The most important stages in the objective development of the professionalization of psychology in the Third Reich have now been examined, and the study could end here. However, several question remain to be considered: What did the professionalization demand subjectively from those involved, and what effects did it have? What can be said about motivation? The period under investigation lends these questions additional import.

A process of professionalization is initiated and actively supported by individuals; others then take part in it or are affected by it. In the course of the professionalization of psychology individuals began to see themselves as psychologists, members of a group, even though an unambiguous operational definition of membership was first provided in 1941 by the new academic qualification. Professionalization was a goal actively pursued by many, and yet at the same time also a subjectively formative process. It emerged as a movement to unite psychologists in the concerns of their subject. In the pursuit of their goals they were relatively blind to, when they did not actively affirm, the social and political context in which professionalization took place.

In this chapter I shall make some observations about this aspect of the professionalization process, based on the statements of participants. The aim is to try to find out something about the subjective motives for the increased attention paid to practical work, and how this was experienced and interpreted. This is a difficult undertaking. The only sources available are autobiographies and interviews with some psychologists.