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By Catherine Robertson Souter
Citing the need to bring its services up to date, the Association
of State and Provincial Psychol-ogy Boards (ASPPB) has begun the
process of revamping its Handbook of Licensing and Certification
Requirements. The new version should be available online by the
end of the year.
The ASPPB, an association that covers psychology licensing boards
in both the United States and Canada, provides free access to the
Handbook on its Web site, www.asppb.org. The Handbook is a state-by-state
and province-by-province breakdown of each jurisdiction's requirements
for licensure, exam requirements and mobility. With data provided
by the individual licensing boards, the Handbook also includes information
on scope of practice laws, continuing education requirements, fees
and the total number of licensed psychologists in each jurisdiction.
As this information is subject to change at any time, the ASPPB
has found that its old system of updating the information on a yearly
or semi-annual basis does not provide for the most up-to-date records.
With the new system, according to ASPPB's Mobility Program Coordinator
Janet Tippen, individual licensing boards will have access to the
Web site to update information as it changes.
"This will allow the boards to make changes during the year," she
says. "The last update was done in 2000. We are in the process of
redoing it now and once it's re-done, we will be able to update
it annually."
While many of the requirements or laws governing licensure don't
change from year to year, the total number of licensed psychologists
does. According to several New England boards, these numbers can
regularly fluctuate. In Connecticut, for instance, the figures are
updated weekly.
Does this mean that boards will be expected to go online and update
their totals each week? Not really, especially because the totals
don't drastically change. When the numbers posted in the ASPPB's
Handbook were gathered in 2000, Connecticut had 1,481 licensed psychologists.
Today, the state has a total of 1,546. Those 65 additional psychologists
over the course of four years, an increase of about four percent,
is actually the largest change posted by any of the New England
states.
Vermont's numbers went down in the same time period - from 565,
at both the doctorate and master levels, to 538. In New Hampshire,
the totals also went down, from 611 to 563.
In Rhode Island, the total number of licensed psychologists went
up from 519 to 545. (The state also reports 814 psychologists on
inactive status). The state issued 147 new licenses since 2000,
meaning that more than 100 psychologists have not renewed for one
reason or another.
The rising costs of renewal have affected the numbers as well.
In Massachusetts, where renewal notices were sent out to psychologists
in April, the $270 fee has put a few people off, according to Karen
Schwartz, program coordinator for the Board of Registration of Psychologists.
Schwartz says that the numbers have stayed around the 5,000 mark
for several years (they were at 5,224 in the 2000 report).
"It will take several months to see who will renew or who will
not," she says, "but I do know that we have gotten calls from out-of-state
people about the fees. People can't afford to maintain dual licenses."
The state did a national survey, she says, and their fees are close
to the average but they have gone up drastically over the past decade
or so."They were around $120 in 1995," she says.
In Maine, the number of doctorate level psychologists barely registered
a change at all, going from 517 to 525.
"The reason it's so much the same," explains Anne Head, the state's
director of the Office of Licensing and Registration, "is that the
standard for that level of licensure is high and the number of newly
matriculated doctoral candidates is fairly small. If there is an
increase, it's usually with psychologists coming from another state."
The mobility of the population in New England may be a factor in
the numbers of psychologists remaining pretty steady. According
to the US Census Bureau, the Northeast saw a net loss of about 100,000
people in what it calls "domestic migration" from 2002 and 2003.
Conversely, both the south and the west saw net increases in that
same time period (125,000 and 74,000, respectively). Those figures
could explain some of the slight dips in numbers - there are just
fewer people.
Does that mean numbers in the south and west will show more noticeable
increases? ASPPB's Executive Director Randy Reaves doubts that will
be the case. In his experience, he says, the numbers have been steadily
going down partly because of pressures that managed care have put
on the profession.
"These are not the glory days for psychologists that we saw in
the 80s and 90s," he says. "The numbers of people in graduate programs
are stable but there are not as many people taking the licensing
tests as there were four to five years ago."
The drop-off in test-takers could also be caused by the ability
for people to personally schedule the tests, giving them more time
to prepare and less likelihood of repeating the process and by the
fact that many jurisdictions no longer license psychologists at
the Master's level. Still, the financial issue is more likely to
blame, Reaves believes.
"The number of people wanting to be psychologists has fallen off,"
Reaves adds. "It's probably a money issue."
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