Robert McGrath for APA President

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MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN

Ballot Statement

These are challenging times for psychology, and the next president of APA must be ready to address a number of serious issues. Federal and state support for research is being cut, the NSF social science directorate is under direct attack, loans for graduate studies will no longer be subsidized, and funding for education is being cut across the country. Healthcare psychologists face growing competition and pressure from third party payers, and the internship crisis is only worsening. Even so, the number of practitioners continues to grow, compromising early career psychologists’ capacity to earn a decent wage. Finally, our ability to work to enhance the social welfare will be radically curtailed if these threats compromise our viability as a discipline and profession. My agenda consists of a number of elements, to address the variety of issues we must face in the near term.

In the Interest of Science: We must make the case for psychology as a research discipline essential to the task of finding empirically based solutions for social problems. This will require enhancing the perception of psychology as a science, including briefing documents for legislators on key research findings with social implications. We have many psychologists who have established national reputations with the general public, and I would like to work with those individuals so they relay a common message to media outlets and to legislators about the importance of psychological research for the advancement of the social good. Finally, I would like to collaborate more effectively with other scientific organizations, such as APS and AAAS, to make the case for research in general, and for psychological research in particular. As an active researcher and academician, I can work effectively to advance the public image of psychology as a discipline of social value.

In the Interest of Healthcare: Given the growing workforce of healthcare psychologists, we must create new job opportunities for early career psychologists while also reinforcing the social commitment to traditional models of service. This will require leadership prepared to present a nuanced approach to evolving professional practice. It will include for example preparing psychologists to become involved in integrated primary care while simultaneously asserting the importance of traditional psychotherapy and clinical assessment. It will involve psychologists becoming increasingly involved in medication management of their patients while simultaneously making the case that our society has become overly reliant on medications as a treatment for mental disorders. As someone who has been involved in advocacy for the last 10 years, I look forward to the opportunity to make our argument to the public.

There are other, more immediate issues that must be addressed if we are to heal the practice of psychology:

I fully support APA’s efforts to include psychologists in the Medicare definition of a physician. This is the sort of legislation that will have long-term benefits to the profession.
We must aggressively pursue enhanced support of internship training for doctoral-level healthcare psychologists. We must recognize the internship shortfall as an economic issue: So long as the economic benefits of a doctoral program exceed the economic benefits of an internship for the host organization, this disparity is inevitable.

We need to educate state licensing boards about the benefits to practitioners and limited risk to the public associated with eliminating the postdoctoral year for licensure.

While recognizing that healthcare psychologists must be psychologists first, we must reconsider our training standards in light of the needs of optimal healthcare practice.

Given pending litigation I will limit my comments about the practice assessment to saying that I support full transparency concerning the relationship between APA and the Practice Organization. I also firmly believe the future of the profession depends upon our making the case directly to clinicians to support the latter.

There are other issues we can address effectively through partnerships with key organizations, including the spread of telehealth, improving license portability, and confronting the abuses of managed care. Though much has been done, more is possible.

In the Public Interest: I believe several of these agenda items have important implications for advancing the social good, including the delivery of empirically based guidelines for addressing social problems and the integration of psychologists in the primary care environment. The latter offers the best opportunity we have to provide services to the large population of disadvantaged populations who currently have little or no access to appropriate mental health services.

Several social issues emerge that are particularly pressing for psychology to address. One is working with other educational organizations to confront obstacles to incorporating members of diverse populations into academia. It is increasingly important for students of non-majority background to find effective role models in their educations, and this applies no less to psychologist students than to any other group. Second, we must be vigilant against the misuse of psychological research to oppress certain populations, including individuals who demonstrate an alternative sexual or gender orientation. Finally, we must confront recent efforts to allow students in mental health programs to be exempted from seeing certain populations of patients for reasons of conscience. Again, this is an instance where we can and must work with other organizations as such a precedent would ultimately undermine all training in healthcare.

In the Interest of All: Too often the APA president focuses on small goals, organizing several task forces that each spotlights a specific social problem. I aspire to be a president who works to advance all branches of the discipline and in the process contributes to the social good. I hope you will join me in this effort. Please give me your #1 vote for APA president.

Bio

I am living proof that history is not destiny. The product of an Irish-American family where a civil service job was valued above education, I read Irving Stone's Passions of the Mind about Sigmund Freud at 16 and never looked back. My goal was to become a teacher and researcher in clinical psychology, roles I continue to cherish. As I matured, though, I realized that I, and all of us, have a duty to think about the future of our discipline and our place in society. That belief took me down a path I never would have predicted, a path that now leads me to seek the presidency of APA.

Academic Background: I received my Ph.D. in 1984 from Auburn University. I'm a professor of psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University in NJ, and have directed several graduate and postgraduate programs. I teach courses focusing on foundations of clinical psychology, research methodology, and clinical assessment.

Professional Background: I am a licensed psychologist in New Jersey and New York. I have been a methodologist for projects as varied as a social welfare program for abandoned infants and scale development for an Oprah Winfrey website. I have been a teacher and administrator, a journal editor and book author, a psychotherapist and a statistics geek, a political advocate and a community activist for environmental issues. I have written bills for state legislatures and statistics texts. I have personal relationships spanning the wide variety of constituencies that comprise APA.

APA Participation: I am a member or fellow of APA Divisions 5 (Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics), 8 (Personality and Social Psychology), 12 (Clinical Psychology), 38 (Health Psychology), and 55 (Pharmacotherapy); as well as a member or fellow of the Society for Personality Assessment, Association for Research in Personality, the Association for Professional Psychology, and the Association for Psychological Science. I have been particularly involved in activities associated with the integrated primary care and prescriptive authority movements, and have served on numerous APA committees and task forces.

Personal Life: This year is my 25th wedding anniversary, so I hope you will consider giving me an anniversary present of your #1 vote (#2 votes are also appreciated). My wife maintains a private practice offering traditional psychotherapy. Our two children survived a childhood with two psychologist parents to become funny, kind, and intelligent adults who have just emptied our nest, giving me the time I will need for the ambitious agenda I have set for myself as president.

My Leadership Style: At a meeting of an environmental group that I founded in my community, another member once said, "I’m going to ask the Bob McGrath question: What's the next step?" I was proud that others see me as someone committed to action and moving ahead. I work hard and accomplish a good deal, but I also value deeply my personal relationships with others. I try to bring humor, passion, and perspective to everything I do. I believe I will be a good leader for all of APA.

I'd be happy to hear from you about what you consider to be our most important goals for change and any questions you have about my platform.

Change is disturbing when it is done to us. It is exhilarating when done by us.

Rosabeth Kantor