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Text of Letter:
Division 40
Clinical Neuropsychology American Psychological Association
March 13, 1995
Kenneth Adams, Ph.D.
Chief, Psychology Service (116B)
VA Medical Center
2215 Fuller Rd.
Ann Arbor MI 48105
Dear Ken, I am finally getting back to you concerning what happened at the Division 40 meetings in Seattle, and I would like to provide a summary here. I know that it will be quite lengthy simply because many things happened. However, I want to first indicate my sincere hope that your wife is doing at least reasonably well. I conveyed her situation to the Division 40 Executive Committee as best as we knew it at the time of the meeting, and I must say that there was an enormous amount of sympathy for you, your wife, and your situation. Everyone certainly wishes you the best.
Bobbie White could not be at the meeting either. Apparently, her son has a manic- depressive disorder and was on the verge of a relapse. I gave her report. Bobbie has done many good things for the Division for many years, but especially in view of the fact that she will be the head of our Public Interest Committee, I am wondering if it would be best for us to identify someone else to take over the Newsletter responsibilities beginning with your presidency. This last newsletter was quite late, and this has impacted our ability to obtain volunteers to start the four committees which are part of our long term plan.She spoke to me at the social hour last year and offered to resign, as she said she had done for the last several years to each incoming new president. I of course refused her resignation, but you will want to think about whether you will want to do this also. In addition to the matters just mentioned, I have wondered if perhaps a change here might he?p us to advance our newsletter in one way or another. It has been very much the same for a number of years while our division has been expanding significantly. This decision is certainly up to you,but I wanted to bring up this point for your consideration in advance of the August meeting.
People at the head of the four major efforts arising from our Planning Committee gave brief reports. They are in various stages of getting their committee members. I am urging all to have their committees up by August.
Bruce Crosson reported about the Task Force especially. Actually, our Executive Committee meeting was two days before their all day meeting, and therefore, he could not report the outcome of that all day meeting. I am hoping to hear from Bruce concerning the outcome of the meeting before too long, and I will make every effort to keep you abreast of what has happened. I think that we need to be alert to anything that we can do prior to our meeting in August to smooth things along. In particular, it would certainly be good if you and I could be in unity relative to the definition, and I am anxious for us to discuss once we have heard from Bruce.
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I asked Will Van Gorp to study the question of a dues increase and
to report on it at the meeting. He did this quite ably. It is evident that
we are far bel I also reported your feeling about a small dues increase.
ow all other similar practice divisions, and that a move up to about $25
would put us more in line. Obviously, this would have at least some repercussions.
However, there is anothe point, and that is that with our increased membership
we have enough income andboard members are financially supporting the division
enough that we do not have a clear demonstrated need for the increased
income. I asked everyone to submit to Will a list of their financial needs
by early summer. This list is to include our needs with our long term plan
and our new activities. On the basis of this list we should be able to
identify what is needed in terms of a dues increase by August and I suggest
that we try to pass it at our meeting in August.
Concerning the Program Chair, Max Trenerry is clearly heavily taxed, and I believe that we must do something about reducing the Program Chair from 3 years to 2 years. He has one more year to serve, but in my opinion we need to identify someone who will start to serve after the August meeting and who will serve for one year assisting him and then a second year as Program Chair with an assistant during that second year.If you have thoughts about this, I would be pleased to hear them, both about the plan and about who might follow him. This appointment should probably be made before the August meeting.
John McSweeney reported that he will be finishing up his term as Ethics Committee Chair in August. We need to have an a pointment for this position before the August meeting. As with the Program Chair, I am appy to proceed to make an appointment myself, but if you have any input since these people will be serving during your term, I would be happy to hear your thoughts.
I have had several contacts with Ralph Tarter relative to the Fellows Committee. It is clear that he never understood from Bob Heaton that this was to be a truly active and proactive effort. Almost nothing was done for he last year and a half. Fortunately, I have gotten Stan Berent to be the chair, and he is going to do what he can to get whoever he can through the application process by the April 15 deadline. At one point I thought I heard you say that you have one application, or a part of one. If so, please send it to him ASAP. In subsequent years we should do better. Ralph has one application already. John McSweeny is applying but I do not know who else.
Tony Strickland was u set with me because I originally put the financial request from the Hispanic neuropsychological society on the agenda without it going through his committee. He called me in advance of the meeting, I agreed to take it of the agenda, and it is now in his committee.
Bob Heilbronner is etting the International Liaison Committee off the ground. Somehow,
attend a special meeting last fall, he somehow thought that he had to waitor a written permission to go and he never went. I do not know how this confusion could have occurred, but I have allowed him to use the $1,000 for partial support for three other relevant meetings including coming to Seattle to report at the Division 40 Executive Committee at INS. I was reluctant to do this, but it seemed to be the only way to get him there. This will require some attention in the future when budget requests are submitted.
The meeting called by Kerry Hamsher about the Clinical Neuropsychology Synarchy was of interest.Kerry personally paid for the lunch of about 8 of us and hired a room to have lunch and discuss the matter. There was some enthusiasm for his idea since it would permit some type of unified voice for the profession. Relationships with individual organizations were a matter for discussion, however, and forced adherence to Synarchy decisions was a matter of concern. I am personally very lukewarm on this idea since one of
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the avowed objectives was to get neuropsychology recognized as a specialty
by APA. However, Manny has already filed our application and I have sined
off on it. I would think it important that such an organization not detract
from a focus on Division 40 as the largest society of neuropsychologtsts
in the world. At any rate, the decision was made to have a meeting on Friday,
August 11 at a restaurant in New York at 7 PM. This will be just after
our Executive Committee meeting. Jerry Goldstein will find the restaurant.
There is to be only one person from each organization appear at the meeting.
I presume that this would be either you or me from Division 40, and if
you have thoughts about this let me know. Byron Rourke as representative
for ABCN/ABPP was adamant that no other board be permitted to attend this
meeting.I believe that he will boycott the meeting if any other board is
represented. I was sorry to see this, not because I want more than one
board either but because we will never get this profession down to one
board if we pretend that the other boards do not exist. I am again putting
the Synarchy down on the Division 40 agenda for August.
Ida Sue Barron is doing an excellent job on the Awards Committee. It seems to me that we ought to combine the Hecaen Award with the Benton and Levitt awards. What do you think? If so, we will need to have an action item for the August meeting.
Sandra Koffler came in by my invitation about 30 minutes from the end of the meeting and made a presentation on behalf of NAN.I think that the contact was a good one despite the fact that Manny gave an historical narration of why various organizations had started which included considerable negative information. I did not feel that was helpful because there were stereotypes presented about what Division 40, NAN and INS are concern with and who attends the meetings. Not all of his information was accurate. I think that we must get rid of some of these stereotypes when then are inaccurate. At any rate, I ended her appearance in as positive a way as possible, and I think that it was basically constructive. I believe that you will deliberately want to consider how we should relate with NAN in the future and especially during your presidency. They meet in early November in San Francisco.
By my taking a fairly directed hand, we got over every item on the agenda.If there is anything else on the agenda that you want to know about, please let me know.
As you are aware, we have nominated a number of people to APA committees. While this took some time and was certainly worth the effort, I am concerned because I will not have the time to follow this up with politicking” and other efforts to actually get these people on the committees. I do not know if this is an effort in which you want to be involved, but the other Division 40 activities are taking so much of my time that I know that I cannot cover this one.
Concerning the meeting with ASHA, Michael McCue and Eileen Fennel1 accompanied me to the meeting. [For your knowledge, Ken, Byron Rourke approached me at another meeting and presumed that he was still involved and assumethat he would be meeting with ASHA on Saturday. I pointed out my clear understanding from you that he did not wish to be involved, and that no more meetings with ASHA were planned. He indicated acceptance of this, and I think that we should let this matter alone at this point. I did experience some discomfort in this encounter, however.] We were fortunate in that Michael, Eileen and I were able to talk prior to the meeting and to have some fairly serious conversation about the matter. Dr. Malcolm R. McNeil was present from ASHA and Diane Paul-Brown was present from the ASHA central office. Dr. McNeil took notes on the meeting he sent me a copy of these, and I am enclosing this document with this letter. I draw the following points to your attention concerning this meeting:
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1. ASHA has made contacts with Division 40 a priority item for their
association. Their central office was quite willing to send Diane out at
a moment's notice to meet with us. They see their contacts with us as great
important, and as far as they are concerned this effort has been ongoing
for several years. Admittedly, it has been a bit intermittent (very much
so, from my perspective), but they have actually met at their meetings
more than once when no one from Division 40 was there and they still identified
such meetings as meetings of the joint committee.
2. Query was made by myself into the question of their motivation as to why their contacts with us were perceived by them as so important, especially since it appeared that they were taking by far the lion's share of the initiative. They agreed that they had taken the vast majority of the initiative, and they definitely do want this to be more even with us taking initiative as well. I asked additional questions about the reasons for the great importance which they attach to the committee, and Ierused the Proposed Agenda (attached). What eventually became evident was two acts: 1) they are interested in our performing workshops in co their acquiring neuropsycho nitive rehabilitation, psychiatric disorders, testing,etc, and in logical skills from us; and, 2) they feel totally, completely, and fully at ease in utilizing in their practices any neuropsychological skills which they develop from contacts with us. This last position was stated unequivocally by Diane and I am certain that it represents the position of ASHA. In other words, they want to have an association with us so that they can learn neuropsychological skills and put them into their practices.
3. The article Interdisciplinary Approaches to Brain Damage
(attached) is currently being published in their newsletter. They said
that Byron Rourke and the prior committee had worked with them on this,
and they believed that Byron Rourke had approved it. Upon close questioning,
it was not clear that for certain he had seen the very final draft, and
it seemed possible to me that he and only he had seen a portion of this
paper. It is too late to stop the publication of this paper if we have
any concerns about it. If we continue to work with ASHA, we would need
to be sure that we maintained an active role and that we made it sure that
any joint statements had our full approval on the last review.
In summary for ASHA, I personally have reservations about continued joint work. Michael and Eileen were excellent choices for the committee, and I know that you will want to communicate with them about their pers ectives. continued contacts with ASHA, and we To me, we have nothing to gain with do have things to lose. In particular, whoever we train in any neuropsychological technique or procedure may well begin practicing that technique and procedure. I really think %that this is what they want most from us, to learn how to do neuropsychological procedures of interest to them. I also think that the ball is in our court, and that what we need to do is to make a deliberate decision about what we want to do. It is my hope that you, Michael, and Eileen can do that, and that you will take a few moments with me on the phone to discuss the matter before you talk to the ASHA people. I would appreciate that and thank you for taking the lead on this matter.
I have just received the nominations ballot from Arm Marcotte, and I suspect that she sent you one as well. There are about six people that are being nominated for the council seats, and there are a number of other nominees. Ann and I decided that it would be good for us to have a mailing in April each candidate and has as prior to APA sending out the ballot. Therefore, Ann has written in late April. ked them for a 200 word statement. We are planning a mailing I think that it would be good if I also had a letter in this mailing updating people on activities and perhaps on the situation with the definition of a neuropsychologist. If you have any thoughts about what could be included in this letter, please let me know.
I am in receipt of your letter to Mr. Bigg also been in contact with him, back in at APA. You may or may not be aware that I had November.When he responds to you, I wish you
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would shoot a copy to me. Once we get his response and something of
an informal report from the Bruce Crosson and the Task Force, I would like
for you and I to discuss this whole definitional issue over the phone,
and see if we think we need to be doing anything prior to our meeting in
August. I am concerned that we may get to August and not be able to make
a decision.
This is all for now. Please let me hear from you concerning the above matters as you are able.I wish both you and your wife the very best.
Cordially,
Carl B. Dodrill, Ph.D.
Division 40 President
Regional Epilepsy Center (ZA-50)
Harbor-view Medical Center
Seattle WA 98104
Phone (206) 223-3557
Fax (206) 223-4409
(End of letter text)