Greetings, Div. 49. I am writing my first column as incoming Div. 49 member-at-large for training and education (2019-2021). In this regard, I want to thank my predecessor and long-time collaborator Michele D. Ribeiro, EdD, for service as the education and training chair from 2016-2018 and for the many initiatives she brought to pass in the time of her service. We have been so fortunate to have Michele Ribeiro shepherding our growth in the time of the petition and her focus on diversity and power differential factors as an enduring social impact has been good for all of us.
I would like to start my column by highlighting some of the changes and ramifications that follow from APA Council ratifying the Commission for the Representation of Specialties and Proficiencies in Professional Psychology (CRSPPP) decision to accept our proposal for group psychology and group psychotherapy’s recognition as a domain of specialty practice in professional psychology. This recognition follows more than two decades of work by senior psychologists who initiated the ABPP group specialty of group psychology and a series of campaigns to submit proposals to APA CRSPPP. That time has come up on us and we are now poised to express some of this in our division, our practice and our education and training of the next generation of group psychologists and group psychotherapists.
Turning our attention to the Div. 49 Group Specialty Council online resources, there are new documents in place that will be helpful in understanding these changes and what they may mean for us as group psychologists and APA members. The first document is Recognized Specialties and Proficiencies, which outlines the 16 specialties, their year of original recognition and their renewal due date. We can see here that group psychology was recognized in 2018 and that our renewal materials will be due in 2025 which in many ways is some years away and in others a time limit with some substantial documentation that will need to be updated. The next document describes group psychology and group psychotherapy as both the correct terms for our specialty and addresses the specialized knowledge, problems addressed, populations served and skills and procedures utilized. The next section addresses training models, guidelines and competencies. The taxonomyopens in new window (PDF, 110KB) informs us that group psychology and group psychotherapy skills can be gained at the levels of doctoral coursework, internship, postdoctoral and post-licensure levels of training, but our proposal was only able to achieve this at the internship and higher levels of training because of the dearth of group therapy coursework in contemporary masters and doctoral education. This is certainly a topic for future attention. Our education and training guidelinesopens in new window (PDF, 92KB) lay out some specifics for what we would want to see in our training programs. Our draft clinical practice guidelinesopens in new window (PDF, 355KB) are our current best statements of what the training and practice should look like. Finally, our postdoctoral residency competencies and model programopens in new window (PDF, 128KB) serve as our current best practice model for training and education.
It is my hope that we will all become acquainted with these documents and that many of us will participate in their ongoing development and modification over the next few years. The future of group psychology and group psychotherapy is impacted significantly by these achievements, and I hope to have many of you join us in the development of our next level of documentation.