New Psychology Advocacy Group is Formed

The National Psychologist reports that a new advocacy group, the National Alliance of Professional Psychology Providers, has just been formed. Their web site states,

The National Alliance of Professional Psychology Providers (NAPPP) is a new, nonprofit organization for professional psychologists to advance and secure the practice of psychology. The purpose of NAPPP is twofold. First, we will function as an advocacy organization to assertively protect and advance scope of practice issues through lobbying, legislative and litigation strategies. Second, we want to help educate and inform practitioners about the business of practicing psychology so that this much ignored aspect of the profession can grow and develop.

It sounds good. Although NAPPP doesn't describe itself as a replacement for the American Psychological Association (APA), it certainly could fill a gaping hole.

I dropped out of the APA for two reasons. First, because the APA seemed to be disinterested in protecting practitioners from the erosions of managed care. When managed care came in, they...well...managed care. Managed care wanted to see that their dollars were being well spent. They were at times intrusive, and always were a pain in the ass, and APA took a stand against managing care. Unfortunately, APA missed the bigger problem until it was too late.

The real problem was that managed care eroded our fees. As a result, caseloads skyrocketed. Twenty years ago, 20 clients a week was considered a full time load. It paid for the clinician's salary and the office overhead. Today, it takes 30 clients a week. The APA has done nothing about that. Managed care oversight is essentially gone, at least in Pennsylvania, because it was too expensive. But, the fees are still lousy. So, a word of advice: Never see a psychologist late on a Friday afternoon.

The second reason I resigned was the inability of APA to stand by it's belief that psychotherapy could be a practice based on scientific principles. Some forms of psychotherapy, such as cognitive therapy and interpersonal therapy, have some pretty good evidence for their effectiveness. Yet, when questionable therapies, such as rebirthing therapy, emerged, the APA has been silent. Eventually, rebirthing therapy killed a child. Organized psychology should be taking strong stands against pseudoscience, and it's not.

So, I hope that NAPPP does well. At $240 annually for membership, it's a little pricey, but it could be worth it. I'm considering joining.