Inductees 2015 - Roll of Honour - Nancy Stewart
ROLL OF HONOUR - Nancy Stewart
The daughter of a school Principal, Nancy Stewart was born in Claremont, in 1919. She and her family moved around the state during her childhood and she trained to be a schoolteacher.
While teaching she attended the University of Western Australia and completed a joint major in English literature and psychology in 1940.
During World War Two, the Commonwealth Employment Service was established to place people in the most appropriate jobs.
Children aged fourteen were tested to assess their capabilities. With her qualifications in psychology Stewart was employed by the West Australian Education Department to help with the testing and was to deal with 'problem children' and provide what was called 'guidance'.
She was then appointed to the Welfare Department, South Australia in 1945, where she went on to become their first full-time psychologist. When the Child Guidance Clinic opened in 1950 she returned to Western Australia where she was appointed the state's first psychologist.
The following year she travelled to London and gained employment as a psychotherapist. While there Stewart studied with one of the founders of child psychoanalysis, Anna Freud and gained a certificate after the course which would be considered as comparable to a Master of Clinical Psychology of University College, London, today.
Throughout her career Ms Stewart was committed to increasing the professional recognition of psychologists. In 1945 she was a foundation member of the Australian branch of the British Psychological Society, which became the Australian Psychological Society in 1966. She was the honorary secretary and chair of the Society at various times and was later made a Fellow. From 1957 to 1979 she was a lecturer in clinical psychology at the University of Western Australia. She died in 1997.
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