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President's Message

THe Cold Hard Facts

Division 42 is the largest division and the major group representing psychology practitioners within APA. Our members would like to see the division’s leaders use its size and strength to convince APA to represent our interests more forcefully in Congress on the national political stage. We need to enhance and restore incomes that have been ravaged by managed care, advocate for a more humane and workable health care system, remove barriers to psychological care created by uneven reimbursement of physical and mental health, and so on. However, there are some cold, hard facts that the Division and the profession of psychology must face if it truly wants to be a major player on the national political scene.

1. Significant political giving is the bedrock on which real access and input are based
2. Psychology’s current giving level of $100,000 per year will never provide that access.
3. Just 2- 3% of practitioners provide all of the political contributions given by psychologists each year while 97-98% contribute nothing.
4. Neither APA general dues, nor the Special Assessment, nor Division 42 dues can provide ANY funds for political giving. All such funds must come from AAP, psychology’s only national PAC.
5. Psychology political contributions are among the lowest of all major professions.
6. Psychology’s political contributions averaged across all practitioners equal $2.50 per member, per year. The comparable figure for Physical Therapy is $4.70.
7. In the last two-year cycle, psychology’s 39,000 special assessment members contributed a total of $197,000. Over the same period the 23,000 member optometrist group gave $1,000.000; 29,500 nurses gave $1,198,000; and 11,000 podiatrists contributed $443,000.
8. If all special assessment payers gave just $45 per year, just 87 cents a week, psychology could raise $1.8 million per year, making it second in size only to medicine among all health care professional PACs.

Division 42 cannot make political contributions to support candidates who share our interests, but it can help raise awareness among members that moving our professional agenda is going to require significant help from psychology’s national PAC: AAP. AAP, of which I am chair, has introduced a special introductory membership for only $45 per year to encourage participation among all special assessment payers and to help insure the future viability of the profession. Current members are encouraged to recruit colleagues to join. If we can gain significant participation at this level, we can become the major force that we need.

Those are the cold, hard facts with respect to psychology’s presence on the national political scene. Depressing though most of them are, one critical fact should not be overlooked: we are achingly close to being a major player. Less than a dollar a week would do it! If we want our division and our profession to truly support our interests in major ways, we must provide them more lubricant (political contributions) to grease the way. We can do it, but everyone needs to pitch in. The fact is that we can help our division, APA, the Practice Directorate and our profession if each of us is willing to contribute even a small amount, less than a dollar a week, to make it happen.

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