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Concluding remarks on the debate about prescription privileges for psychologists
Author(s) -
Heiby Elaine M.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.10055
Subject(s) - schism , retraining , psychology , medical prescription , field (mathematics) , psychotherapist , association (psychology) , law , medicine , politics , political science , nursing , mathematics , pure mathematics
This article summarizes the six primary arguments for and against prescription privileges for psychologists (PPP or RxP) that were presented in this special issue. Four articles addressed points made in the testimony in favor of PPP by the American Psychological Association. Six articles addressed points in the testimony against PPP by the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology. It is concluded that the PPP debate reflects a deep schism in clinical psychology that represents a serious disunity in the field. The disunity is seen as a divide between those trained to be psychotherapists and those trained to be scientist–practitioners. It is argued that the former support PPP and are interested in the survival of professional schools, while the latter oppose PPP and are interested in the survival of university departments of psychology. For the discipline to survive there must be a rapprochement between these factions and alternatives to PPP for the retraining of psychotherapy practitioners. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 58: 709–722, 2002.