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Preface
AHP Preface by Georgia Berland,
Dear Colleague: This research could have a profound impact on the mental health managed care system. The Association for Humanistic Psychology and Dr. Robinson invite your feedback and participation. The six chapters in Dr. Robinson's study form a doctoral dissertation approved by Saybrook Graduate School, San Francisco. The abstract and first chapter introduce the subject. The second chapter considers the tragic losses to outpatient psychotherapy, its therapist practitioners, and therapy clients. The third chapter discusses the methodology Dr. Robinson used in the study and the fourth considers managed care outpatient mental health plan design. The fifth chapter considers whether it might be feasible to have cost-neutrality between existing and new plans, plans which could ameliorate some of the loss and suffering. The final chapter studies and reports on results of an expert multi-stakeholder focus group meeting held on this subject. Dr. Robinson is adjunct faculty at Sonoma State University, in Rohnert Park, California, teaching psychology courses in the resolution of conflict. He has considerable successful experience as a health care consultant and teaches conflict resolution internationally with the Conflict Resolution, Research, and Resource Institute (CRI), Tacoma, Washington. This study reviews how and why the monumental transition occurred in the last decade to managed outpatient mental health care. Acknowledging the positive aspects of these changes, it closely examines four resultant area of significant client and provider loss, and proposes what appear to be practical, tested, system design improvements to address these problems (e.g, point of service triple option plan design). Dr. Robinson builds on the key principle that the therapeutic bond between consumer and clinician, an area which Bohart, O'Hara, Leitner and others have called the most important predictor of therapy success, is crucial to the outcome of mental health treatment. He calls upon years of experience teaching collaborative conflict resolution, both in the United States and internationally, to propose a healing dialogue. He shows understanding of and respect for all toward mutually beneficial system improvements. The Association for Humanistic Psychology is intrigued by the potential of this research effort to make deep, positive impact on the outpatient mental health care options in managed care plans, as well as for validation of viewing mind and body as a unified system, as understood and addressed by somatic psychotherapy. We hope you will consider taking the time to review this manuscript and let Dr. Robinson and/or AHP know your thinking. Dr. Robinson invites your thoughts, including ideas or data to further the ongoing research, and resources you might be aware of for support of further study in this area. Please contact him at: Skip Robinson The Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP) is an international community, open to all, exploring, integrating, and healing the human body, mind, and spirit, and sponsoring events, publications, communities, and projects worldwide to advance free and healthy choice, growth, collaboration, and creativity. To reach ahpweb, the Association for Humanistic Psychology's electronic publication, please click on http://ahpweb.org or e-mail us at AHPOffice@aol.com Please let us know if you'd like to participate in our multifaceted global association, or how we may serve you.
Yours, Georgia Berland
Additional Preface by Larry M. Leitner, Ph.D., Dear Colleague: Let me begin with a simple statement: If this dissertation is any indication of the overall quality of Saybrook graduate students, (Saybrook has) much to be proud of! I believe both the student and his major professor should feel great pleasure in completing such an important and high quality piece of work. To date, I have chaired (or am chairing) doctoral dissertations for 20 students in an American Psychological Association-approved Ph.D. program in clinical psychology (and have served on about 40 other committees). I would be honored to be the chair of a dissertation of this quality. As you might infer from the above paragraph, I find the overall quality of the dissertation to be most acceptable. The topic is significant for society, not merely psychology in general and humanistic psychology in particular. The document does a very nice job of illustrating the importance of the issues to be dealt with in the study as well as the ways his methodology can answer the questions he has raised. I found the method to be quite appropriate to address the issues raised and, in general, had no trouble agreeing with his results and conclusions. Finally, in terms of "dissertation mechanics," I believe this document is quite a nice piece of scholarly work, and, indeed, would urge the author to write the work up for publication in a major journal." In summary, this is an exciting project with the potential to have a major impact on the professional community. The methodology as well as the ideas could be used in numerous follow up studies. I endorse the dissertation whole-heartedly. Larry M. Leitner, Ph.D.
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