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The Credentialing of Professional Psychologists and Its Implication for the Other Mental Health Disciplines
Author(s) -
CUMMINGS NICHOLAS A.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
journal of counseling and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.805
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1556-6676
pISSN - 0748-9633
DOI - 10.1002/j.1556-6676.1990.tb01395.x
Subject(s) - credentialing , mental health , statutory law , social work , psychology , professional association , psychiatry , medical education , public relations , medicine , political science , law
Professional psychology was the first mental health profession to challenge the preeminence of psychiatry and in so doing blazed the trail for clinical social workers, mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, and addiction counselors. Social work has followed one decade behind psychology's footsteps, and the other rapidly emerging mental health professions are not too far behind social work. This article reviews the lessons learned by professional psychology when it adopted the strategy of statutory regulation, freedom of choice, control of its own training and of its national organization, and future strategies for Medicare and eventually for the enactment of universal health care. These lessons are important to the professions following psychology.