The good folks at AAMFT kindly invited me to join Executive Director Tracy Todd for a live Twitter chat last Thursday, focused on possible solutions to some of the challenges today’s family therapists face (and that I discuss in Saving Psychotherapy). Here’s how it went!
AAMFT
AAMFT restructure vote fails. What’s next?
The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) announced today that the membership vote on a proposed AAMFT restructure was short of the 2/3 majority needed for the restructure to take effect.
Approximately 61% of voters supported the plan, with 39% opposed.
Had the vote passed, AAMFT’s state and provincial divisions would have been dissolved in favor of a more centralized structure. Members would have been able to organize themselves into “special interest groups” based on geography, clinical focus, or other interests.
See me at the 2015 AAMFT Annual Conference
I’m proud to be involved in a number of activities at this year’s AAMFT Annual Conference in Austin, Texas.
APA torture loophole is in other ethics codes too
The American Psychological Association apologized on Friday for its actions that allowed psychologists to participate in the torture of military detainees. Those actions are detailed in the extensive “Independent Review Relating to APA Ethics Guidelines, National Security Interrogations, and Torture” (otherwise known simply as the Hoffman report). It is the most thorough examination to date of how APA staffers, aiming to remain in the good graces of the Central Intelligence Agency and (especially) the Department of Defense, actively sought to create ethics policies that allowed psychologists to be involved with torture and shielded them from consequences for doing so.
What Indiana’s religious freedom law means for therapists
Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed into law by Governor Mike Pence last week, has raised a great deal of controversy. In the psychotherapy community, the law could have an immediate impact in the form of professional events and conferences moving out of the state. In the longer term, the bill is likely to impact training and practice by making it harder for universities and licensing boards to discipline discriminatory behavior.