Prescription privileges for psychologists: Constituencies and conflicts

Abstract

The pros and cons of the proposal to link prescription privileges specifically to psychological training vary from the point of view of the constituencies involved. The present article analyzes those differences. Two surprising facts are noted. First, it is scientist-practitioners who are resisting the move toward prescription privileges, not so much the basic science organizations. Second, while the practice-based organizations have been avid in their support of prescription privileges, the same cannot be said for rank and file private practitioners. On closer examination, the costs, benefits, and views of the different constituencies make sense of these anomalies. The resistance to prescription privileges is not arbitrary or unreasonable and it is not likely to go away any time soon.

The Devaluation of Inner Subjective Experiences by the Counseling Profession: A Plea to Reclaim the Essence of the Profession

“…There has been a mass devaluation of ISE by all helping professions, not just counseling. The primary political agenda of the psychology profession, for example, is to gain prescription privileges (e.g., Hayes, Walser, & Bach, 2002). If counselors resist this trend toward medicalization and, instead, refocus their efforts on ISE, this would create a standout, and sorely needed, professional identity in the contemporary mental health marketplace.…”

Training for prescriptions vs. prescriptions for training: Where are we now? Where should we be? How do we get there?

“…They inevitably would have a major negative impact on both the substance and quality of scientific training in clinical psychology. 4 Opponents of PPP legislation have provided a long list of reasons why this is a bad idea (see American Psychologist, 1996;Hayes & Heiby, 1998). I agree with these reasons.…”

Concerns about substandard training for prescription privileges for psychologists

“…The RÂP proposal remains controversial within psychology and objections involve anticipated negative effects of the amount of training (Albee, 2002;Bush, 2002;Hayes & Heiby, 1996, 1998Hayes, Walser, & Bach, 2002;Heiby, 2002;Heiby et al, 2004;McFall, 2002;Pollitt, 2003;Sechrest & Coan, 2002;Wagner, 2002). Proponents of RÂP have observed that the major reason for the failure of most enabling legislation is concern over the quality of the APA model training (Fox et al, 2009), and the consumer protection reasons given in one governor's veto of an enabling bill supports this impression (Lingle, 2007).…”