Organizational structures: The American Psychological Association

The Japanese Psychological Association has expressed an interest in the organizational structure of The American Psychological Association (APA) that enables it to serve the broad needs of the discipline. The APA is the largest organization of individual psychologists in the world with approximately 150 000 members and affiliate members, including approximately 85 000 with PhD, PsyD, or EdD degrees; the APA also has approximately 5000 international members and affiliate members. The APA represents all areas of psychology through a complex structure – perhaps more complex than is necessary – that is summarized briefly below. Indeed, in some ways, it could be considered to be more than just one organization. One might view the APA as an executive office that is an umbrella for four organizations covering the education, science, practice, and public interests of psychology. Or, alternatively, it might be seen as a federation of 53 separate organizations, each with a substantive focus, called “divisions” by APA, and these organizations are augmented by 50+ states and territories. This is illustrated in Table 1. The array of executive office functions is critical to the smooth functioning of the APA, is critical to all members, and to the sustainability of the APA. Therefore, I shall comment on these first. I have listed governance, publications, central programs, and public communications and media as readily identifiable functions, but there are also other very important functions that I will not comment on, including finance affairs, which manages dues, investments, and the American psychological foundation, and legal affairs, which writes amicus curiae briefs to various courts on behalf of psychology. However, let me note the major foci of the first four. Governance functions of the executive are outlined in Table 2. One might summarize the thrust of most of these functions as focusing on managing how APA members speak to the APA. These are the representational processes within the organization, how persons get to be elected to representative bodies at various levels and with various charges and responsibilities. Publication functions of the executive are likely to be those functions that most people think of when thinking of the APA. These are listed in Table 3. The publications of the APA communicate with and for psychologists across the spectrum – educators, scientists, practitioners, and public interest advocates. These publications and databases are resources for psychologists around the world. Less well recognized is that the publications program provides substantial income to the APA to support the breadth of its functions. A Publications and Communications Board elected from the APA broad membership by the APA Council develops the APA policies related to publications. Additional guidance comes from the APA Council of Editors. Central programs of the executive also have high visibility. These programs and functions are shown in Table 4. Many know and attend the APA's annual convention for the latest information and to establish working contacts. Others know well of the APA's ethics code for psychologists; the APA seeks to educate psychologists about their ethical responsibilities. The APA also carries out an ethics “enforcement” program, adjudicating claims of potential unethical behavior brought against individual psychologists. Central programs also manages the participation of the APA in international affairs and the office of international affairs links both individual psychologists and psychological organizations around the world. Public communications and media within the executive might well be characterized as being charged with managing the zeitgeist for psychology both within the public domain – and within the profession. Its specific ways of communicating are listed in Table 5. Although the publication of the APA Monitor on Psychology is well known to most psychologists, most important for influencing the public are the news releases and media relations that seek to increase public awareness of psychological science and psychological services. How the public perceives psychology and psychologists is important to the funding for both research and for payments to practitioners. Let me now turn to those four Directorates within the APA governance that I mentioned at the outset that are relatively independent, but remain under the APA executive offices umbrella. These four Directorates have as their foci the quite special substantive concerns of various groups of psychologists. Individual psychologists may have special interests that span two or three of the Directorates. Specialized Directorates provide for consistent systematic approaches to specialized components and concerns within the broad discipline of psychology. The functions of these are shown in Tables 6–9 and discussed individually below. The Education Directorate manages the process of accreditation of psychology training programs, both develops and recognizes continuing education programs, and contributes to pre-college and undergraduate psychology curriculum development. The Education Directorate also works at the national educational policy level to support education initiatives in psychology. Some policies are developed through the Directorate's annual national psychology education leadership conference. The Directorate links to the APA membership through the Board of Educational Affairs, which is elected from the APA broad membership by the APA Council. The Education Directorate gives awards for contributions to educational practice and to pre-college students for outstanding performances in science fairs. The Science Directorate seeks to sustain a vigorous, broadly based science research core within the discipline and to track and foster the applications of the science findings across the discipline. This is a critical function within an organization and discipline that is ever more focused on application per se. It does this by providing advanced training institutes for both early career and senior scientists covering the latest methodologies in science. It specifically fosters research with animal models of human brain and behavior and the ethics governing the use of animals in research. The Science Directorate has a major focus on policies and practices relating to testing and assessment. The Science Directorate also works at the national science policy level to foster and support government behavioral science initiatives in psychology. Some policies are developed through the Directorate's annual national psychology science leadership conference. The Directorate links to the APA membership through the Board of Scientific Affairs, which is elected from the APA broad membership by the APA Council. The Science Directorate gives awards to scholars for contributions to psychological science. The Science Directorate is the APA's unit linking to the interdisciplinary research initiative called the Decade of Behavior (http://www.decadeofbehavior.org/about/cfm). The Practice Directorate has as its primary focus the interests and needs of those psychologists engaged in the delivery of clinical psychological services to individuals. This is an especially complex mandate because in the USA, clinical practice is regulated both nationally and separately by each of the 50 states – with the states having differing laws and policies. One goal of the Practice Directorate is to foster coherence across states in a way that facilitates the delivery of clinical psychological services. To this end and to develop national policy initiatives, the Practice Directorate holds an annual psychology state leadership conference involving both APA members and state psychological association officers. Additionally, when policy is recommended by the conference and with the invitation of the individual state psychological association, the Practice Directorate provides help to the state in advocating for the policy. It tries to shape federal and state legislation on licensure, hospital rules, and government rules on payment for services. The Directorate also manages a large public education program about clinical psychology and related matters (e.g., violence). The Practice Directorate maintains relations with legislators and manages the education of government officials on legal and regulatory matters regarding clinical psychology. The Directorate seeks to insure that clinical practitioners have access to business and practice-enhancing technological services. The Practice Directorate links to the APA membership through the Board of Professional Affairs, and separately through the Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice, the members of which are elected from the APA broad membership by the APA Council. The Practice Directorate gives awards for contributions to clinical and professional practice. The core function of the Public Interest Directorate is to promote the use of psychological knowledge for the advancement of public welfare. This is a broad mandate that sometimes requires seeking opportunities to bring psychology to bear upon issues that might not at first seem obviously psychological. The Public Interest Directorate also works at the national educational policy level to support various governmental and industry initiatives in psychology that impact on public welfare. This Directorate has a number of special committees focusing on AIDS, on personal disability, on families, children and youths, on lesbian, gay, and bisexual concerns, on ethnic minority advancement, on aging, on safety in the workplace, among other issues. Some policies are developed through the Directorate's annual national psychology leadership conferences. The Directorate links to the APA membership through the Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest, which is elected from the APA broad membership by the APA Council. The Public Interest Directorate gives awards for contributions to psychology in the public interest. Several times I have referred to the APA Council of Representatives. The Council of Representatives is how the broad APA membership indirectly governs the mission and practices of the APA. The Council has the ultimate decision making authority for all APA policies and actions. It delegates some of this authority to its Executive Committee, called the Board of Directors – the APA elected officers and six elected Council members – so that timely action can take place between the semi-annual council meetings. The Council itself is large and composed of 165 persons. These persons are elected from each of the 53 divisions of the APA and from each of the 50 state psychological associations, US territories, and some Canadian provinces (Table 10). Divisions carry out their elections of Council Representatives from among APA members of a division, while states carry out their elections from among the state psychological association members (not all of which are necessarily members of the APA). The Council faces two enormous tasks of tracking the business of a large organization and of adopting the policies that guide APA actions. Thus, Council provides a forum for all psychological interests and somehow finds a way to work to advance them all with respect. The divisions of the APA are separately organized societies with their own officers, membership rules, dues, activities, and sometimes journals. Each division was formed to represent the focal substantive interest areas of psychologists, such as experimental psychology (division 3), or counseling psychology (division 17), or humanistic psychology (division 32), or addictions (division 50). Some divisions have separate legal standing, for example, division 14 is the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology; however, each division functions as a unit within the APA. Each division elects a representative to the APA's Council of Representatives to speak on behalf of the interests of the small focal organization. Although I used the word “small,” some 850 members are required to become a division. Divisions are characterized in Table 11. The APA is a complex organization as befits an effort to respect, support, and give voice to the diversity of interests, activities, and needs of a broad discipline such as psychology. It has a large administrative and operating structure. The APA has approximately 600 employees, and it runs on an annual budget of approximately $105 000 000. This is a lot of money, yet annual dues of approximately $275 pay for less than 20% of the costs. The balance comes from psychology-related activities, such as real estate, invested endowment, sale of publications and databases, convention fees, continuing education fees, and other activities that generate income to the APA. Clearly, the APA leverages each dues dollar fivefold to provide an enormous range of services of value to members. Nonetheless, many eligible psychologists choose not to belong to the APA, in part because they do not grasp all the good the APA does for them, for the discipline, and for the public. The APA is a grand experiment that seeks to: (a) serve the diverse profession of psychology in all its richness of education, research, applications in the clinic, family, school, and workplace; (b) advance public welfare by bringing the knowledge and skills of the professionals to bear on the individual and social problems our society faces; and (c) at the same time, protect the public by insuring the quality of the professionals identifying themselves psychologists. The APA has, as an organization, kept education, science, practice, and public interests intertwined in a mutually respectful and supportive environment. This is no easy task in a universe of increasingly centrifugal forces, competing needs, and limited resources. A discipline in modern society needs the support of that society, and organizations can foster that support in many ways through public education and informing legislators, regulators, policy makers, and funders of research and practice about the contributions psychologists can and do make. Serving and protecting the public welfare can be facilitated through the accreditation of training and certification and/or licensing of practitioners. In this paper, I have reviewed how the APA has achieved success by reference to its complex structures. However, in addition, it requires the commitment of the membership, the talents and insights of leaders brought out from within the discipline, and dedicated employees at all levels. There are no doubt other structures and strategies to achieve similar goals, but the successes of the APA provide one reference point.

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