Gordon Herz

In 2000, I was asked to apply for the “Associate Internet Editor” position. I previously was asked to serve on the Interdivisional (39/42) Task Force on Managed Care and Health Care Policy, which I now co-chair. This task force is doing essential work related to the division’s core mission and members’ direct needs. I contributed articles in the IP such as the “Ask the Advocate” column and health care financing reform. This Task Force will present a resolution at APA Council this year on comprehensive US health care reform with fully integrated psychological services – the first time such a statement would be adopted by our parent organization. I have learned about moving policy issues through the larger organization.
Two years ago I became Internet Editor. My hopes were that the division’s web site would become THE resource to which independent psychologists would turn for information about practice, and that the listserv would become THE ‘place’ for conversation about our professional lives.

I led a number of projects, including developing listserv guidelines, standards to allow advertising on the division’s web site, and having these vetted through APA legal requirements. Hopefully our list guidelines have contributed to a collegial electronic community. They have been used as a model for a number of state and division email lists. I brought outcomes measurement, online through our web site, free to members. I began the “Practice Perfect” area of our web site with member-to-member articles on practice. I promoted survey software through 42Online, also as a free benefit of membership, since used for division surveys and dissertation research.
The most critical issues confronting independent psychologists are surviving, and thriving. We are squeezed between incompletely educated and trained “providers” and nonpsychologists creating protocols that marginalize doctoral level psychological services.

Division 42 should establish a clear advocacy agenda with a multi-year horizon, and fund that agenda generously. This can be done through our five year review process, taking member needs into account all along the way, and through our recently created Advocacy Task Force. We need to understand thoroughly what members want, and deliver those services and products. We should help middle- and later career psychologists sustain the careers they envisioned. We need to nurture -- and learn from -- earlier career psychologists who are the future of our profession. We should continue our strong alliance with APAPO, and strengthen relationships with divisions with which we have mutual interests. We should invest time and money at state and federal levels to prevent further erosion of the doctoral level practice of psychology. And let us not forget the full development of our electronic media as one of our prime vehicles for accomplishing our goals.
The theme in my activities for the division has been member services. I hope to help the division keep practitioner needs foremost on its agenda. It seems to me this is a key qualification for a Member At Large. I ask for your support.

Thank you,
Gordon I. Herz, PhD

Mitchell Hicks

In Spring 2003 I was becoming increasingly discouraged as I prepared to graduate with a doctorate in clinical psychology while being unable to compete against new masters graduates for jobs. At this point I joined Division 42 to learn from experienced colleagues while finding an outlet to advocate for my fellow early career psychologists. I joined the Student and Early Career Psychologist (S/ECP) Committee in 2003 as its Associate Chair. I went on to Chair that committee in 2004, and served as the S/ECP representative to the Division’s Board of Directors in 2005. During my service to the S/ECP committee, I advocated for generous membership fee structures for students and early career professionals, and coordinated the S/ECP Poster sessions held during our social hour at APA convention in Honolulu (2004) and Washington DC (2005). Additionally, I served on the Awards and Nominations and Elections committees in 2006. It would be an honor to serve you again as Member-at-Large

Our profession is under attack on several fronts, and this requires our immediate attention. We face unprecedented encroachment on our professional autonomy by outside influences. Certainly insurance companies shoulder much of the blame for this as they attempt to control the length of treatment as well as the focus to matters they alone deem to be “medically necessary.” Unfortunately, those within the ranks of psychology who insist that those of us who are not using empirically “validated” treatments are offering substandard and unethical care are a more significant menace. Initiatives that erode our prerogative to exercise our best judgment about how and when to integrate research findings in our practices must be stopped.

Recent graduates may be shocked to discover that their earning potential is outstripped by very high student loan debt. This situation is further exacerbated by the outdated postdoctoral supervision requirements that force new graduates to take very poorly paid positions. We must work with our state associations to develop new pathways to licensure that will put a stop to this year of poverty while maintaining quality. Relatedly, the Division must advocate on our behalf for more appropriate reimbursement rates while at the same time offering business-oriented education to the membership. The latter can include new models of practice, opportunities outside of insurance, and strategies to set us apart from other disciplines.

Though we as a Division can boast about being the largest within APA, it would be a mistake to sit idly while overall divisional membership continues to wane. We must educate students and new professionals intending to enter independent practice that Division 42 is their home within APA. This project is not about increasing membership, although that is important. My generation of psychologists needs the opportunity for mentorship from the seasoned professionals and accomplished leaders in this Division. The very future of the independent practice of psychology depends on us being effective advocates to the public and within APA to protect our interests.

Thank you, and I would appreciate your vote.

Harriette Kaley

Being a member-at-large of Division 42’s Board is something I have been wanting to do since I became a Division member well over 30 years ago. I have been a member of the Fellowship Committee, am now Chair of that Committee, and before that I served in the Division’s background while actively serving in other divisions (especially Division 39) and in APA, as well as in my state psychological association. I believe that all those experiences will enable me to serve productively on our Board.

My history of service in APA is especially relevant to a position on the Board. After several terms as a representative to APA Council, member and then Chair of a Committee (Committee on the Structure and Function of Council: CSFC) and member of a Board (Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest: BAPPI), I really understand how APA works. My grasp of its processes and familiarity with many of its significant figures can make all the difference in the world to the smooth functioning of the Board. The recent experience I had shepherding this year’s fellowship class through the Board process was an excellent sample of what it would be like actually to work with and be on the Board, and heightened my eagerness to serve.

There are several critical issues now facing us:

• the escalating problems with managed care and the de-escalation of our fees;
• the importance of positioning ourselves as primary care providers and as experts on health and mind-body issues;
• the enhancement of our role in relatively new areas of practice including trauma and prescribing:
• and--probably the most important newly-emerging issue-- mastering the new technologies to allow us to expand our functioning onto national and international scales.

Division 42's time-honored way of addressing these issues is to marshal our own expertise, often in the form of task forces and committees, and then ultimately to partner with APA to utilize its greater resources to move in the directions we have chosen. I think that is a fine approach, and I believe that my knowledgeability, energy and devotion to our kinds of psychological practice will help forward our projects.

My endless interest in psychology, APA and independent practice, and my energy.

Mary Kilburn

1 and 2) Responses to the first two questions are intertwined. I was licensed at the master’s level in 1969, doctoral level in 1977 [a second career, first as minister’s wife , community volunteer and mother of 2].’ I began Independent Practice in 1980 and served two terms as Chair of our State Association’s Insurance Committee in the tumultuous 80s under. Bryant Welch’s Presidency. There I received my still painfully relevant education in matters of health care finance... In the 90s, as Founder and President of the NC Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers, I also worked with the National Coalition in striving to preserve psychotherapy. I was recruited to serve on the Interdivisional Task Force on Managed Care and Health Care Policy... Most recently, I have become an advocate for the concepts characterized by Balanced Choice, an innovative concept for financing universal Health Care. I continue with these endeavors, as well as others in our state and community. All of my activities are informed by “Learnings” from volunteer work and political activism in my first career, e.g... Founder of NC Consumers Council. Recognitions from professional and civic communities have been appreciated, e.g. APA Heiser Award 1999, NCPA Mary Clarke Award 2001, YWCA Academy of Women 2001.

Div 42 has been a gold mine of resources for me, broadening my horizons in numerous and unanticipated ways. I cherish the associations and friendships formed with inspiring and stimulating colleagues. Online participation in the Div42 ListServ has provided powerful resources and a strong sense of community. I eagerly await arrival if each IP, having learned much from the writing therein. My decision to seek Board Membership is a desire to give something back to the Division that has served me so well, should my colleagues decide the experience I bring is of value at this time.

3) SURVIVAL at least in recognizable form. This issue is tied to Health Care Policy and Psychology’s place in health care.

4) I propose that the Division address this issue first by recognizing that “business as usual” won’t do. After electing a practitioner to head APA, we must counter the multiple trends which threaten what we value: e.g. “corporatization” of health care finance, mechanization of health care delivery, failure to understand individual uniqueness and the healing relationship. We need to seek out the wisdom and vision of our most knowledgeable and experienced leaders, e.g. Stanley Graham, Ron Fox, Stanley Moldawsky for starters. We must craft effective strategies for continuing to introduce financially and politically feasible alternatives. The massive changes we seek will take time. If we work out of principle and a powerful value system, rather than reactively, we will find ways to utilize the present as well as the yet- to- be- recognized challenges and opportunities which both threaten and await our profession. We must develop a willingness to do what is necessary to finance such efforts.

Elaine Levine

Dear Member of Division 42:

I have been in private practice for over thirty years, working with children and adults in individual and family settings as well as involved in extensive forensic work for both family courts and criminal courts in New Mexico. I have been a member of Division 42 since its inception and was voted a Fellow of Division 42 in 2006. I am very active on a national level in efforts to open professional avenues for private practitioners. Thus, I believe I could well serve Division 42 as a Member at Large, representing diverse issues of our division.

I would bring to this position my expertise and enthusiasm for ways of advocating new avenues in professional psychology. Under my leadership, we recently completed a very successful Advocacy Summit, “Advocacy in Service of Psychology and the Public Welfare: Privileges, Prescriptions, and Primary Care” which was spearheaded by Division 55, and co-sponsored by Division 42, Division 31, and Division 18.

I have been very active advocating for the rights and privileges of independent practitioners and their patients at both the state and national level. I served as a member of the Board of Psychologist Examiners of New Mexico. I was the Chair of the APA Committee on Rural Health, creating new methods for bringing practitioners into rural areas. I am presently the President of Division 55, the American Society for the Advancement of Pharmacotherapy. In this role I have been working to facilitate closer collaboration between Division 42 and Division 55.

In addition, I was responsible for sparking the interest in RxP in the New Mexico Psychological Association and then leading a group of committed, forward-looking psychologists through the legislative process, resulting in Governor Garry Johnson signing into law the first bill in the United States granting properly trained psychologists’ prescriptive authority.  I continue to work toward the implementation of our Law and now am one of the initial psychologists licensed to prescribe psychotropics.  For these efforts, I received an APA Presidential Citation from Robert Sternberg in 2003 as well as Division 35 and Division 55 awards. I am committed to assuring that as psychologists we maintain our identity as we develop this new practice field. 

I believe strongly in the scientist-practitioner model of practice, as evidenced by my having published over 50 articles in refereed journals (specializing in cross-cultural and child therapy) and three books: Crossing Cultures in Therapy: (Brooks/Cole, 1980), Listen to our Children: Theory and Practice (Kendall Hunt, 1986, 1992, 1998) and Law & Mental Health Professionals in New Mexico, (APA 2005).

Like you, I am very concerned about the many issues facing private practitioners (from shrinking practice opportunities for those in traditional practice to managed care constraints). If elected as a Member at Large, I would offer Division 42 my energy, enthusiasm, and experience in developing new practice areas, including prescriptive authority, to reach diverse and underserved populations through an integrated, biopsychosocial approach to care.

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME FOR MEMBER AT LARGE!
Cordially,
Elaine S. LeVine, Ph.D.
Conditional Prescribing Psychologist