed the field.