“Our division has a goodly amount of it in savings. We should spend it. After all, it’s our money. Let’s put it to use.”

And so goes one of the key arguments about allocating funds from our treasury.

But money spent makes sense if and only if it buys something of value…something that makes a difference, and makes a lasting or significant contribution to our welfare. It’s not unlike how any business looks at expenditures. Determine needs, identify priorities, evaluate resources, and spend where you can get the best bang for the buck.

The questions to be answered, however, make allocating that money a more complex thing than you’d first think. Who gets it? What do we buy with it? How does it fit in with our stated mission? Do we help a few Psychologists in a couple of states, or try to help most of us?

Do we tackle managed care? If so, how do we do that? Do we fund a couple of states pushing for Rx privileges? What about the others that will come on line and request similar grants? “You gave $10,000 to get a lobbyist for Missouri. California’s bigger. We need $50,000. A few such reasonable requests and we’re broke.

Are we going to become a grant agency, raising money to fund others in their quest for important changes? Will we help State Psych Associations in trying to help clamp sunset laws that could kill Psychology as a profession? It’s a great cause. What happens when a dozen states ask for grants? Fund some? All? None?

Added to the mix is that we’re a small band of travelers with a tiny bunch of dollars to spend. If we buy something that flops with those dollars, the groundswell of criticism will be mighty indeed, as well it should be. Out Monday morning quarterbacks will have no mercy for our losing our nest egg should we misplace our priorities in order to unload money into a system that may not give much return on investment.

So it’s complicated. And in our state of finding ourselves with an aging population of Psychologists who receive free dues, and with declining census of members, we’re overspending what we have to keep afloat.

Do we take our surplus and identify a few areas that we can fund, hoping that the majority of our members agree with it and continue to support us while we do that?

Who decides what we fund? And when the money runs out, what then? Dump non-essentials, quit publishing such things as the IP to save money, and go on battery power as an organization that has no financial backbone?

It feels right to say that we should spend our money on behalf of the members. It’s a powerful statement that few of us would want to argue against.

Let’s just make darned sure that if we toss our dollars into a cause, an activity, or a place, that it’s the best that we can do for all of us.

* * * * * * * * *

Confessions of an aging Psychologist

It’s freeing to be 65. And it’s had an effect on my practice.

I feel more free than ever to follow ideas, take reasonable treatment risks, and charge well for services. Doing treatment has never been more rewarding or more fun.

I just wish that I’d had one of you to tell me to do some of these things earlier. The disadvantage of being a soloist in practice is that I seldom asked a colleague how to do things better. That was a mistake. A big one.

Had I asked one or more of you, I’d likely not have had to discover so many things on my own. Less trial and error, and more focused gains earlier on. The inner child still runs a lot of behavior...I can do it all by myself. Sure, that’s quite true. But with your help, I could have done it better, faster, and smarter.

That was the biggest single mistake of being an independent: Being too independent. It’s still a problem and can get in my way more than I’d like to admit. And yet it’s fascinating to learn your stories, find out how you do your thing, and borrow ideas that help. Independence is fine. Too much of it can be counterproductive and stifling.

So the same thing that we love, our independence, and be a key thing that makes our lives more difficult.

I’d like to think of us as being more interdependent than not. Especially these days, we need each other for ideas, support, technique, and a sense of community. With the knowledge and skills that we’ve got as a group, we can likely solve most of our problems...both as individual practitioners and as a group. Our independence, while prized, is better tempered with our sense of knowing that we need each other, and are there for each other throughout our life cycles.

Just like we are for our clients and patients.

(In)dependently yours,

Frank