PUBLIC SERVICE ARTICLE
APA “MODEL LICENSING ACT”, AN EDUCATIONAL BIGOTRY AND OCCUPATIONAL APARTHEID…FREEDOM OF CHOICE DENIED
Equality requires the just rule of law with an honest judiciary in which the rights
of some are not obtained by the denial of rights to others
Joseph W. Ferrara, EdD
www.soundmentalhealth.com
Remember when we were innocent, trusting kids. We implicitly trusted our insightful moms and dads. By kind words and thoughtful examples, they patiently taught us to be truthful, honest, fair, to keep our promises and love each other. These honorable ethics were taught by not lying, cheating nor stealing. What belonged to another person was both their individual and family property, an important part of their sense of self, livelihood and everyday life. Their legal rights of property ownership was to be regarded with enduring respect and revered consideration, never ever to be taken away from them by any means. If, or when we stole, it was wrong, dishonorable and made us a “thief”, never, ever to be trusted unless property was sorrowfully returned, restoring both our fidelity and honor, bringing us forgiveness and justice. We learned daily the trustworthiness of our individual and family integrity, credibility were priceless and noble. Later in life, we experienced an egregious, shocking, seismic shift in ethics that “if you are not lying, cheating or stealing, you are cheating yourself”. Suddenly, without warning, our world profoundly shifted on its ethical axis. Today, exclusionary and restrictive laws are discriminatory, ubiquitous, life-threatening and the new unjust replacement ethic for genuine integrity/credibility, freedom, equity and justice.
Consequently, in the “city of the Big Shoulders”, a 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., PhD, an honorable activist for nonviolent, just social change, and humanitarian Mr. Al Raby organized a series of inspirational, multi-racial, freedom marches protesting the city’s prejudicial, restrictive and exclusionary real estate policies and bigoted housing requirements with Dr. King speaking at Soldier Field followed by Dr. King taping their ethical and just demands to the Chicago mayor’s door—what just ethics and revolutionary contributions. We never know the dynamics nor significance of any ethic or worthwhile contribution, i.e., how valid, just and consequential is any belief or ethic at any time.
Meanwhile, instead of working and advocating for equality and justice in the mental health industry, observe APA’s restrictive, exclusionary and dishonorable ethics in remorseless collusion, educational bigotry and occupational apartheid. Just how does our “Model Licensing Act” foster a true commitment to equality and inclusion in regulation and every mental health work place? To consistently gain monopolizing market share and control for only their licensed members, our American Psychological Association (APA) with our characteristic chicanery has absconded the occupational title, marketable educational terms and civil rights from both legitimately and diversely trained, but competing, unrepresented and unprotected fellow tax-paying psychologists and the schools that trained them, thus denying tax-paying citizens their freedom of training or treatment options. This is facilitated by APA’s collusionary financial support of our affiliate state psychological associations’ lobbying state legislatures to enact APA’s national restrictive, exclusionary proprietary requirements as singularly named in the facial language of state licensing laws which are enforced by threatening prosecutorial police action. By contrast, the truth never, ever requires threats of police enforcement. Nevertheless, these state laws burglarize the legal-standing and ownership to the occupational title of “psychologists” and related educational and marketing terms of “psychology” and “psychological”. These terms while in the public domain should also continue to be so and the shared property rights of competing tax-paying psychologists who attended schools which chose not to purchase APA’s approval of their independent psychology programs as an expression of both their academic freedom and equal opportunity. APA’s proprietary and collusionary requirements prevent tax-paying students from attending schools of their choice and those schools and tax-paying psychologists from verbally informing the public of their diverse marketable products and services which denies equal licensure opportunity and violates their 1st, 5th and 14th amendments of our federal constitution, Bill of Rights, freedom of speech and eliminates consumer choices for service and competitive costs. Taxpayers’ caveat emptor, to be licensed as a psychologist, one has to purchase their education from a school which has bought the APA life-threatening “model licensing act” proprietary and collusionary program’s approval and educational pedigree, i.e., we must be like them or we lose all our civil rights. How mindful of neo-Nazism and white supremacists is our exclusionary “model licensing act”. Tax-paid policy makers take an oath and make a promise to equally represent and protect all citizens equally in and under all laws as their role in defending our Federal Constitution and Bill of Rights. Why is it important to keep an oath and promise? Tell me! Consider “In 1970, congress passed the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which goes beyond traditional conspiracy or collusionary laws by making it a crime simply to belong to and participate in an organization that has committed any of 35 specified crimes within 10-year period”. Collusion is an agreement between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair market advantage. How just and ethical is our individual and collective integrity and credibility by eliminating tax-paying citizen’s choices and cost for patient care by excluding tax-paying competitors? The following dramatic lethal but legal cases demonstrate the “veracity” of care and consequences of the foregoing exclusive, restrictive and life-threatening claims of our APA’s “model licensing act” which deny schools and students their freedom of training choices and tax-paying psychologists and patients their freedom of maturational treatment choices at competitive prices.
Currently, we shamelessly hold ourselves out to the public, lobbied state and federal legislators as protectors of their health, safety and welfare. We declare and market our “model licensing act” as “orthodox”, which is propagandized to protect the public as being superior to “secular” or competing, “inferior” training models. Just how safe, protective, healing and superior was our exclusionary “model licensing act” in the historical Tarsoff murder and unjust adjudication of unrequited Mr. Podder’s homicidal fantasies, wishes and murderous action? The Tarsoff’s needlessly, tragically lost not only their loving daughter, Tatiana, but her cumulative progeny and their lineage which is a significant part of their humanity. Our children, grandchildren and any societal contributions are our only “after-life”. What do you suppose would have happened if Mr. Podder had initially received preventative, collaborative analytic mental health counseling/psychotherapy one (1) hour sessions three (3) times per week for a minimum of eighteen (18) weeks with one (1) hour weekly follow-up sessions until the multiple-growth areas of his fragile self-esteem traits were stabilized and functional? Instead, he was prescribed and administered a mindless medication to treat his chemical neuro-transmitters with authoritarian commands to stop involuntarily fanaticizing and thinking homicidal thoughts which automatically dominated his obsessive-compulsive mind or he would be incarcerated by our restrictive “model licensing act”, a component of a medicating psychiatric protocol which he rejected as a viable treatment. Subsequently, Mr. Keith Ewing, a landmark court case, was murdered by unrequited, obsessive-compulsive, homicidal Gene Colello, a patient of highly similar psychiatric protocol and former police officer, who then committed suicide. Initially, this dramatic case required preventative one (1) hour analytic mental health counseling sessions five (5) times per week for a minimum of twenty-four (24) weeks with one (1) hour weekly follow-up sessions until the multiple-growth areas of his dysfunctional self-esteem traits were stabilized and operational. As psychotherapists, we are supposed to be trained to accurately evaluate, diagnosis and treat the cause of mental, emotional and behavioral dysfunctioning and, when correlative, physical disease. Imposing a mindless medication which treated only his chemical neuro-transmitters with forbidding commands and threatening incarceration suggested to Mr. Podder he had a “medical problem”. We know the metabolism, histology of electro-body chemistry or neuro-transmitters vigorously fluctuates due to thoughts, emotions/dreams and overt actions; however, to be brain washed by the prescription of mindless, non-abstracting medications is not the treatment choice of a psychologically minded psychologist. Renaming diagnosis is a profound way of gaining market share for pharmaceuticals who profit dramatically financially. How can we as psychologists allow ourselves to be duped into believing we need mindless, non-conceptualizing medications to treat our patients? Mindless medications or chemical neuro-transmitters do not cogitate, generate insights nor facilitate rational choices and desirable consequences, never. They exclusively transmit the increase or decrease of ambiguous electrochemical impulses. How can we continue to associate ourselves with the support and promotion of mindless, hypnogogic medications and our “model licensing act” for the treatment of psychological dysfunctioning? The question we have to ask ourselves, is whether this “orthodox”, restrictive, exclusionary “model licensing act” is safe to legislatively place before the tax-paying public as protective of their health, safety and welfare? With what we know right now, the answer to that is no. The outcome of these cases now require therapists to warn both intended victim and law enforcement of any homicidal wish or intention. Also, these consequences strongly demonstrate we especially need to equally warn the public of our current exclusionary “model licensing act’s” dangerous, life-threatening treatment and consequences. In light of our restrictive and exclusionary, freedom-denying “model licensing act”, still being under the just ethics of the null hypothesis, what must our Board and any legislature be thinking and feeling about democracy, integrity, freedom, patient care and justice while holding powerful policy-making positions? Laws are to be impartial, unbiased and uncorrupted. As a board member or tax-paid legislator, would you prefer an association give you a sizable reelection check and plaque declaring you the greatest policy maker or have a state registry of psychologists which would inform and protect you, your family, loved ones, friends, neighbors and fellow citizens in advance of any treatment? Equality requires the just rule of law with an honest judiciary in which the rights of some are not obtained by the denial of rights to others.
When a group of people or an organization collusively lobbies a governmental legislature to enact their restrictive beliefs or exclusionary requirements affecting equal opportunity for licensure and interstate commerce into law and simultaneously impose those life-threatening, indefensible requirements with the threat of police action, this is called apartheid or, in this case, both educational and occupational apartheid. Who among us thinks this is honorable and “just”? Might this educationally exclusionary, life-threatening “model licensing act” come under the RICO act? What would anyone think, feel, say and do when their shared legal standing to the property rights of their occupational title are stolen by their fellow citizen’s collusion and lobbying legislative acts? How safe and alive would anyone be to earn their living for themselves and family when property regarding their livelihood has to be cherishly guarded, meticulously monitored and constitutionally defended? This exclusionary, restrictive and life-threatening “model licensing act” is like the fox guarding the hen house. Our restrictive APA “model licensing act” legislation hasn’t any predictive validity assuring the public’s health, safety and welfare. APA’s “model licensing act” restricts, excludes and denies:
(1) academic freedom,
(2) affordable student tuition due to fees paid for “APA approval”,
(3) diversity in student’s training models,
(4) equal licensure opportunity,
(5) the property rights to one’s occupational title and services,
(6) freedom of speech, i.e., informing the public of one’s occupational title and services,
(7) diversity in treatment choices or services for the common everyday patients,
(8) the free enterprise system of unbiased supply and demand for services,
(9) the right for one to face their accusers in court and
(10)affordable State taxes, i.e., it raises State taxes to pay for “APA approval”.
Remembering our training as social scientists and mental health practitioners, we psychologists have the implicit ethical null hypothesis, testable, retestable and cross validated operational definitions as testable, independent variables and the just standards of our deliberate axis of the scientific method with its trustworthy predictive statistical .01 level of confidence or greater providing us with valid experimental and control group findings or answers, not restrictive racketeering, exclusive claims as life-threatening legislation. Science is life-giving and the life-threatening APA “model licensing act” does not represent the science of psychology. Any mental health counseling or psychotherapy must follow the empirical laws of learning to provide safe, healthy, life-changing mental health services. How valid and beneficial is our exclusionary APA “model licensing act”? Where is any empirical test results, retesting with trustworthy, cross-validated experimental and control group test findings for our freedom-denying, life-threatening APA “model licensing act’s” claim of “orthodoxy” assuring the public of their health, safety and welfare and that people will not be killed by our licensed graduates’ public mental health practice? If it exists, it can be tested. If it can be tested, it exists. Science is a just, trustworthy and equitable method for safe, healthy, wholesome patient care, protective and equitable social justice to eliminate exclusionary, life-threatening laws. We are a diverse Republic and we all stand together, united and pledge our allegiance to a just and honorable Republic! Until equality in regulation with safe, life-giving standardization or testable, retestable results with trustworthy cross-validated findings are verified and substantiated as to who shall be named in law, what do you suppose it would be like advocating, enacting and monitoring a public state-disclosing, regulated registry of psychologists in the common market place of the free enterprise system to choose the most competent and very best practitioners to replace our current exclusionary and life-threatening “model licensing act”? How just, honest and life-giving do you suppose our freedom-denying, life-threatening “model licensing act” truly is…honestly? Where is the honor, nobility and equal opportunity and social justice in educational and occupational apartheid?
A State-Regulated and Monitored Registry of psychologists instead of the covert licensing board of our APA “model licensing act” of psychologists would allow taxpayers exclusive and unrestrictive public access to psychologists’ credentials before any patient treatments. As history demonstrates, exclusionary, restrictive regulatory laws and drugs/medications are being used more and more to control tax-paying patients’ needs, thoughts, feelings and actions with hypnogogic, life-ending effects. Thus, for immediate public use, a registry would require psychologists to disclose to the public in advance of patient care the name of every college and university attended, letter title of each earned degree, description of their training programs with curriculum, title of master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation, if any, setting of supervised internships completed with description of current practice, continuing education credits and any verifiable contributions to the field. It would require psychologists to disclose any type of disciplinary action ever taken against them, the reasons and outcome. In view of the foregoing historical and landmark murder and suicidal court cases, why wouldn’t any trustworthy policy maker, psychologist and citizen want the public to have a State-Regulated and Actively Monitored Registry of any public practicing psychologist? In the interest of the public’s health, safety and welfare, we would not want any citizen to commit any homicides, suicides or homicides followed by their own suicide either reported or unreported. In the future, how can we be assured that our fellow tax-paying citizens will not be killed by our life-threatening “APA model licensing act” of psychologists? How can policy makers both advocate and legislate educational, occupational apartheid which burglarizes unrepresented, unprotected citizens’ property and treatment rights? Who will be left alive with a voice to write about educational, occupational apartheid and freedoms denied? Policy makers and legislators be truthful, honest, just and keep your oath and promise of equal representation and protection of all citizens by kindly enacting today a State-Regulated and Actively Monitored Registry with active policing of all psychologists’ lobbying efforts and public mental health practices. Currently, our restrictive, exclusionary and life-threatening American Psychological Association’s “model licensing act” is not a victimless crime which designates we do not understand and respect justice, equality and honor. We must never legislate discrimination, prejudice and bigotry in education, occupations, gender, age and race or nationality, ever. Restrictive and exclusionary legislation in one area can generalize to all the other areas.