On Thursday I attended the third meeting of the Licensure Exemption Workgroup, whose purpose is to eliminate the licensing exemption for counselors and family therapists.

The idea is to introduce legislation for this in the 2017 full session of the Oregon Legislature, not the current 2016 short session.

Oddly, this attack on the counseling exemption is not being spearheaded by the counseling board (the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists, OBLPCT), but by the psychology board (OBPE).

Why would the psychology board muscle onto another board’s turf? Because that’s what they do.

Rewriting History

The psychology board published a backgrounder on the licensing exemption that strives to explain it without understanding it first. You see, rather than contacting the counselors who are familiar with the counseling exemption, and who know its history, how it works today, its pros and cons, and its supporters and detractors, they chose to study only its legislative history, in isolation, without talking to anybody . This aversion to human contact is typical of the OBPE. Read More...

Jean Mercer posted an entry in her ChildMyths blog about the responses over different professional organizations to US-sponsored torture. The American Psychiatric Association shunned torture from the beginning, but the American Psychological Association was willingly complicit with the torture in Guantanamo Bay, and actually rewrote their code of “ethics”to become pro-torture. Fast-forward many, many years, and the American Psychological Association has finally passed a resolution to reverse this policy.

Mercer also points out that — unlike physicians (including psychiatrists), who since the time of Hippocrates have held the ethical principal of, “First of all, do no harm” —  psychologists have been reluctant to adopt this stance. Read More...

Don’t be afraid to vote no.
—James Hendry

James Hendry, a Portland attorney, finished his second and final term as a “public” (non-psychologist” member of the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners in May. His valedictory message to the board included advice to be willing, even to feel good, about voting against the majority.

Hendry himself provided a good example of this. Most board decisions were either unanimous or had Hendry as the lone dissenting vote. And he dissented a lot! And he dissented well, casting his “no” vote in a firm, confident voice, neither apologetic nor confrontational, and letting it go when the board as a whole voted against him.

Update, July 11, 2015: This post is more timely than I realized, as two other board members on the OBPE have just resigned. These boards and commissions have high turnover, so if you throw your hat in the ring, you’ll get your chance sooner than you think. Read More...