MSPP holds deep respect for continuing professional education as evidenced both through its bylaws and through the kinds of educational opportunities it has traditionally offered. MSPP is a psychoanalytic society that was, in part, founded for the purpose of providing a space for those psychologists who wished to join together in pursuit of their professional responsibility to continually educate themselves. In fulfillment of MSPP’s position of disavowing any orthodoxy in psychoanalytic thinking and its welcoming of all significant viewpoints in psychoanalysis, the Society endorses the individual professional’s right to claim authority in determining the course of his/her own continuing professional education. Therefore, MSPP must assume responsibility to actively take notice of and direct activities toward legislative initiatives aimed at establishing any laws which affect the very purposes of this Society. The extant proposals to institute Mandatory Continuing Education (MCE) for psychologists in Michigan threaten the freedom and flexibility MSPP considers inherent to a responsible commitment for psychoanalytic education.

After careful consideration and thorough deliberation, the Board of MSPP voted, on May 5, 2002, to take a position against the implementation of MCE for psychologists in Michigan. This position is a restatement of MSPP’s traditional belief in the efficacy and philosophical importance of self-direction in education, which includes the obligation and right of the professional to the maximum degrees of freedom in designing and choosing his/her education and/or program of study. Therefore, MSPP must forcefully dissent from efforts to enact laws which serve to limit educational freedom, while offering no appreciable benefit either to the public or to the professional community. In this document the Board offers a statement of the basic reasons for MSPP’s opposition to the implementation of MCE for psychologists in Michigan.

Coercion, used as a tool for continuing professional education, potentially undermines the openness of mind about theory and practice that MSPP has always supported. Thus, MSPP believes that Mandatory Continuing Education communicates a basic disrespect for professional autonomy and that these laws and procedures risk progressively eroding professionals’ trust in their own capacities to function autonomously. MCE creates restrictions that run counter to the approaches suggested as most effective in writings on adult education, namely that voluntary participation is considered to be a vital component. Moreover, MCE lessens freedom by removing the existing privilege of educational choice without proof that psychologists have failed to live up to the responsibility to educate themselves. MCE threatens the liberties of professionals while offering them nothing more in return than something they already possess, namely a license to practice.

Professional education purchased at the price of coercion and threat of sanction risks a steady de-professionalization of psychology in various ways. The principle of mandatory education itself trivializes professional judgment, something MSPP considers to be the hallmark of a professional. MCE has the serious potential to undermine and demean the profession by de-emphasizing individual responsibility and replacing it with boilerplate industry standards and manualized treatment which require little or no professional judgment to be exercised. Furthermore, MCE serves to elevate technical compliance with the law to the highest standard of the profession. This encourages psychologists to think increasingly in terms of legalism as opposed to reasoned professional judgment and risks equating ethical with legal. The use of the law to achieve educational goals risks eroding the very educational process proponents of these laws claim to support.

To wit Mandatory Continuing Education encourages the creation of and over-reliance on formats which are easy to administer and minimally involving for the professional. By emphasizing that psychologists must keep current as the top priority for education, proponents of MCE greatly exaggerate the rapidity of change throughout the field. The position that newer means better has other serious consequences for a field such as ours. This position not so obliquely devalues clinical experience and greatly misinforms younger professionals about the nature of the work and how the work is learned. Unlike professions that make use of rapidly changing technologies, often including invasive procedures and pharmacological products, psychology and psychoanalysis are not at risk of doing invasive harm to those with whom we work, since our work involves various ways of talking with people. A newer is always better philosophy represents a disservice to the public, because it risks encouraging the public to place too much emphasis on “newest” methods when choosing a psychologist with whom to work. At the same time, by emphasizing keeping current as of overriding importance in education, MCE can cultivate the operation of various educational organizations which place profit first, which exhibit little, if any, commitment to the profession of psychology and whose policies and ways of doing business are crafted by people who are not necessarily psychologists themselves nor interested in psychology.

Furthermore, many colleagues in other states and other professions, who must live with the consequences of these laws, are becoming increasingly concerned that MCE produces much more harm than good. For example, they have noted that as MCE spurs the growth of an education-for profit industry in the sale of continuing education credits, many other motives enter the educational process. In order to compete for the heretofore (supposed) inactive professional who is now coerced to acquire approved credits, some organizers of MCE programs strive to make the offerings as entertaining as possible, at the price of diluting the actual educational value of the programs. MCE emphasizes mass attended meetings and shifts importance away from more individualized forms of education. Already, even many so-called educational organizations and state psychological associations are keen to make CE a profit center. They hope to boost attendance by means of big draw speakers who will put on a show or by seeking to have programs underwritten by pharmaceutical corporations, a means of educational funding currently under scrutiny by the medical profession for concerns about conflict of interest. Making high attendance the number one priority risks over promotion of large group formats. Thus, the mandatory process exerts enormous pressures toward group thinking at the expense of individual education. The likelihood that new licensure rules instituting MCE will not “certify” small group, supervisory/consultative forms or other individually tailored forms of education as “approved” means of fulfilling its requirements, is evidenced in many already operating programs and are justified by regulatory agencies as necessary due to “policing” concerns.

The push toward “group think” is nowhere more evident than in the suggestion by proponents of MCE that Michigan ought to adopt such laws simply because the legislatures of more than 40 other states have. The MSPP Board regards such a follow the leader approach as unreasoned and as not representing the essence of what being a professional implies and demands, namely thoughtful, individual responsibility.

Just as proponents attempt to make the case by arguing in favor of unreasoned pressure toward group conformity, the Board is likewise concerned that MCE hastens the development of centralization in education and practice which may ultimately attenuate, if not eliminate, the diversity of thinking MSPP has traditionally espoused. There has always been diversity in theory within psychology and psychoanalysis and there have always been multiple perspectives on ways of intervening. Instead of acknowledging and encouraging the pluralism of theory and practice, MCE serves to promulgate the position that there is one voice within psychology. The one voice code opens the door to professional disagreements being settled in court or quasi-judicial proceedings in many areas including ethics, “correct” practice and the criteria for education itself.

MCE will emphasize “police-able” activities as the only ones that can be approved, thus establishing educational criteria as formed primarily according to politically nominated and governmentally appointed professional authority. This risks placing the state in too strong a position within the therapeutic enterprise and creates too many temptations for education and practice to be influenced by state power and used in the service of political objectives either not germane to the work of the profession of psychology or in conflict with the commitments of the profession. Increasing centralization risks the development of government regulators being tempted to skew therapists’ work, via educational mandates, away from the interests of the people with whom we work into means of fostering other social agendas.

MSPP believes that increasing the centralization of “policed” educational authority represents poor public policy. MSPP considers that the first responsibility of those proposing new regulations should be to demonstrate that a change is necessary. Proponents of MCE for psychologists have not demonstrated that current laws and penalties designed to protect the public from incompetent or unscrupulous psychologists are insufficient or have failed in any way whatsoever. They also offer no information that psychologists are failing to continue their educations. In fact the percentage figures available to us sets the number of psychologists who do not pursue continuing education voluntarily at approximately 3 percent.

Even MCE proponents must acknowledge that there is little or no evidence of the efficacy of mandatory education at achieving the goals it is presumed to pursue. As public policy it adds bureaucracy and hurdles for no compelling public good. From an economic standpoint government intrusion also risks increasing the cost of education and practice because it is positioned to exert much control over both the supply (e. g., what counts as “approved” and who can provide CE) and the demand (e.g., the number of hours of “approved” credits each psychologist must earn) for specific forms of education. The costs of bureaucracy/policing and potential additional costs derived from the power to over regulate the market itself would pass to the professionals, the consumers and the taxpayers of Michigan.

Supporters of MCE have offered no estimate of the total cost of implementation nor have they spelled out any measured (with perhaps there being, in principle, no measurable) benefit to the public or the profession of psychology as a result of these infringements on educational freedom. Furthermore, pursuing “approved” CE erodes the time and money available for more flexible and individually determined forms of education. This can result in actually dissuading professionals from pursuing some of the more individually tailored forms of education in response to self-recognized needs arising from their work. These flexible forms of education have been traditionally utilized by psychology and psychoanalytic psychology and have been accepted as especially beneficial.

As public policy MCE asks the profession and the public to accept the principle of mandatory before any of the details of the hows and what counts are worked out and without any evidence that MCE has resulted in benefits in other states (such as would be demonstrated by a decline in complaints against psychologists or a reduction in malpractice claims). Although MCE proponents have warned about “lazy” professionals, current proposals and procedures in other states do not target these individuals. Instead they actually serve to give the minimally involved professional a badge of honor in the form of a certificate of attendance for approved programs. A certificate of attendance gives no information about learning or competence and is hardly a statement of professional status. But the consumer is not informed of this fact.

Curiously enough, proponents of MCE who tout the importance of psychologists keeping current about developments in the field have shown an overwhelming lack of initiative at keeping the vast majority of psychologists in Michigan informed about the impending possibility of MCE. Most psychologists have received little, if any, education about the current law and the proposed changes to licensure rules that would affect their education and practice under the threat of sanctions.

In keeping with the importance of this issue the Board of MSPP will continue to endeavor to provide information through various public avenues at its disposal, including the MSPP News, website and educational meetings. MSPP intends to actively make this stand, and the reasoning that led to it, known to its members and the psychological, psychoanalytic, public and government communities. MSPP further intends to make this stand public wherever discussion ensues about the possibility of action to implement MCE. MSPP will do so for the purpose of preventing its implementation. The Board of MSPP stands ready to take further action on this matter as circumstances warrant.