>
History
The Association was formed in 1976 as the Association of Psychology Technicians. Previous to this there had been two meetings of technicians from departments across the country but it was with the support and encouragement of Prof. Tony Gale that the association came into being. The first Officers of the association were Dave Johnson - Cardiff, Jim Chambers - U.C. London and Raja Jayasuriya - Goldsmiths London. By 1984 Jim Chambers had received little support for the association and advertised its demise in the BPS Bulletin. This produced many letters of support and was discussed at the Scientific Affairs Board of the BPS. At this point John Griffiths of UC Swansea stepped forward and took over as editor and agreed to breath life back into the association. He then encouraged Keith Holdsworth of LSE and myself to "volunteer" as Chairman and Secretary.
The first conference was held in Swansea in the spring of 1985. Although the association has remained fairly small it has been kept alive with help of members like Mike Cruse - Sheffield Chairman 1986-1989, John Griffiths Editor 1985 - 1989 & Chairman 1989 - 1995, Raya Jayasuriya, Treasurer 1976 - 1993, Pat Holahan former Treasurer and present Chairman, Pete Beaman present Treasurer, Chris Martin Editor for the last 7 years and many more who have regularly attended and contributed to the conferences. Over the years the Association as certainly tackled a wide range of subjects. The first conference had on its programme "The Micro Revolution" & "Plastic Cards as a Control Medium" and other programmes have contained items such as "Disappearing Fish", "Networking", "Topographic Mapping", "Inter-active Video" "Stress Management", "Ambulatory Multi-channel Recording", "Computer Viruses", "Portable Heart Rate Recorders", "Artificial Intelligence", "Multi platform Desktop Computing" and "Satellite Guidance Systems for the Blind". There have been many changes to the technical demands of Psychology in the last 21 years but the aims of the association have remained the same;
'The improvement of communications and liaison between technicians and the other interested people in order to help each other overcome technical problems'.
Rosemary Westley MBE
Previous Secretary of the Association of Technical Staffs in Psychology
Return to the home page.
