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This issue of forced settlements (my attorney's term) is an extremely serious one. In Maryland, several psychologists have had to expend tens of thousands of unreimbursed dollars on civil litigation, due to complaints before our Board of Examiners. For example, one practitioner told me he had to spend one of his childrens' college tuition savings on the action against him. He was very definitely embittered by the experience, as anyone on this list can probably imagine. He won the case, and he lost the money ($75 K).
In these instances, the psychologists either "won" or "settled" in relation to the allegations, but in any event the psychologists lost. This problem has nothing to do with which malpractice carrier the practitioner uses directly. It relates to the unequal playing field, between any individual psychologist and the State in this type of action.
Organized psychology continues to stick its collective head in the sand about matters of this type, to the detriment of individuals in the profession and the profession as a whole. This makes some of us wonder when organizational accountability is going to be recognized as an essential element of professional-public interactions. When the Division 42 Task Force proposed items related to this question to the APA Ethics Revision group on this topic, we were summarily rebuffed. Stay tuned for Draft 6, but don't hold your breath.
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