August, 2007

APA Convention

Presidential Address

Elaine S. LeVine, PhD

Dear Friends & Colleagues: 

It is my pleasure to welcome you and offer you this State of the Union, State of Division 55 address. 

Division 55 is now seven years old, past our infancy, not yet in our prime; I think we could aptly consider ourselves the “Little Engines That Should and Would.”  I cannot imagine a Division leadership and constituency working harder than our Division.  Division Board and Committee Members work conscientiously to increase services and the quality of those services to our members.  Our newsletter, the Tablet, is replete with cogent material.  We continually update the Division 55 website, PEP review material, and more.   We commit great emotional and financial resources to pass RxP legislation in the States.  We have established a tradition of a Mid-Winter Conference.  This year’s Advocacy Conference in Santa Fe was attended by over 120 psychologists from Division 55 and other Divisions.  It was a great opportunity to strengthen our alliances with one another and to build bridges with colleagues with related needs of advocating for psychology.  In the States in which psychologists are trained in medical/prescribing psychology and are consulting about medications, although not yet able to prescribe, we are developing practice guidelines so that we monitor ourselves to be rigorously scientific and therapeutic in our care.  In the States in which RxP has become a reality, we work conscientiously to develop our unique model of care and assure that we are practicing in the most competent fashion.

It has, indeed, taken more than one steam engine to pull this train up this steep hill.  So many people have been helpful in so many ways.  I want to thank Bob McGrath, the immediate past President of Division 55, for all of his efforts in the past as well as this year.  Bob has been a prime mover in developing Division 55 practice guidelines.  He has been a guiding force in the CAPP/BEA meetings in which are revising the model curriculum and model legislation in RxP.  In addition, Bob is so skilled at systematizing information.  When I have needed to find out something or understand about the Division, Bob is always willing to help and has the information at hand.  So, in addition to being our Past President, Bob has served as parliamentarian and historian “ex officio”.

I want to extend my deepest appreciation to Beth Rom-Rymer, past President of Division 55 and our present Council Representative for her unflagging devotion to our Division. Beth chairs more committees than most trains have boxcars!  Importantly, she has been the unrelenting Chair of our Membership Committee.  Beth reports we now have about 800 members, with 100 new members this year alone.  Beth is also spearheading efforts to apply for an ABPP in medical/prescribing psychology.  She was by my side every step in developing the Advocacy Summit in February.  She is the expert guide in developing our 2008 Mid-Winter Conference, which will be instrumental in helping to pass legislation in varied States.  It is most fitting that Beth is the recipient of our Division 55 National Award at APA 2007.

I want to thank President-Elect Mario Marquez for his ongoing support of our Division 55 efforts.  We appreciate his political acumen in recognizing what we need to do to move legislation forward in individual States.  Mario is particularly skilled in facilitating cohesiveness and has many plans for doing that next year.  I want to wish him great success for his 2008 Presidential year and offer my support in any way that he may need it.

I want to offer special thanks to Marlin Hoover, who has put so much effort into planning for this APA meeting.  We are all very proud of the sophistication and breadth of our programming this year.  Marlin is also honored by Division 55 at the APA this year for his many years of service to the RxP agenda and to Division 55.  Marlin is receiving the Division 55 State Leadership Award, but some have asked which state?  Marlin has been President of the Illinois Psychological Association and instrumental in Illinois’ RxP efforts.  Recently, he became licensed as a conditional prescribing psychologist in New Mexico.  He travels weekly to Las Cruces and offers his services in training medical residents in psychopharmacology.  So, through his efforts, Marlin is enhancing the good name of prescribing psychologists in New Mexico.

I am very fortunate to work with committee chairs who offer great energy and enthusiasm to our prescriptive authority agenda.  I want to thank Owen Nichols, who initiated our very important committee, Strategic Working Advocacy Activation Team, affectionately known as S.W.A.A.T.  Owen envisioned S.W.A.A.T. and has made S.W.A.A.T. a reality.  Owen explains, “The mission of S.W.A.A.T. is simple, yet critical to the overall success of Division 55 in pursuing prescriptive authority for appropriately qualified psychologists.  The goal of S.W.A.A.T. is to help focus the time, energy, money, and other resources of Division 55 on those States which are at the tipping point of passing prescriptive authority legislation.  It was extremely impressive to see the commitment of our S.W.A.A.T. team and our membership as they have joined together to support Hawaii this year.  Sixty-six members of Division 55 quickly responded to a request from S.W.A.A.T. by contributing over $16,000 to support the psychologists in Hawaii who had carried their bill through the Hawaii legislation and were attempting to prevent a veto.  This is an example of what our S.W.A.A.T. team can to and will do to help those States that are vigorously pursuing prescriptive authority.”

During his Presidency, Bob McGrath appointed a Federal RxP Task Force chaired by Bob Ax.    Through many conference calls and emails, members of this Task Force have been able to link efforts in their respected agencies.  This year, the Federal RxP Task Force brought their efforts to fruition by developing a PowerPoint that will be very helpful in educating about the RxP agenda and moving it forward in federal agencies.  It is being reviewed by the Committee on Federal Agencies at this APA conference.  I would like to recognize Steve Formansky, Randy Taylor and Kathy McNamara for their sophisticated and conscientious efforts to develop this PowerPoint under Bob Ax’s leadership.

I thank co-committee chairs of the State Chapters of Division 55, Anton Tolman and Nancy Alford. We now have 26 chapters.  This year is our second round of offering Division 55 Chapter Grants.  The first place winner is the Illinois Chapter.  Under the leadership of Ken Fogel, Brian Ragsdale and Beth Rom-Rymer, the Illinois Chapter will conduct a study of the prescriptive authority attitudes among Illinois’ people of color.  The second place Chapter grant award is given to Utah under Anton Tolman’s leadership in conjunction with Lilli Wagner and Faune Smith.  The Utah group will develop a web page to help with their RxP agenda.  The web page will serve as a model for other Chapters.  Mark Muse is serving a vital role in attending APA’s CAPP meetings and reporting back to the Board and membership on their discussions and decisions.  George Kapalka has carried on the task of monitoring CE efforts.  Merla Arnold, Chair of Gerontology Committee; Nina Tocci, Chair of Media Committee; and Alan Gruber, Chair of Fellowship Committee, have taken on challenging tasks of developing active committees for our Division.  As busy as everyone is and as steep as the climb is to pull into our final destination of passing RxP in every state, the work of these committees is a multiyear task.  We will be hearing much more about their accomplishments in years to come.

I know that you all join me in offering special appreciation to Jeff Matranga and his staff for the excellent quality of our Tablet.  Our Tablet is our most important way station.  Through it, we all come together on political, as well, as scholarly concerns.  It is so full of helpful information that we all look forward to receiving the next copy.  Thank you, Jeff, for your hard work and for your intensive and creative efforts for making each Tablet better than the one before.

I want to extend my appreciation to all our Board Members; Past President Bob McGrath; President-Elect Mario Marquez; Council Representatives Beth Rom-Rymer and Morgan Sammons; Members-at-Large Glenn Ally, Nancy Alford and Jim Quillin; Secretary Elaine Mantell; and Treasurer, James Bray.  I am so fortunate to have the guidance of these wise and creative psychologists.  We hold many different opinions, but with our mutual respect have worked together so well that no boxcars have become uncoupled; and, in fact, we keep picking up momentum as we continue uphill towards our final destination.

Even though it might defy gravity, we are developing an uphill momentum.  To paraphrase our treasured colleague, Pat DeLeon, who tells us we are a maturing profession, we are a “maturing Division.”  All of our intensive Division efforts to increase the passage of legislation in the States, to educate our unsure or skeptical colleagues as well as opponents about the benefits of biopsychosocial care, and efforts to find ways of working together in the most beneficial fashion are synergistic and creating a momentum that will pull us into our final destination.  Where do I see us going “down the track?”  We are empowering psychology, and, in doing so, empowering our patients.  We are empowering psychology because each time we go to the legislature and talk about prescriptive authority, we are also teaching the legislators and citizens about what psychologists do and about mental health concerns.  We are empowering psychology because prescriptive authority integrated into psychotherapy in a biopsychosocial model of care is much more powerful than psychotherapy alone or prescriptive authority alone.  This empowerment, accomplished in all 50 States, will give psychological practice renewed vigor and strength.  We are empowering our patients because we are teaching them to more effectively take care of themselves, both mind and body.  Whether it is managed care, medical savings accounts (or something much worse not yet conjured up, although I hope something better), our patients will have skills to get what they need to enhance their futures, in the future.  So, when the 50^th boxcar meets its destination of passing a prescriptive authority bill, all our patients and colleagues will be symbolically waving at the station to welcome us and say, “Thank you for your efforts, it was well worth it.”  And, thanks to all of you for sharing my review and my hopes for the future.