By Scott Sleek
Monitor staff

Mere months after it teamed with APA to launch an electronic journal on treatment outcomes, the American Psychiatric Association has withdrawn from the project?a decision that APA officials are decrying as an attempt to punish psychology for pursuing prescription privileges.

The psychiatric association?s board of trustees voted in December to cease its involvement with the peer-reviewed publication Treatment, which went online in September and appears on APA?s World Wide Web page (http://www.journals.apa.org/treatment).

In an executive session, the trustees decided to cease all of the association?s electronic publishing ventures, saying they wanted to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of those projects, said John Blamphin, spokesman for the association.

But Donald Klein, MD, who co-edited the journal with APA President Martin E.P. Seligman, PhD, acknowledged that the board?s closed-door decision may have been based in part on the two associations? disagreement over prescription privileges for psychologists. The psychiatrists vehemently oppose psychology?s efforts at the state level to win prescription privileges. They say only providers with medical degrees should be allowed to dispense drugs.

?I have no knowledge of any details beyond the board?s statement, which didn?t refer to the prescription privileges issue,? Klein told the Monitor. ?But it would be surprising if it didn?t play a part in the decision.?

The psychiatric association?s board took an initial step toward ending the joint venture in September when it temporarily suspended its involvement in the journal. At the meeting, some trustees voiced concerns that psychologists were using the collaboration to legitimize their efforts to win prescription privileges.

Seligman assailed the psychiatric association?s decision, saying an interdisciplinary journal that furthers knowledge about helping patients should ?not fall victim to squabbles? between the two professions about the scope of practice. Klein is resigning from his position as co-editor of the journal, in part because of the association?s withdrawal from the project, but also for reasons he declined to discuss. He said he regrets the fact that he won?t be able to continue working with Seligman on the project.

Klein added, however, that the psychiatric association is interested in starting its own electronic journal. What focus the publication would take?and whether it would actually be designed to compete with Treatment?is undecided.

Treatment has 1,079 subscribers, about a third of them psychologists, a third psychiatrists and another third not identifying their profession, says Hal Warren, APA?s Internet services director. APA will retitle the journal Treatment and Prevention (see ?President?s column,? page 2).

Members of APA?s Board of Directors voiced anger over the psychiatric association?s decision to pull out of the project. Psychologists had seen the collaboration as a step toward ending the longstanding rivalries between the two disciplines. The psychiatric association trustees ?have made a calculated?and might I say a poorly calculated?political decision,? says Gerald Koocher, PhD, APA treasurer and a leading pediatric psychologist in Boston. ?This is a publication that has a lot of promise as a scholarly vehicle, regardless of one?s professional or political views about prescription privileges.?

Seligman and Klein proposed the journal in early 1995 after they were involved in an online debate on medication versus psychotherapy for panic disorder. After winning support and approval from each association?s governance body, Seligman and Klein became co-editors of the journal and began accepting manuscripts last June. They planned for Treatment to include articles on studies that use a range of methods, including comparisons of two or more treatments, case histories involving the use of new interventions and studies of a treatment?s utility in ?real-world? settings.

Seligman and other APA officials said the psychiatrists? decision sets back the cooperative relationship the two associations were building in recent years. For example, they?ve worked together closely on pushing legislation that would guarantee Americans mental health-care insurance coverage equal to their medical coverage.

APA Board Member Donald Freedheim, PhD, said the move appears to be an act of vengeance by the psychiatric association. ?For whatever reason psychiatry says it pulled out,? Freedheim said, ?it seems it was pushing for political ends or retribution for what they perceive as psychology?s encroachment on their field.?