Candidate's Statement for President: APA Monitor

The American Psychological Association is in great shape!  It serves its many constituencies well and, in doing so, serves the public. Seeing that this continues to be the case would be important to me as President. The days of the battles between science and practice in APA are largely gone.  Cooperation is evident in Council to meet the objectives of both segments of APA. Education has developed its own voice through the Education Directorate and the public policy is well served by the Public Interest Directorate. A President can encourage efforts in particular directions and can help create an atmosphere of cooperation and interchange. I have some particular interests in certain activities of psychology that I would like to help advance.

In the area of science the image of APA has not entirely caught up with the reality. Reality is that APA is the center for psychological science in the world. APA is the world's largest publisher of psychological journals, it advocates effectively for science and research in congress and federal agencies, and it offers a variety of programs for science through the Science Directorate.  Science and academics are well represented in the leadership of APA.  Psychological scientists are served by science Divisions though convention presentations and other programs.   Still there is a common view among some academics and researchers that APA is largely a practice guild with little interest in science. We need to continue to work cooperatively with other scientific psychological societies, but also work actively to recruit new psychological scientists into APA. The Science Directorate is promoting the new Decade of Behavior.  This initiative will help to refocus the spotlight in federal programs on the psychological and behavioral aspects of human health and welfare. The Decade of Behavior should also be a rallying point for scientists within APA. It will help them spread the word to the academic departments and research labs that APA is the place to be for psychological science.

Psychological practice continues to face the challenges of a changing health care industry.  Psychology practices are suffering from intrusive management and competition from other professionals.  The Practice Directorate is addressing the problems facing practice with a multi-pronged strategy of legislative and regulatory advocacy, litigation, aid to states, and education of practitioners and multiple publics.  I particularly applaud the efforts of the Directorate to engage in cooperative projects, such as the intervention program with breast cancer patients with Blue Cross, which demonstrate the value of psychology to the health care community.  Psychological interventions are effective and are cost-saving in the long run. We have the data to back up these claims and we need to continue to take this message to the health care community. Although it has been misconstrued in some quarters, I believe that the Empirically Supported Psychotherapies project of the Clinical Psychology Division helps to make the point to the health care world that psychology can point to data on effectiveness of treatment and can provide effective services for a wide variety of problems in living. We need to promote our effectiveness and use our research to demonstrate the empirical support for our interventions.  

In the area of education I have been particularly interested in recent years in the continuing education and in bringing graduate curricula up to date to deal with new developments in research and practice. I believe we need to improve our system of making CE available to psychologists to update their skills. The Division 12 Task Force on Psychological Interventions surveyed graduate programs and internships and found that relatively few offer education and training in newer, empirically supported interventions.  Offerings to current practitioners through CE are similarly sparse.  The little research that exists on effectiveness of CE suggests that the usual half day workshop does very little to change psychologists practices. CE is more effective if it is based on longer courses within which participants are given the opportunity to practice new skills with feedback. The most effective CE programs add opportunities for supervision, consultation during a follow-up period to help practitioners put their new skills into practice.  We have developed good examples of training in complex skills to criterion levels of competency.  We need to apply all of this knowledge and technology to upgrading our graduate curricula and to creating a program of effective continuing education for practice. I would also like to mention here the Board of Educational Affairs Working Group on the Implications of Changes In the Health Care Delivery System for the Education, Training, and Continuing Professional Education of Psychologists.  I participated in this working group and I think its report has many valuable suggestions for changing psychology education for the new world of health care.

In the area of public interest, psychology continues to grapple with the implications of the changing demographics of the nation and of its increasing cultural diversity. We need to sustain our efforts to infuse psychology at all levels with openness to and awareness of diversity and its implications for education, research and practice.  Psychology has also become increasingly international. Over the past couple of years I have been attending the meetings of an informal trilateral group of psychologists from the US, Canada and Mexico to talk about the implications of NAFTA for the practice of psychology in North America.  I learned a great deal about the similarities and differences among us in education, credentialling, and regulation. Psychology crosses borders and oceans. APA and US psychology must recognize that we are part of a world community of psychology. We lead the world in many ways, but need to become more aware of developments, problems, and opportunities for psychology around the world. I have experience in leadership positions that span a number of dimensions in psychology from science to education to practice, and at local, state, national and international levels.  I am honored to be nominated to run for the APA Presidency and would welcome the opportunity to help psychology face its many challenges and opportunities.

Department of Psychology at University of Houston
Comments to: lprehm@uh.edu