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Norine G. Johnson elected 2001 president
Using the power of psychology to influence the health-care system and meet the public's needs is the top priority for Norine G. Johnson, PhD, a full-time independent practitioner in Boston who members have elected as APA's 2001 president.
Johnson takes office next January. She ran for the office along with four other APA members in last fall's election: Ludy T. Benjamin Jr., PhD, a professor of psychology at Texas A&M University; Alice F. Chang, PhD, a private practitioner, researcher and consultant in Tucson, Ariz.; Gerald C. Davison, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California; and Nathan N. Stockhammer, PhD, a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City.
Johnson, the owner of four psychology businesses and clinical assistant professor at Boston University's Medical School, sees psychologists as intricate to the nation's health care.
"If you look at this century, psychology has defined the agenda," says Johnson. "We've been the major movers in education, in understanding relationships, in understanding child and adult development, in understanding how people think and learn--it just goes on and on and on. And as you look forward into the next millennium, the issues that the public is facing are the issues that psychology is best suited to be a major player in addressing."
Johnson plans to convene an ad hoc council on the nation's health-care needs, made up of representatives from all APA constituencies--practice, science, education and public interest. "We have to identify the public needs in health care, look at them from the perspective of our practice and science, then translate it back again to the public," she says.
As part of this initiative, Johnson has deemed health care her presidential theme for APA's 2001 Annual Convention and plans to make convention programming more open to the public to promote what psychologists do.
"I want to have the public involved in some form, whether they're presenters, or in the audience, or whether ahead of time they've helped shape the program," she says.
A second priority for Johnson's presidency is to address the challenges to psychology's education and training institutions. Among her top concerns are the need to provide a better future for psychology students and graduates; threats to academic freedom and faculty size; and a dearth of research funds.
"In today's environment, students have enormous difficulties getting jobs that allow them to advance their careers in the ways that they want," she says. "It's not that they can't get jobs--they can get jobs--but frequently they have to take more than one job, and they're not getting the compensation they deserve or the supervision and mentoring that is most helpful."
In December, APA's Board of Directors supported the establishment of a Commission on Education, training and Licensure. If APA's Council of Representatives also supports the idea, the commission will begin to address these major concerns, Johnson says.
A third presidential priority for Johnson is expanding opportunities for psychology science and practice. To further this initiative, she will establish a cross-constituency task force to identify barriers, enhance opportunities and develop new collaborative endeavors in emerging markets.
"It's going to be a team effort," she says. "I see my election as the result of a team effort and whatever happens in my presidency as the result of a team effort."
Johnson earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Wayne State University in 1972. Her training also includes a Harvard Medical School two-year postdoctoral program for Mental Health Planners and Administrators.
She comes to the presidential post with a wealth of national and state association experience. She has served on APA's Board of Directors (1997-99); on APA's Council Representative (1995-97; 1985-88); and on APA's Finance Committee (1987-91).
She co-chaired with Martin E.P. Seligman, PhD, the 1998 miniconvention on professional education and training; initiated, with Sharon S. Brehm, PhD, and Dorothy W. Cantor, PsyD, the Task Force on Women in Academe; and co-chaired with Karen M. Zager, PhD, the Task Force on Adolescent Girls.
She is an APA Fellow of Divisions 12 (Clinical), 29 (Psychotherapy), 35 (Women), 42 (Independent Practice), 43 (Family) and 51 (Men and Masculinity).
On the state level, Johnson has been involved in the Massachusetts Psychological Association for more than 25 years, serving as president, council representative and board member.
--S. MARTIN
Women's health task force cites research needs
A National Institutes of Health task force on women's health predicts that women's health research will expand in the coming century into "the larger concept of gender-specific medicine," in which women's health will no longer be "divorced from mainstream medicine."
In its report, "Agenda for Research on Women's Health for the 21st Century," the task force concludes that "thoughtful scientists now see women as important sources of new information that will correct essentially male models of normal function and disease."
In its recommendations for future research, women's health studies "must include the full biological life cycle: the physical, mental and emotional changes that occur," the report says.
Among the recommendations:
More women--including those who are pregnant--should be enrolled in safety trials. Among ways to tell if treatments are safe is to conduct research into the "incremental effectiveness" of combination therapies. For example, what are the side effects on patients of simultaneous administration of calcium and vitamin D?
Research should be conducted with specific populations, including medically underserved women. The task force suggested, for example, studies on homeless and impoverished women, women of color with disabilities, adolescents, lesbians, elderly women or women inmates.
Multidisciplinary research is essential. Scientists should collaborate with colleagues from other disciplines to expand research in fields such as alcohol and drug abuse.
Information systems should be designed to allow easier access to archival material on clinical studies. Information needs to be readily available to consumers so they can understand options available to them, for example, in managing pregnancy and delivery.
Mentoring programs for girls should encourage them toward science courses and careers, including programs linking high schools to
universities.
--J. VOLZ
Merry Bullock returns to APA
Just in time to help launch the Decade of Behavior, former Senior Scientist Merry Bullock, PhD, returned to APA in September--this time as associate executive director for science.
Bullock, who served as APA's Senior Scientist from 1995 to 1997 before going to Estonia to direct an educational institute, will oversee Science Directorate staff working with the Board of Scientific Affairs, the Committee for Animal Research and Ethics, the Joint Committee on Testing Practices, the Committee on Psychological Tests and Assessment, the Committee on Scientific Awards and several task forces. And along with APA Executive Director for Science Richard McCarty, PhD, and Senior Scientist Nancy Dess, PhD, Bullock will represent APA at scientific meetings and conferences.
Bullock will also work with funding agencies, particularly the National Science Foundation (NSF), where she was formerly a program director. And she will continue work that was important to her while she was senior scientist--bringing psychological science to the general public.
"I feel strongly about promoting the processes of science--to help more people understand what it means to look at something scientifically," says Bullock.
In addition, Bullock will play a key role in APA President Pat DeLeon's Women in Science and Technology initiative. Along with staff in the Education and Public Interest directorates, she'll help plan programming for the initiative for next year's APA Annual Convention and build an agenda for preparing women psychologists for leadership roles in science and technology.
While in Estonia, Bullock served as the advisor to the president of the Estonian Academy of Sciences where she tackled broad scientific problems, such as identifying ways to help small countries best use their limited resources to advance science. Bullock also served as the first director of EuroCollege, an educational institute within the University of Tartu in Estonia that is focused on European studies and research and scholarship relevant to Estonia's invitation to apply for membership in the European Union.
Bullock's return to the United States doesn't signal an end to her involvement in international psychology. She is the Deputy Secretary-General of the International Union of Psychological Sciences (IUPsyS)--an organization that represents and fosters psychology internationally.
--J. CHAMBERLIN
Researchers find a way to forecast whether psychotherapy will help patients
Clinicians can successfully predict which patients will benefit from psychotherapy and which ones won't, according to recent research published in APA's Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (Vol. 67, No. 5, p. 698-704).
The prediction model--patient profiling--used in the study can help insurers and therapists make decisions about treatment, according to the researchers, Scott Leon of Northwestern University Medical School; S. Mark Kopta, PhD, of the University of Evansville; and Kenneth Howard, PhD, and Wolfgang Lutz, PhD, also of Northwestern University.
Patient profiling, devised by Howard, uses measures of patients' psychological and life functioning, treatment expectations and history before and during treatment to statistically predict their responses to psychotherapy. In the study, the researchers applied the model to 890 outpatients who received psychotherapy through managed mental health-care programs. Patients were assessed by a battery of scales developed by Compass Information Systems.
Howard's model accurately predicted treatment outcomes--both positive and negative--for about 75 percent of the patients. The rest of the sample failed to match expectations, not responding to treatment as well as predicted or responding better than predicted.
The profiling model best predicted treatment responses for patients with relatively high psychological functioning but low romantic satisfaction. By comparison, patients with significant psychological impairment and higher satisfaction with their partners were harder to peg.
Patients who benefited the most from treatment tended to have an optimistic outlook and relatively stable levels of functioning in work, family and self-management. They also tended to expect that psychotherapy would help, and were less likely to have a previous history of psychological problems and psychotherapy.
--B. MURRAY
APA ushers in the 'Decade of Behavior'
As people continue to debate what to call the next century--the zeros, the naughts, the "double o's"--behavioral researchers have settled on a name for at least the first decade. The "Decade of Behavior," an initiative involving more than 30 professional societies representing the behavioral and social sciences, began Jan. 1 as a means to focus these sciences on meeting many of society's most pressing problems.
At press time, a bipartisan group of 10 senators had signed a letter asking President Clinton to make it official and name 2000-2010 the Decade of Behavior. But even without the president's endorsement, the Decade will begin, says Richard McCarty, PhD, executive director of APA's Science Directorate. The National Advisory Committee for the Decade of Behavior, which includes representatives from psychology, sociology, geography, anthropology, political science, economics and public health, has gained support for the initiative from 17 federal funding agencies.
The Decade initiative will focus on five main themes: promoting a healthier nation, a safer nation, a better educated nation, a more prosperous nation and a more democratic nation.
--B. AZAR
Randy Phelps, of APA's Practice Directorate, serves a diverse constituency
The Practice Directorate's new administrative director, Randy Phelps, PhD, knows from personal experience what practitioners are facing in the health-care market.
He left a private practice in Houston five years ago to join the Practice Directorate as assistant director for professional issues and was promoted to administrative director last year.
Before joining APA, Phelps spent 13 years in private practice, specializing in family and couples work. He also was chief of psychological services in a private psychiatric hospital, on the faculty at the University of Texas Medical School and chief of a treatment and research clinic for families in Texas's mental health system.
His experience practicing in a variety of settings makes him uniquely qualified to help facilitate the Practice Directorate's work with its diverse constituency, says Russ Newman, PhD, JD, APA's executive director for practice. Phelps understands thoroughly and can relate to the issues and challenges that practitioners face in today's complex health delivery system, according to Newman.
As the Practice Directorate's administrative director, Phelps's position is similar to a chief of staff in a congressional office where administrative, political and policy issues must be addressed simultaneously. He manages the directorate's day-to-day activities, including staffing and budgeting, and represents the directorate at internal APA committee meetings and must act as a directorate spokesperson when Newman is out of town.
In his new role, Phelps influences the directorate's multifaceted agenda that benefits all practitioners, whether they're in private practice, a university clinic, public service or on staff at a hospital or medical school, for example. In fact, he said one of his biggest challenges is not becoming so immersed in his administrative responsibilities that he's disconnected from the directorate's practice-related agenda.
"It's striking how much is happening on behalf of practitioners," says Phelps, adding that members might not fully realize the breadth and complexity of Practice Directorate activities. The directorate is comprised of nine interrelated departments and program areas: the executive office, government relations, state advocacy, legal/regulatory affairs, professional development and training, public relations/communications, policy and advocacy in the schools, professional issues and marketing. The APA College of Professional Psychology also is housed administratively within the directorate.
"Members get a lot of bang for their buck," says Phelps.
The directorate employs 50--including psychologists, attorneys, government relations specialists, public relations professionals and marketing specialists.
"From Russ Newman throughout the directorate, this is the best, most first-rate and highly professional staff I've ever had the pleasure of working with," says Phelps.
--L. RABASCA
Top associations join forces to research tobacco use
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) have united to form the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Centers (TTURC), a five-year project that brings together researchers from various disciplines to study tobacco use and dependency. Researchers will investigate a number of topics, including addiction, prevention and initiation of tobacco use, cessation treatments, culture, genetics and animal models of behavior.
NCI and NIDA will contribute $70 million over the next five years to the project; in addition, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) plans to donate $14 million to help address the gulf between research and application of research and to effectively communicate research findings to scientists, policymakers, managed care and the general public.
"Tobacco use has enough mature research to handle a transdisciplinary approach," says Jaylan S. Turkhan, PhD, chief of the Behavioral Sciences Research Branch at NIDA. "No one discipline has all the answers. Neither genetics, psychology or other fields know the whole story when it comes to nicotine research, so this project will allow researchers to collaborate and optimize their resources."
The decision to create the centers comes from a 1998 recommendation of NCI's Tobacco Research Implementation Group, which sought ways to increase tobacco use research. Even though TTURC is still in its infancy, Turkhan says NIDA plans to assign one of its staff members the responsibility of compiling yearly progress reports on specific fields (i.e., genetics, gender differences, etc.). NIDA, NCI and the RWJF plan to meet twice a year with the principal investigators of the centers to review new findings and review progress of the initiative.
For more information on TTURC, visit www.nida.nih.gov/tturc.html.
--M. WATERS
The seven university centers, principal investigators and research topics are:
The Brown University Center for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine at the Miriam Hospital, Providence, R.I.; David B. Abrams, PhD; topic: what early childhood and lifetime psychiatric factors involve smoking initiation through cessation.
The University of California at Irvine; Frances M. Leslie, PhD; topic: what predicts nicotine addiction and tobacco susceptibility and use.
The University of Southern California, Los Angeles; C. Anderson Johnson, PhD; topic: what methods can hinder tobacco use in various cultures of young people.
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.; Caryn Lerman, PhD; topic: what are the biobehavioral causes behind smoking initiation, treatment and the health risks of smoking.
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Dorothy K. Hatsukami, PhD; topic: why conventional cessation programs do not work for some smokers.
University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison; Michael C. Fiore, MD, MPH; topic: tobacco recidivism.
Yale University, New Haven, Conn.; Stephanie S. O'Malley, PhD; topic: tobacco cessation treatments.
APA denounces health-care company's decision to exclude mental health
One of the county's largest managed-care companies has announced that mental health care is not included in its new policy that allows doctors, not plan administrators, to have the final word in patient-care decisions.
APA denounced the decision by UnitedHealth Group, saying it flies in the face of the country's desire to move toward mental health parity.
"Any policy that eliminates utilization review for medical but not behavioral health services is nothing but blatant, indefensible discrimination against people with mental health disorders," says Russ Newman, PhD, JD, APA's executive director for practice.
Other companies may follow UnitedHealth Group's lead. Aetna, one of the nation's largest health insurers, announced that it's considering a similar policy.
Despite criticism from psychologists, UnitedHealth Group officials defended their position, saying that costs would escalate if the policy was extended to mental health services because, they say, few objective tests exist to determine what type of mental health-care patients need.
"Mental health holds a lot more intangibles than medical care in determining what treatment someone needs," Saul Feldman, chief executive officer of United Behavioral Health (UBH), a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary.
But Newman argues that psychological services do provide tangible results.
"Despite what UBH would lead the public to believe, mental health treatment is no less legitimate, no less valuable and no less tangible than medical treatment," says Newman.
In fact, he says, treatment of mental health disorders today is at least as successful as treatment of general medical conditions. Major depression, for example, is treated successfully in 80 percent of patients, whereas adult onset diabetes is treated successfully by insulin therapy at a lower rate.
Yet, by continuing to require utilization review for mental health services, Newman says, UBH could challenge a doctor's treatment of depression while the parent company wouldn't challenge a doctor's treatment of diabetes.
--L. RABASCA
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