Change Within a Profession Change, Future, Prevention, and School Psychology

" Many psychologists recognize that problems and solutions in their field need redefinition, but change has been slow or nonexistent. Indeed, little is known about how to transform the practice of a profession. This article's purpose is to stimulate discussion about what we want our fields to become andhow to go about realizing our visions. A professional fantasy, using school psychology as an example, is presented to demonstrate that utopian descriptions can put ideas into currency and perhaps help to reorient a field. Means to reorient fields need identification, and the author calls for a study of social change within the practice of a profession. This article concerns change within a profession, both the process and the content of change. The new directions it proposes are for the specialty of school psychology, but many of the issues it raises should be relevant to other specialities within psychology. The manner in which the future is conceived to some extent determines what the status of a profession will be. When professionals contemplate the future of their fields, many feel obliged to limit their thinking to predictions based on projected trends or on given political realities. There is a need for more discussion about what we want a field to become, discussion unlimited by judgments about the future world or its politics. To entertain a professional fantasy provides another way of contemplating the future of a field. Indeed, utopian descriptions are needed because they put new ideas into currency. Much that is taken for granted today, for example, was first stated and described in the utopian literature. The fantasy presented in this article envisions an enlarged role and function for the psychologist working in the school. It proposes that schools could operate differently than they do now. For example, they could serve and interact with the entire community. School psychologists could greatly expand the primary prevention work they already do. They could interact with the community as well as within the school and the individual classroom. The fantasy captures a vision, but its implementation is another matter. A discrepancy between professional values and professional actions already exists, and considerations of change New York University require further study of social change within professions. Social change, within a profession or elsewhere, does not have to occur only in response to specific crises, new laws, or technological development. It can be a product of intentional planning. I hope that this article will stimulate discussion of the future of school psychology, but its intent is broader: to stimulate consideration of the futures of our fields without basing our vision only on judgments about future realities or political constraints. I also hope to stimulate work on how to implement change within the practice of a profession. Professionals Contemplate the Future of Their Fields When psychologists contemplate improvements in their field, they are confronted with the complexities and difficulties of effecting change. Levine and Levine (1970) and Sarason ( 1970, 1981, 1982), for example, have considered how the development of a field and the definition of problems and solutions are influenced by the culture in which the field is embedded. Kuhn (1970) also considered the issues of change and distinguished between persuasion and conversion. He indicated that sometimes a person intellectually chooses to adopt a new view (persuasion) but is unable to internalize it (conversion). The terms culture, persuasion, and conversion indicate the complexity of change. Professionals have many skills, but they do not know how to change the practice of their profession. Yet there is broad agreement that to serve its constituency more adequately professional psychology must change. For example, many clinical psychologists hold that clinical psychology should be reformulated to better serve a larger constituency. For instance, Fox (I 982) questioned clinical psychology's preoccupation with mental illness and emotional disorders, suggesting that the field reorient itself toward general practice that would offer services to the many and away from specialty practice that offers services to the few. Community psychology is another example. Trickett (1984) indicated that community psychology is using an obsolete paradigm that is inconsistent with the distinctive prevention-oriented premises of the field. School psychology is also recognized as needing re1112 October 1985 • American Psychologist Copyright 1985 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 00034)66X/85/$00,75 Vol. 40, No. 10, 1112-1121 formulation. Thus, although many professionals recognize that their specialties need to redefine problems and solutions, change is either not occurring or occurring very slowly. Of the many ways of thinking about the future, one is the calculated approach. To conceptualize the future of a field based on the calculated approach, demographic, economic, political, social, and psychological trends are considered; a future world is described; and then a prediction of the adaptation of a field is made. The 1980 Olympia Conference on the Future of School Psychology (Alpert, 1982) and several important articles concerned with the future of school psychology (e.g., Oakland, in press) have used this approach. Although the calculated approach is valuable, it has three major drawbacks. First, the method is dependent on our ability to predict the future of our environment, and as futurists have indicated, (e.g., Ogil,;% 1982) this is difficult to do. Second, the method is limiting. In general, it focuses on what we think the field will become rather than on what we think it should become. It leads to a passive rather than to a proactive stance. Third, it is frequently misinterpreted. Because predictions are reasoned and data based, they are assumed to be objective, reliable, and valid. Clearly, research is not as trustworthy as is often believed. Social scientists select theories consistent with personal values and attitudes and then seek data that validate their beliefs, ignoring contradictory data (AIbee, 1982). The calculated approach is similarly fallible: The futurist can attend to some trends and not to others. Although the predictions follow logically and thus are credible, had other trends been considered, other predictions would have followed. A second conceptualization of the future is political It involves developing a proposal for the future based on a consideration of present political concerns. Characteristic of this approach is a concern for expedience and practicality. Thus, a major difference between the two approaches is that the political approach focuses on what should be, given political realities, whereas the calculated approach focuses on what will be, given predictions based on trends. A future for doctoral-level school psychologists as applied educational psychologists has been proposed by Bardon (1982, 1983). Although Bardon's thoughtful proposal was motivated by significantly more than an attempt to reconcile political concerns between the This article is based on a presidential address to the Division of School Psychology, American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, August 1983. I gratefully acknowledge Jack Bardon and Seymour Sarason for comments on a draft of this article. Requests for reprints should be sent to Judith L. Alpert, 926 Shimkin Hall, 50 W. 4th Street, New York University, New York, NY 10003. American Psychological Association and the National Association of School Psychologists, political concerns partially shaped his thinking. Consequently, his proposal provides insight into some of the advantages of the political approach. The political approach does not suffer from the sometimes fallacious objectivity of the calculated approach. However, it can be limiting if the depiction of the future is derived solely from political forces. The future of a field may also be conceptualized through fantasy. The "fantastical futurist" simply describes the field as she or he would like it to be. As a review of the literature indicates, few if any specialities within professional psychology have fantastical futurists. This is regrettable, because fantastical thinking results in "professional utopias," and utopian descriptions introduce new and bold ideas. Much that is taken for granted today, for example, was first stated and described in the utopian literature. Because these are difficult times for school psychology, for professional psychology, for scientific psychology, and for the people we serve, vision is needed. To entertain professional fantasies has other advantages. As in the political approach, no pretense toward objectivity is made. Thus, delusion and faulty predictions are avoided. At the same time, it is less limiting than the political approach because it is not solely determined by pragmatism. Of course, the fantastical approach is circumscribed by its own subjectivity, as well as by the personal values and beliefs and the social and cultural circumstances of the futurist. Given the advantages to this approach as well as its sparsity in the literature, a professional fantasy follows. The values and beliefs implicit in the fantasy as well as a conceptual basis will first be presented. Foundation for Fantasy