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Independent Practitioner/Fall 2005 |
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Editorial and Opinion |
In Search of An Identity Carol Goldberg |
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This is a true story. At a dinner table of a large business organization, myself and another woman introduced ourselves as psychologists. The attorney seated between us asked why we are not licensed. I said psychologists were licensed in our state since 1956. The attorney’s friend had a diploma mill doctorate, and getting my reaction, stopped calling herself a psychologist. Overhearing this discussion, a woman across the table said “I’m a colleague of yours.” When I asked what she does, she replied, “I’m a psychic.” Not only did the others not know the difference, they didn’t care. This story evokes laughter whenever tell it in my workshops and talks. However, I am not telling it as a stand-up comic, but as a psychologist concerned for our profession. If you ask anyone to identify a physician, attorney, or teacher, they can. In contrast, psychologists are likely to be confused with others, distortedly viewed (as tabloid talk show violators of respect and confidentiality), or confined to a mental illness role (“shrinks”). We need a unique identity. I began to think about a unique identity in graduate school, when I was unable to comprehend how psychologists could be differentiated from psychiatrists if we kept copying them. I wrote a paper emphasizing our uniqueness, devised the name “therapent” instead of patient, and suggested using our roots in learning, testing, prevention, and people’s strengths rather than a medical mental illness model. However, I was too much ahead of the times. Like others, I succumbed to the medicalization of clinical psychology, with its prestige and power, wearing a white coat as hospital Chief Psychologist and medical school professor, referring to clients as “patients,” using DSM diagnoses, and allowing insurance companies into my private practice. The medical model came at too high a cost: junior doctors with second-class citizenship and lesser pay, unwelcome guests on others’ turf without privileges or control, managed care, and lack of a unique identity. I am not suggesting psychologists abandon diagnosing and treating mental illness and obtaining hospital and prescription privileges, but that we emphasize the powerful learning and unlearning interventions psychologists do best. We need a unique sound bite identity, which is easy for the public to understand and remember, broad for a diverse profession, and signifies we have the highest training. Thus, I developed “Psychologists are the people experts” to indicate our expertise in everything relating to people…all types of people, with and without pathology, in all settings. It encompasses everything psychologists do (practice, research, education, and all of APA’s Divisions). If it sounds familiar, it is because NYSPA selected it for its Public Service Announcements on television and radio. This identity can encourage psychologists, who hide their profession in order to avoid stigma (“Hi, I’m First Name, your coach) in corporate, online, and other settings, to proudly identify themselves as psychologists. In so doing, they promote psychology, distinguish themselves from lesser trained and self-proclaimed consultants, and broaden the concept of what psychologists do. It can make consulting with psychologists about “normal” life changes routine. It can increase work for psychologists in corporations, schools, media, government, transportation, communication, safety, terrorism prevention, computer ease and security, human-machine interactions, health promotion, environmental comfort, finance, laws, online learning etc. It is an ideal identity for independent practitioners, who want to use their skills in innovative, entrepreneurial work. I am not just proposing this broader identity, but promoting it by example. Instead of seeing patients, I publicize psychology and its lesser known applications, through hosting and producing a television program, “Dr. Carol Goldberg and Company,” which has aired on Public Access at least weekly throughout Manhattan and Long Island for over four years and won two awards. I developed “Catalyst CoachingSM” through which I help psychologists find innovative applications for their skills. I design web sites to promote their work, through “Web Sites and Sound Bites®.” And I do all of this using psychology skills and identification as a psychologist. By publicizing psychologists’ identity as the experts with everything involving people, we can stretch psychology. Secondary gains are control over our work, freedom from managed care and its low fees, surviving competition from lesser trained lower cost practitioners (ex. New York’s four newly licensed master’s mental health professionals could bring the state total to 300,000, twice the size of APA), and new types of work. We are only limited by our imagination and determination to show the public why we are the people experts. |
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