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Dean Davison Visits Japan
Gerald C. Davison presents at major clinical psychology conference at the University of Tokyo
Gerald C. Davison, dean of the USC Davis School of Gerontology, was the keynote speaker at an international conference dedicated to improving the collaborative relationships between Japanese clinical psychologists and physicians on Thursday, March 20 at the University of Tokyo.
His lecture, titled “The Education and Training of Clinical Psychologists in the U.S. to Make Them Helpful to the Field of Medicine,” formed the basis of a daylong series of papers and discussions by leading Japanese psychologists, psychiatrists and health policy administrators.
Event organizer, Haruhiko Shimoyama, professor of psychology at the University of Tokyo, said he invited Davison as the keynote speaker because “he is a leading figure in developing clinical psychology in the US.”
“I believed Japanese psychologists, psychiatrists and government officials could learn so much from his ideas and experiences,” he said.
A Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Association for Psychological Science, Davison is a widely recognized figure in psychology departments throughout the world as coauthor of the textbook Abnormal Psychology, now in its tenth edition. The publication been translated into German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. He also recently served as President of the Society of Clinical Psychology (a division of the APA).
Amongst the 1,200 attendees were the president of the Association of Japanese Clinical Psychologists and the executive director of the Foundation of the Japanese Certification Board for Clinical Psychologists. Influential psychiatrists and government officials from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare also participated in the symposium.
Davison began his presentation by explaining the history and practice of clinical psychology in the U.S.
“Interventions in clinical psychology are directed at preventing, treating and correcting emotional conflicts, personality disturbances and skill deficits underlying human distress,” he said, quoting from the mission
statement of the Society of Clinical Psychology. He went on to endorse the importance of clinical psychology as based on psychological science as well as the importance of grounding educational preparation in the liberal arts. In addition, he noted the contrast between the prevalence of multi-area but unified psychology departments in the United States with the separation of psychological studies in different schools and departments at the University of Tokyo.
On the association between the mental health professions, he made clear that “the relationships between clinical psychology and psychiatry affect how we educate and train our students, conduct our research, even how our educational institutions are structured. But most importantly, the ways clinical psychology and psychiatry work together – or do not work together – affects the quality of service that we provide to our patients and to society at large.”
In spite of disagreements, Davison maintained that both psychologists and psychiatrists see eye to eye on a concern for those in need of mental health care and a concern for how society, including government, creates conditions that affect access to care and quality of care.
A former recipient of the outstanding achievement award from APA's Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility, Davison voiced his opposition to a controversial movement in the U.S. that would allow psychologists to obtain privileges to write prescriptions for psychoactive medications. He maintained that avenues for training to prescribe drugs already exist through medical and nursing schools and that the complex interactions of medical illnesses and drugs require full-scale medical education.
He also made the point that prescribing drugs would dilute the education and training of psychological treatments, a regrettable prospect given the increasing power of psychosocial treatments in preventing and alleviating emotional distress without the usual side-effects of drugs. Increased legal exposure, he said, would also threaten non-medically trained dispensers of medication.
Instead of permitting psychologists to administer prescriptions, he advocated closer collaboration with physicians.
In reflection, Shimoyama expressed his gratitude for Dean Davison’s contribution at a time of “monumental importance for clinical psychology and psychiatry in Japan.”
“This conference was the first opportunity for a variety of health professionals to get together and discuss mental health issues in Japan,” Shimoyama said. “Attendees learned much from his excellent presentation and benefited greatly from the discussions, which were very informative and helpful in the balanced development of the Japanese health care system. I am sincerely grateful to Professor Davison for his valuable contribution to our symposium.” |
