Reflections on Leadership and Advocacy Day
These last couple days have flooded me with nostalgia and a tinge of melancholy. For the fourth time, I'm in Sacramento meeting with other psychologists in the state, plotting our annual effort to lobby the capitol. Since my first year of grad school I've made the mini-pilgrimage up to "lobby day", but never the two-day build-up beforehand. This time I was drawn into more of the training and strategy, and the statement that "all politics is local" has become a more salient one. (There is indeed a realpolitik to this profession.) I'm going to miss being involved with the CPA lobbying scene. On Sunday night, between two glasses of Macallan 18 year--courtesy of someone's expense account--I was able to sit back and reflect on how far I've come over the last five years. I remember the first year when I skipped out on a final to fly up to Sac-town for my first "political action." Most of the day, I didn't know what I was doing, but voting and political action became a more tangible process. Fast forward to today, when I can hold a thoughtful conversation with our faithful lobbyist and discuss real strategies for mobilizing grassroots action. It has indeed been a rewarding experience.
It's amazing just how fragile a profession can be. What's so intriguing is that one smallish room full of professionals is all that stands in the way of half-assed legislative proposals, opportunistic scope-of-practice issues, and the general ignorance of elected officials who really don't know much about what good therapy can do for their constituents. The California Psychological Association has the membership of only 4,200 of the 16,000 licensed psychologists in the state. Kind of appalling, huh? Functionally, this means that less than 25% of the profession is speaking on behalf of its guild, and only 25% of the profession is committed protecting its legal integrity against the whims of the state. Compared to marriage and family therapists, whose involvement approaches upwards of 75-85%, our commitment to our field is disconcerting, especially when our state's psychology association is a leader among its counterparts in the country.
And yet, despite all of this, it is genuinely inspiring to mix it up with veterans who, a couple years ago, would have intimidated the crap out of me. This time around, I have the sense that I'm actually contributing something. I know something about the issues. I'm comfortable with the process of lobbying. I have a more intuitive sense about how "change" happens. I once heard Rudy Guiliani remark that "Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy." Just hearing some of the leaders in my field brainstorming about actual solutions fills me with a sense of self-efficacy, even if such "change" rolls on at a snail's pace.
It's Tuesday morning...hours before we visit the legislative offices of our elected officials. Mostly we'll be talking to staffers about my age, probably a chief of staff and, if we're lucky, the senator or assemblypersons themselves. We're trying to encourage them to oppose the govenator's effort to do away with the Board of Psychology, as misguided idea because it actually generates surplus revenue for the state. The Board of Psychology ensures the integrity of the profession by overseeing the acreditation process. Without it, we'd have a lot of wackos doing, er..."therapy." This year, like every year before it, is more important than the last.
Wish me luck!
It's amazing just how fragile a profession can be. What's so intriguing is that one smallish room full of professionals is all that stands in the way of half-assed legislative proposals, opportunistic scope-of-practice issues, and the general ignorance of elected officials who really don't know much about what good therapy can do for their constituents. The California Psychological Association has the membership of only 4,200 of the 16,000 licensed psychologists in the state. Kind of appalling, huh? Functionally, this means that less than 25% of the profession is speaking on behalf of its guild, and only 25% of the profession is committed protecting its legal integrity against the whims of the state. Compared to marriage and family therapists, whose involvement approaches upwards of 75-85%, our commitment to our field is disconcerting, especially when our state's psychology association is a leader among its counterparts in the country.
And yet, despite all of this, it is genuinely inspiring to mix it up with veterans who, a couple years ago, would have intimidated the crap out of me. This time around, I have the sense that I'm actually contributing something. I know something about the issues. I'm comfortable with the process of lobbying. I have a more intuitive sense about how "change" happens. I once heard Rudy Guiliani remark that "Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy." Just hearing some of the leaders in my field brainstorming about actual solutions fills me with a sense of self-efficacy, even if such "change" rolls on at a snail's pace.
It's Tuesday morning...hours before we visit the legislative offices of our elected officials. Mostly we'll be talking to staffers about my age, probably a chief of staff and, if we're lucky, the senator or assemblypersons themselves. We're trying to encourage them to oppose the govenator's effort to do away with the Board of Psychology, as misguided idea because it actually generates surplus revenue for the state. The Board of Psychology ensures the integrity of the profession by overseeing the acreditation process. Without it, we'd have a lot of wackos doing, er..."therapy." This year, like every year before it, is more important than the last.
Wish me luck!