Potential clients' beliefs about the relative competency and caring of psychologists: implications for the profession.

To assess the extent to which the results reported by Warner and Bradley (1991) can be generalized beyond the population of undergraduate psychology students, 132 adults in the metropolitan Harrisburg area were asked to evaluate the competency and traits of clinical psychologists, licensed professional counselors, and psychiatrists. Results indicated that the general public believed counselors to be more caring than psychologists and psychiatrists. All three professional groups were perceived to be comparable in their ability to treat the least severe disorders. Licensed counselors were perceived to be most competent to treat disorders rated by the subjects as moderately severe, comparable in competence to clinical psychologists for adjustment disorders, and comparable to psychiatrists for marital problems. Psychiatrists and psychologists were considered the most competent to treat the most severe disorder, major depression. The results indicate that while clinical psychologists often were viewed as competent, they were not viewed as the single practitioner of choice for any diagnostic classification, nor were they noted to have positive character traits.