Powerful Partners, Belong to Both

(This article was first published in the Winter 2002 issue of the APAGS Newsletter.)

Recently, a new "ad" has begun appearing in the pages of the APA Monitor on Psychology. A variation of this ad has also appeared in state and provincial psychological association (SPPA) newsletters. It features a logo with the acronyms of APA and SPPA, and it reads, "Powerful Partners, Belong to Both."

The ad signifies the importance of belonging to both the American Psychological Association and your SPPA. These associations advocate for psychologists in the legislature, in the public sector, in private practice, and for students in training. Your APA and SPPA membership dues are critical to ensuring the vitality and strength of our profession.

As long as there are societal needs going unmet, and as long as there are fellow citizens lacking quality health care, psychologists can be doing more. More than half of APA members do not belong to their SPPA, and one-quarter of SPPA members do not belong to APA. If they did, psychology would unquestionably be in a position to increase and expand its contributions to the psychological health of our country.

Joint membership in APA and your SPPA also affords complementary opportunities for professional development, networking, and education about career paths and business models of psychology that are not typically obtained through graduate school training. Belonging to both APA and your SPPA strengthens psychology nationally and locally as well as enhancing graduate education and career opportunities.

Investing In Your Passions

Joint membership—in your state and national professional associations—takes a small bite out of disposable income but makes paradoxical financial sense. "Investing in professional organizations is investing not only in your future, but also the future of your profession," observes Lorryn Wahler, an executive director of a state psychological association (New Jersey) and member of APA’s Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice (CAPP).

"Please remember that being a psychologist is about more than maintaining a license, providing psychotherapy and conducting research, it is also about making an investment in your livelihood and your passions," notes Daniel Abrahamson, PhD, director of professional affairs for the Connecticut Psychological Association and former chair of APA’s Board of Professional Affairs.

Abrahamson and Wahler are both members of a working group convened by CAPP to promote joint membership in APA and SPPAs. As Abrahamson points out, "belonging to both" amounts to the cost of a medium-size cup of coffee a day from Dunkin’ Donuts.

Compared to other doctors, psychology’s dues are low. No one minimizes the hardship that several hundred dollars a year in dues represents in the managed care era. As an out-of-pocket expense it is steep. But looked at as a business investment, it is a bargain. Psychologists can belong to both their national and state associations for less than what other doctors pay to belong to their national association alone.

Expanding Our Civil Rights

Both APA and SPPAs advocate on behalf of the profession, and both provide opportunities for students to be involved in legislation and public policy issues pertinent to psychology.

A long list of effective partnerships between APA and state psychological associations can be cited as examples of what you get in return, such as the satisfaction of knowing that your profession is suing against managed care abuses, and that you have new opportunities for community entree and visibility through the youth antiviolence campaign and the Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award initiative. But perhaps the best illustration of the synergy created by state and national partnerships is mental health parity, for which APA and the SPAs have been leaders of mental health coalitions.

Seen as the civil rights laws of the mental health field, parity laws have been passed in 37 states and at the federal level. The story of the gradual and steadily growing elimination of insurance discrimination against mental disorders serves as a classic example of how state and federal issues are interdependent and mutually reinforcing.

Five states served as precedent-setting pioneers in passing parity laws before the Congress enacted the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996. The federal parity law was a limited but symbolically important breakthrough in the nation’s health policy, and helped propel 32 additional states to pass parity laws going into the 2001 sunset of the 1996 federal law. In turn, the fact that so many states have enacted parity of varying degrees has greatly increased the likelihood that Congress will pass true across-the-board parity this year. Because of the widespread implementation of state parity, and parity in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP), the cost increase of implementing true national parity is projected at only 1 percent, according to actuarial estimates of Ron Bachman of PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

This type of breakthrough in enlightened health policy, ending decades of insurance discrimination against mental conditions, will create more incentives for people to access psychological services when discriminatory co-pays and deductibles are finally eliminated. Similar breakthroughs would be possible if MORE psychologists supported BOTH their state and national associations.

Professional Development Opportunities

In addition to advocating for the rights of our patients and advancing the welfare of our profession and society, joint membership in APA and SPPAs provides students with opportunities for professional development beyond the scope of traditional doctoral training.

APA and SPPAs offer legislative fellowship programs that allow students to work in advocacy and become more directly in involved in public policy issues pertinent to our profession. Students participate in drafting legislation and white papers, tracking bills, attending Committee hearings and Coalition meetings, conducting research to support psychology position papers, and lobbying with top APA and SPPA political leaders.

Through active membership on association committees and executive boards, students can obtain leadership positions that allow more individualized and focused professional development opportunities. Networking at local and national psychological association meetings offer more intimate and informal opportunities for learning about career and expanded practice opportunities and for discussing current issues and research of importance to psychology.

Students also have the opportunity to contribute to association newsletters (e.g. submitting articles, volunteering to serve in editorial roles, etc.) and chair or serve on conference planning committees.

Membership also results in reduced registration fees at conferences and continuing education seminars, access to numerous special topic and state wide listservers, and discounts on many business and journal products.

Doing Your Part

So if you are not already doing so, please do your part. "Belong to both", and take satisfaction from knowing that you are advancing the cause of the profession most needed in the 21st century information age.

"This partnership has made greater contributions to the profession and to the public than any one organization could working on its own," notes Sandra Harris, PhD, who has been a president of both a state association (California) and an APA division (Division 31/State Psychological Association Affairs).

The idea for the joint membership ad originated with the CAPP working group to promote joint membership. The group includes representatives of the APA Graduate Students (Chris Loftis, MS), the Committee of State Leaders (Abrahamson), the Council of Executives of State and Provincial Psychological Associations (Wahler), the Caucus of State and Provincial Representatives to APA Council (Stephen Ragusea, PsyD), the Division of State Psychological Association Affairs (Jeffrey Barnett, PsyD), CAPP (Wahler), and the APA Practice Directorate (Michael Sullivan, PhD, Judith DeVito, Anna Gustina, and Gil Hill).