Counselling psychologists have affirmed their allegiance to the scientist-practitioner (S-P) model through all of the discipline's major conferences in the United States of America, and the philosophy has been critical to training across the globe. Despite the centrality of this training approach to counselling psychology's identity, no comprehensive overview of the field's history with the model has been undertaken. A review spanning sixty years describes the evolving relationship between the S-P model and counselling psychology and also points to historical and current challenges within that relationship.