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From the Editor |
Martin H. Williams, Ph.D. |
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I write this column on my return from APA in Chicago. This was truly an exciting convention for our Division and for me, as we successfully completed four years of work devoted to the APA ethics revision. At our 1999 Midwinter meeting in West Palm Beach, President Carol Goodheart asked me to participate in a Divison 42 task force that would try to affect the revision of the APA Ethics Code. Lenore Walker, our current President, was selected to chair our task force. Many of our members had been adversely affected by the 1992 Code, which is written in such a way as to provide an easy roadmap for plaintiffs’ and board attorneys to file suit against us, the practitioners. We practitioners had learned from experience that there could be false complaints, that we could be wrongfully accused, and that our careers were needlessly on the line. Increasing numbers of older and highly experienced practitioners—typical members of Division 42—had either themselves been prosecuted by a state board or had seen it happen to a trusted and respected colleague. No other group within APA has been as vulnerable to ethics code complaints as independent practitioners, and President Goodheart and her board realized that the resources of Division 42 should be mobilized to protect us. Budget was approved, and our task force began to meet to determine what we could do to impact the Code revision and reshape the Code to make fewer practitioners sitting ducks for consumer-driven licensing boards or money-hungry plaintiffs’ attorneys. Many Division 42 members and consultants helped us with this endeavor. John Fleer, Brandt Caudill and Christie Morehouse provided legal consultation, and Dr. Fleer attended our board meeting in Washington, D.C. to help educate the board on legal problems with the current ethics code. Dr. Fleer was a member of our ethics task force until he had to recuse himself upon being retained as a consultant to the APA Ethics Office. Division members Lenore Walker, Arthur Kovacs, T. Richard Saunders, David Shapiro, Shirley Glass, Mae Billet Ziskin, Melba Vasquez and Elaine Rodino participated in various ways at different meetings and via voluminous emails. (Dr. Vasquez recused herself from our task force because of her concurrent service on the APA Ethics Code Task Force.) Last year, Lenore passed the chair of our task force to David Shapiro, as the demands on her time began to exceed even her vast energy level as she simultaneously served as President of Division 46 and President Elect of Division 42. We assembled once in Orange County, California to take advantage of the fact that Lenore, David, Arthur and I happened to be in town. Attorney Caudill, whose offices are in Orange County, and attorney Morehead joined us for a day long session to plan strategy and craft new Code language that would help protect practitioners. In June of 2001, Lenore, David and I met in Washington, D.C. with the entire APA Ethics Code Task Force. We frankly expressed our concerns, especially about the ways that the Code, originally created as an APA document to guide the APA Ethics Committee, now has the force of law to regulate psychologists in most states and is always introduced in civil malpractice suits against us. The Code is an exported document that now serves to guide non-psychologists--judges and juries--to adjudicate our work. Clearly, the Code must be written far more carefully and with an eye to it’s inevitable use by non-psychologists. Following that June 2001 meeting, I attended at every meeting of the APA Ethics Code Task Force as the official observer for Division 42. We also had the good fortune to have another observer looking out for our interests, President Elect Jean Carter who attended as the representative of the Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice. Each time the ECTF met, Division 42 gained more ground. For example, by Revision 7, the draft Code incorporated our recommendation that enforceable ethics standards be clearly distinguished from the Code’s non-enforceable aspirational goals. As August 2002 approached, the Division 42 ethics task force was keenly aware that we still had not accomplished all that we set out to do. Draft 7 of the ethics code was headed for approval by the Council of Representatives—the final step before adoption—yet it failed to include some of the important changes approved by our Board of Directors. Lenore Walker, Arthur Kovacs and David Shapiro decided to make once last try to improve the Code prior to the Council vote. Lenore describes this dramatic day in her Presidential column. |
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