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These are challenging times for psychology, and for our association. The discipline is in danger of fracturing. Young researchers are drawn increasingly to specialty organizations.
Young clinicians are so busy competing in the mental health environment that they have little time to worry about long-term issues. Everybody seems to be questioning what APA is doing for them,
whether the benefits they receive justify the costs.
I have spent enough time talking with both practitioners and scientists, and watching how things operate within APA, to have developed some
strong beliefs about some things that should happen for the good of psychology.
My vision for APA is to:
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Recognize our interdependence: I believe science will increasingly play
an important role in clinical decision-making. This is not just about
empirically based methods of intervention for specific problems. Recent
developments in cognitive psychology and decision-making, genetics, and
neuroscience should start to change the ways psychologists think about
clinical issues. On the other side, it is important for basic scientists to
realize that our mental health community provides the bulk of psychology's
public service, and is an important contributor to interest in and support
for psychology as a discipline .
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Become better political advocates for ourselves: All of psychology benefits if we come to play a larger role in the political system. One of the reasons I support prescriptive authority for psychologists
is so we can become more involved in making decisions about the mental health system. We should be more involved in setting social policy as well, and psychology has a great deal to offer in terms
of innovative approaches to addressing social problems. Finally, I would like to see the association play a greater role in training psychologists to become more politically active.
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Grow into primary mental health providers: As a doctoral-level discipline with a history of
training in diagnosis and multimodal treatment, assessment and
evaluation, and critical thinking, psychology is potentially poised to
reinvent itself as a primary mental health profession. Greater
involvement in primary care and prescriptive authority will lead to a
larger role for psychologists in the implementation of rational
healthcare policies. As one component of this process, we should pursue
the development of better translational materials for helping healthcare
providers implement evidence-based practices in mental and behavioral
health.
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Make APA a more hands-on organization: Many members have no idea of what APA does that justifies the costs of membership.
We need to work harder so members can feel a part of what
is going on in the discipline. This should include less time spent on developing policy documents, and more time creating programs that actually change people's lives, including members.
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| Reassert our commitment to basic principles of human dignity: I support the movement to revise the Ethics Code in such a way as to reassert the central importance of principles of human dignity to the work we do. |
