Wanted: Clinicians’ Feedback on Treating Panic Disorder

(This announcement is from Dr. Marvin Goldfried. Please take the survey. It should take about 10 minutes.)

Once a drug has been approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) as a result of clinical trials, practitioners have the opportunity to offer feedback to the FDA on any shortcomings in the use of the drug in clinical practice. The Society of Clinical Psychology, Division 12 of the American Psychological Association, is in the process of establishing a mechanism whereby practicing psychotherapists can report their clinical experiences using empirically supported treatments (ESTs).

This is not only an opportunity for clinicians to share their experiences with other therapists, but also can offer information that can encourage researchers to investigate ways of overcoming these limitations. We are starting with the treatment of panic disorder, but will extend our efforts to the treatment of other problems at a later time.

 Mentorship Program

The Society of Clinical Psychology is proud to announce the winners of our 2009 awards!

Distinguished Student Research Award in Clinical Psychology: Rebecca (Kate) Kathryn McHugh

Distinguished Student Practice Award in Clinical Psychology: Winslow Gerrish

Distinguished Student Service Award in Clinical Psychology: Emily Engle

A new brochure has been developed to help clinicians reduce violence in the practice of psychology through the work of the Division 12 Section VII/APA Advisory Committee on Colleague Assistance and the APA Practice Directorate. From the brochure (pdf download):

Few challenges facing psychology practitioners are more distressing than the possibility of patient violence toward the clinician. According to national surveys, roughly 1/3 of practicing psychologists have concerns about possible patient violence; and, 15% - 25% are at risk of being assaulted by a patient at some point in their careers. Most instances of patient assault have not resulted in serious harm or injury; however, the emotional distress on the clinician can be substantial, and it is usually far more disturbing than any physical injury.

Education and training in the evaluation and management of potentially violent patients is often minimal. Because of the complexity of such patients and the high intensity of the context in which they can present, it is helpful to be prepared with knowledge and some plans for dealing with this situation.

Please download a copy today. The .pdf file is formatted for double-sided printing. You may download a copy for onscreen viewing, as well.

We know we're behind the times. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn. There are as many social networking sites as there are schools of psychotherapy. We have decided to join just 2 of them: Facebook and Twitter. There's not a whole lot going on at either of those 2 accounts at this time, but go ahead and add us/follow us anyway so you can get the latest updates on the site and the Society's happenings.

We'd also love to hear from you about how you'd like to make the site better and features you'd like to add. Of course, the easiest way is to email us directly. You may also message us through either of those sites after you've added us.

The Fall issue of the TCP is now online! Get your PDF copy here. In this issue, we hit several topics that may be of interest to you, including:

• Psychologist Self-Care, by John Norcross, Ph.D.
• An update on the TCP and the Internet, by Simon A. Rego, Psy.D.
• Issues that may be important to Early Career Psychologists, by Katherine L. Muller, Psy.D.

In addition to several other important areas written by your Division 12 colleague. Please download it now!

Voting is now closed. The proposed changes pass.

The Board of Directors of the Society of Clinical Psychology recently voted to change the by-laws of the organization. This requires a vote of the membership. The vote pertains to the number of candidates required on any given ballot. The current statement in the by-laws ("...ensure that there are at least four (4) candidates for President-elect and three (3) candidates for each additional position to be filled in a given year") would be changed to "ensure that there are at least two (2) candidates for each elected position to be filled in a given year.

You may select to vote either for the "pro" statement and agree to the by-laws change or for the "con" statement and choose to keep the by-laws as they are. Each full member may vote exactly once. Changes to your vote are not permitted.

Pro statement

Our current By-Laws call for our election ballots to list four candidates for President-Elect and three candidates for other positions for which an election is being held. The candidates whose names appear on the ballot are able and devoted division members who are eager to serve in the positions for which they have agreed to run and hopeful of being elected. Those who lose in the election may in their disappointment choose not to run for office in future division elections. The larger the number of candidates on the ballot, the larger the number of disheartened candidates whose disinclination to seek division office another time deprives us of the opportunity to benefit from their leadership. Organizations our size commonly run two candidates for their elected offices, thus limiting the number of losing candidates. We should do the same.

Con Statement

Follow-up (for Sammy)

It displays fine now (my first post, which you freed up from restriction).  I do get a banner saying I cannot modify it because it has been reset. (by you!) So now I'm trying on my own. Results: Did not display on the blog with color or font or image options. Now, I went to the bottom and saw I had a choice between filtered and html and manually chose html (the default was filtered) and voila (I think - we'll see).

First: FONT.  [I see this on my edit screen and preview too but not when it posts - it's 4 color, actually, the word FONT.]  - check, seems to be working.

Next: links:  www.fenichel.com/enjoy.html  - This works well, and will be a feature (imho) most often and easily used by members. You can just type it in, as with ordinary (non aol) email: http://www.apa.org and it automatically does the html and makes it into a link. (The anchor/link buttons weren't so user friendly, but then it's not likely the intent of blog posts to create entire web pages.)

Smileys seem to work well too (actually a useful if much-maligned online communication tool) - and text size, font style, etc.  are all easily to use and intuitive. Feels to me like a hybrid blog and chat room.  

 WOW!  A blog is born!

Just checking this out, after seeing I could log in now, with ease.Thank you  Sammy Banawan (Div.12 Admin, working on this tech stuff online)

Just testing the features. No browse/upload feature (for images), but then, for a psychology list we probably do not need a whole lot of graphics. (That's what flickr's for!)   But I'm giving the chat/blog features a test drive. And celebrating. .. A blog is born!

"Dr. Mike"   www.fenichel.com