Russ Newman

APA's Resilience Initiative.

Resilience is the human ability to adapt in the face of tragedy, trauma, adversity, hardship, and ongoing significant life stressors. Focus groups conducted by the APA Practice Directorate after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, found people to be experiencing a chronic sense of stress and uncertainty for which they wanted to be more resilient. In response, APA launched its public education campaign, “The Road to Resilience,” in August 2002. A key component of the campaign is community outreach by psychologists, in which psychologists around the country bring information about resilience directly into their communities. This has allowed psychologists to help their communities and to help communities better understand the value of psychology.

Parameters of managed mental health care: Legal, ethical, and professional guidelines.

Presentation des principaux parametres des systemes «commerciaux» de sante mentale (Managed Mental health care): orientations legales, ethiques et professionnelles

The State Leadership Conference: A history and appreciation.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has held a State Leadership Conference every year since 1984. Organized and run by the Practice Directorate, the State Leadership Conference has grown more than tenfold during this time. Its growth and maturation reflect the growth and maturation of the advocacy agenda for the practice community, which has expanded from legislative advocacy and legal initiatives to include a variety of efforts to shape the evolving health care marketplace. The State Leadership Conference accomplishes multiple purposes, including the facilitation of successful working partnerships between APA and its 60 affiliated state, provincial, and territorial psychological associations. It has become a primary instrument of advocacy successes such as mental health parity laws, prescriptive authority laws, and the Psychologically Healthy Workplace Awards program.

Leading Psychology Forward: Staying the Course in Uncertain Times.

Like everyone in the country, those in organized psychology have functioned recently in a climate marked by threats of terrorism, uncertainty, and a declining economy. In such challenging times, it might seem logical for the profession to wonder how it needs to change to respond to current circumstances. Yet at such times, staying the course already charted is likely a far more effective strategy. For psychology, this means continuing to press for mental health parity, educating decision makers about the important role of psychological services in preventive care, helping to integrate psychological and physical health services, continuing to hold managed care companies accountable, and increasing the professions political giving. Psychologists must also be prepared to ensure that psychological services are treated as an integral part of any health reform plan that emerges.

The role of the psychologist expert witness: provider of perspective and input.

The definition and role of the expert witness is reviewed. Two conceptual systems for viewing the world, the scientific method and the adversarial system, are compared. The reconciliation and integration of these two discrepant systems are discussed in terms of input versus outcome. The rules of evidence, as well as problems of communication between the systems, are reviewed with the aim of providing expert witnesses with a better understanding of effective testimony. Finally, collaboration between the two systems is called for in order to provide guidelines for both neuropsychologists and attorneys.