Toward clinical social psychology

Psychology is a scientific field in which bilateral development has been experienced such that in one side the distance between its sub-fields is rising, in the other side the proximity of some sub-fields is increasing. Some developments gradually directed the two comprehensive areas of psy-chology, social psychology and clinical psychology towards separate ways although historically at the beginning they had been closed to each other. However, the interface between them has regained strength since the 90's. The goal of the present paper was to reveal the interface between social and clinical psychology, and specifically investigate the case in Turkey. For this aim, firstly, the historical developments of relations between the areas of social and clinical psychology were overviewed, and the field of clinical social psychology was introduced. Then, in order to clarify the status of the interface in Turkey, the articles addressing Turkey published in The Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, and the studies in The Turkish Journal of Psychology published in the 20 years between 1997 and 2016 were searched. Surveying has been conducted using the keywords (causal attributions, social perception, social cognition, attitudes, social influence, self-disclosure, self-presentation, interpersonal relations, aggression, prosocial behavior, group processes, self, emotions) relating to the topics of interface between social and clinical psychology. The studies were evaluated in terms of their subject matters, methodology, and sample characteristics. The picture of clinical social psychology in Turkey reflected that the number of studies relating to this field was limited and, the graduate programs in social psychology and clinical psychology seemed to keep away from one another. The possible reasons of the present situation were discussed, and the attempts were proposed in order to guide the progress toward clinical social psychology in the future.