This is my final edition of the IP. A few thanks are very much in order.

Frank Froman has been a great colleague to work with, and will do a fine job in my stead.

Rick Weiss is a tremendously patient designer/publisher and deserves another raise.

Jeannie Beeaff kept us all on time and oriented.

Pat DeLeon has been a tireless contributor of cutting edge thinking.

Dick Saunders procured many fine articles and shepherded them.

Ken Pope shared his expertise often and gave behind the scenes support, as well as a fantastic email list.

Alan Entin gave us pictures to spice up our publication.

Debbie Klingender has kept showing us how to start from scratch.

Many other fine authors, too many to name, gave us material and tolerated our editing.

John Nielander of Psychotherapy Finances gave us a reciprocal publication and many fines bits of news.

Gordon Herz put us up on the Web and offered wise input.

John Norcross edited our inside cover and gave helpful feedback.

The P&C Chairs, including John Rudisill and Linda Campbell were nice background aids.

The Boards and Presidents of the past 3 years were kind enough to let Frank and I do what we thought best and support us with the money to do it.

Marty Williams provided comic relief and thoughts on what to do when my term ended.

Stan Moldawsky started me on the path here.

Ivan Miller gave me a light saber that aided my bravado to speak the truth as I saw it.

My family let me spend lots of time on the computer and never complained. They’re great people.

Mozart provided me with the title for our Humor column, which, since no one ever asked, has been a different language translation of the phrase “A Little Silliness” for the past 12 issues. I was most fond of Hungarian.

Dante and Gilgamesh inspired me to keep going in the face of a profession that has the following problem in my opinion. It is a wonderful profession to work in; doing psychotherapy is a fantastic privilege, as near to a sacred experience as I shall likely ever find. But the Business of psychotherapy leads us down an ever worsening path. It will be continually harder I fear to make the sort of income we had come to expect if we are to be part of the mainstream healthcare system. And yet if we attempt to leave it, while we may indeed have smaller practices, most of us won’t be able to offer psychotherapy to the large number of people we now choose to serve. Mike Cuttler was right so many years ago when he talked about “elasticity of demand” leaving the fully private market a problematic way to make a living for many of us, again at the rate we have come to expect and hope for given our training. I know some are doing it now, but I don’t believe most of us can; and if we try, we shall be leaving behind to far lesser trained and competent professionals those patients (this the vast majority of people) unable or unwilling to pay us out of pocket and who remain beholden to their insurance companies as the primary payor for the cost of psychotherapy. And unfortunately, from here, the problem only gets more complicated, but space makes me need to stop.

But a final thanks to You, if you read this for bothering to come this far. I’ve just granted you all a $30 increase from all your insurance panels.

Live long and prosper.
Sancho Panza