Comments on the studies by

n a recent issue of Papeles del Psicólogo, Profes-sor Gualberto Buela-Casal and colleagues pub-lished the results of four independent opinion studies on the image of Psychology as a discipline and health profession among university teachers and stu-dents, psychological association members and the gener-al population (Buela Casal et al., 2005a,b,c; Sierra et al., 2005). The studies are based on the remote adminis-tration of a brief questionnaire to large samples. For recording the opinions in the cases of teachers, as-sociation members (psychologists) and students, the au-thors used the Opinion Questionnaire on Psychology as a Health Profession (Cuestionario de Opinión sobre la Psicología como Profesión Sanitaria, COPPS) drawn up ad hoc. The authors conclude in general that the popula-tions surveyed with the COPPS have a favourable opin-ion of Psychology as a health profession. However, in the factor structure of the first COPPS sub-scale the dimen-sions that group general Psychology and Clinical Psy-chology appear separately. All three samples judge as more “health-related ” (on the basis of the study’s as-sumptions) Clinical Psychology than general Psychology, from which we would have difficulty abstracting the clini-cal sub-discipline. This suggests, more than the conclu-sion reached by the authors, a prior consensus between psychologists about the definition of professional profiles (Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos, 1998). It is somewhat surprising that in the study with university students no data were collected from students of the UN-ED (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia » The Open University), which has the largest student body (half of all new graduates), and we can assume with characteristics different from those of “normal ” universi-ties. (Note that none of the Health Sciences degree cours-es can be studied by correspondence courses, which are confined to the Social and Juridical Sciences). In the tex