APA Future of Psychology Practice Summit: Implications for I-O Psychology
Cristina G. Banks, PhD
SIOP Professional Practice Officer
Joan Brannick, PhD
Professional Practice Chair
Overview
APA President James Bray convened 150 psychologists, members of state psychological associations, and interested stakeholders outside of APA for 3 days (May 14–17) to discuss the future of psychology practice. We were Division 14’s delegates to the summit. Needless to say, we were not sure what to expect.
The summit consisted of formal presentations by APA leaders and invited speakers and of small group discussions that focused on strategic topics building upon speaker presentations and moving toward a list of ideas for changing how APA supports psychology practice in the future. The presentations were stimulating and appropriate. Ian Morrison, a futurist from the Institute for the Future, painted a view of the future that emphasized dramatic demographic changes and their implications for society in general. Norman Anderson, CEO of APA, addressed racial and ethnic disparities in the delivery of healthcare and their implications for society. Richard Frank, an economist, focused on financial and economic trends affecting healthcare availability and delivery, and their impact on the future of psychological services. Tillman Farley, a doctor and director of a family of health center serving the immigrant population, discussed integrated healthcare where psychologists are an integral part of the primary care visit. Janet Reingold, president of Reingold, a strategic communications marketing consulting firm, laid out the basics of how to brand (rebrand) a profession. And finally, Elizabeth Gibson, an organizational psychologist, talked through critical elements of change management. These speakers touched on many important issues to consider when formulating a strategic plan for the future of psychology practice.
Small group discussions enabled different groupings of participants to consider a series of questions that would eventually lead to a synthesis of ideas for change. We never participated in the same groups, and groups changed in composition four times to create different interactions and stimulate new thinking. In three of my groups, I was matched with delegates from other divisions, and in one other group I was matched with delegates and guests that had organizational backgrounds. Each group had a different focal topic, and discussion varied widely as a function of both topic and mix of participants. Facilitators and recorders present in each group documented discussions, and at the end of the second day, they shared their notes and impressions to generate feedback presented back to the participants on the third (final) day.
Summit Outcomes
Then came what we were all waiting for: the results of the meeting! Because there was little time between the collection of all discussion comments and the presentation of feedback to the participants, only a brief overview was presented. The common points and trends noted in the discussion groups were the following:
1. There is an increased need for multicultural competence. This means that because we are a multicultural, diverse, and global society, we need to broaden our ability to communicate with and serve diverse populations.
2. Learning and innovation are lifelong endeavors. All professionals including psychologists have a need to acquire new knowledge and skills on an ongoing basis, and psychologists are demanding training and learning opportunities beyond their formal training in order to keep up with changes in society and the environment.
3. Technology must be more highly integrated into our practice. Technology-enabled communications and recordkeeping are now a requirement for psychological practice in order to keep up with the rest of the world.
4. The future healthcare model is integrated/collaborative care. This means that psychologists will most likely be better integrated into healthcare delivery in the future (but the medical delivery and reimbursement structure does not support this model at this time).
5. The future focus should be on overall health/well-being of persons rather than just their mental health. Maintaining the health of a person should involve all aspects of life that affect health, and mental health should not be considered in isolation.
6. Prevention of health issues should have more emphasis relative to diagnosis and treatment. This acknowledges a realization that prevention should play a bigger role in psychology practice than it does now.
7. There is a need to view ourselves as “boundary crossers.” This means that we can no longer stay in our individual silos and instead should reach out to colleagues in other divisions and even professions in order to work more effectively in our practices.
8. There is a need for training across disciplines during graduate training. This is an effort to create more broadly competent graduates of psychology training programs so that psychologists are able to adapt to and work in alternative professional environments in addition to traditional jobs.
9. There needs to be a focus on community health/public health rather than individual health. This means that psychologists could be contributing at a broader level and by doing so could have greater impact on the health of society.
10. There is an increased need for advocacy and public policy efforts. There needs to be better representation of psychologists in the public arena in order to promote changes that allow psychologists to better serve society.
11. Practices need to be more mobile across states and across countries. Current state licensing rules restrict a psychologist’s delivery of services to the state(s) in which he/she holds a license. The reality is, services are very likely to be delivered across boundaries, and current rules do not reflect reality.
12. We need to move from being internally focused to externally focused. This means paying more attention to consumers/the public/other external stakeholders when we consider what is a valuable contribution and how to address society’s needs.
13. There is a need to partner and/or learn from others outside our fields and outside psychology. There is value in learning from others very different from oneself in order to build greater competencies and to be effective in a greater array of environments.
We had our own take aways from the summit that have implications for I-Os:
1. We are both different from and the same as healthcare psychologists. The summit reinforced the observation that many of the issues healthcare psychologists are having, such as graduate training, public perceptions of worth, continuous need for professional training, multicultural competence, technology integration, and cross-discipline collaboration, are ours as well. Given the rapidly changing demographics and associated changes in society needs, I-Os need to be prepared to serve these populations competently and in a broad array of environments. Graduate training should include cross-disciplinary coursework and grounding in cultural and ethnic diversity. I-Os also need to think about delivering our services in new contexts—the design and functioning of new types of organizations such as integrated healthcare, virtual networks, and extended enterprises.
But I-Os are different from healthcare psychologists. By and large, we are not funded by reimbursements from managed care providers; we can charge market rates and generally organizations pay us. We can find alternative sources of funding for our work; healthcare psychologists are basically restricted to those who can afford their services. Healthcare psychologists really do have a problem with survival if they cannot find sources of funding other than traditional payers.
I-Os also are very familiar with demographic changes and multiculturalism—we’ve had to be because our clients ARE diverse. We could be more competent in these areas, however, and we could be better at closing disparities across cultural and ethnic groups in work settings.
2. We have a role to play in creating a healthier society. I-Os can work alone on this or in collaboration with healthcare psychologists. Singly, we can examine how we create programs and systems that either promote or reduce employees’ health. In other words, are we thinking about the implications of the jobs we help construct, the performance measures we design, the compensation strategies we recommend, and the organizational structures we create on people’s stress levels? On their work–life balance? On their ability to eat right/exercise regularly in order to stay healthy? In collaboration, we can make changes in our recommendations and in our design work that promote healthy work habits and maintain reasonable stress levels. Just as ergonomics helped us to design better work spaces to prevent injury, healthcare psychologists can help us design better workplaces to prevent unnecessary illness.
3. Healthcare psychologists are increasingly likely to enter our work space and do work like us. Many times during the summit, we heard healthcare psychologists say they are interested in becoming an organizational psychologist (and gain steady employment). Some thought they could walk into these types of jobs without additional training. We already have experience with clinical psychologists functioning as organizational psychologists in organizations, and without training they may “run into trouble” as one of our I-O colleagues put it—legal trouble—by not understanding what they are doing. I am not sure what we can do about that outside of offering the training they need to be successful. We can explain better to the public the difference between a clinical versus an organizational psychologist (hopefully we can). Nonetheless, expect greater migration.
It is clear that I-Os need to create stronger and better ties with APA, state associations, and individual clinical practitioners, and be part of the discussion of the future of psychology practice. This migration is going to happen whether we guide them or not. Perhaps we will get further in our efforts to be heard and recognized when we become part of their future plans. Sitting on the sidelines and complaining about it would be unproductive. Figuring out how each can contribute uniquely to the effectiveness of organizations and the employees who work for them is probably the right step.
4. I-Os, because of our training and expertise, can broaden our horizons to address big societal issues. Based on speakers’ presentations and current media messages, there are a number of critical, difficult problems society has to address today and in the near future. Healthcare costs and delivery systems is only one of several crises our nation faces. Global warming, scarcity of water resources, economic disparities, education shortfalls, and many others are issues we actually can assist in resolving. How? Each issue involves organizations that are working toward its resolution. Can these organizations function effectively? Are they led by competent leaders? Are the organizational systems (performance management, compensation, talent management and training) designed properly in order to maximize their effectiveness? Are these organizations capable of lasting organizational change? Do leaders of the change have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to change others behavior significantly? These are but a few of the ways in which we as I-Os can be more broadly involved in societal issues. The summit increased our awareness of the need for our collective participation in national efforts.
Conclusion
APA plans to collect more data at the APA convention in August 2009, analyze the data from the summit and the convention, and then deliver a report to APA in the fall of 2009 that contains future themes/trends and recommendations for the future of psychology practice. Eventually, this information will inform APA’s strategic planning process. Regardless of what happens as a result of the summit, it is clear that SIOP needs to continue to be an active participant in APA’s discussions and plans for the future of psychology practice moving forward.