Letters to Editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

MCE: Not So Invincible?

Regrets

MCE: Not So Invincible?

Advocates of MCE argue that MCE is a national trend that will soon be accepted in every state and every profession. It’s a “no brainer,” they say—“everybody” is doing it and we’ll have to, too. Sometimes it does sound like an irresistible force, which is discouraging to those of us who think it will be a disaster for our profession.

For those of us who have a hard time picturing ourselves filling out little Likert scales measuring audience satisfaction and “learning” after the next psychoanalytic conference, here is some good news, and it happened right here in Michigan.

From what I have read, the legal profession in Michigan has gone through a battle over MCE and the opponents won. First MCE was imposed on attorneys, then repealed due to widespread dissatisfaction. A few years later, another attempt was made by a new president of the Bar Association to impose MCE, but it was defeated due to opposition both by the Michigan Supreme Court (which had to approve the rules) and by outspoken members of the bar who had the nerve to ask—what for? And found that there was no good answer.

Susan D. Knapp, M.A.

Rochester Hills, Michigan

Regrets

After reading the last issue of the News, I was relieved to learn that, despite MPA’s announcement of a new MCE requirement, MCE is not the law for Michigan psychologists. It appears, though, that if the MPA and the Licensing Board have their way, such a requirement will soon be imposed on us.

I admit I am tempted to ignore this situation and hope that someone else will take the responsibility to oppose MCE, but I believe that the price of not acting in this situation is too high. To allow others to decide what kind of continuing education is acceptable gives away our right to decide what kind of education is most useful to each of us as individuals. It seems to me that, if we take this route, we will live to regret it. Recently I ran across a poem that speaks to such regrets:

The Little Room

In Man's heart is a little room.

He has named it

Oblivion.

And things are ranged along its walls

That he does not wish

To think about.

Every time that he pushes something in there,

He closes the door very tightly.

But in hours when he is weary,

In the hours that walk around some midnights,

When high fires have burned

To a low flicker,

Then the little door swings on its hinges

And no thing

Will make it stay closed

All of the time.

When he is near death,

All the velvet-footed wanderers in there

Join the throng around his bed.

"We will not die," they whisper

To one another,

While Beauty waits with drawn lips,

And dry eyes.

But there is heard

The patter of a little sad rain

In her heart's garden,

Where some little flower buds

That were once thinking of the sun

Will never open,

Because Man keeps a little room

Of oblivion in his soul.

Opal Whiteley (1923)

Susan C. Olson, Ph.D.

Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan