Distinguished Service to the Profession of Psychology

• Tell us about your current professional roles and activities.

I am retired from the Student Counseling Service at Texas A&M University where I spent several decades as Associate Director of Clinical Services. However, I continue to be involved in ABPP board certification. It has long been a part of my career. I also am engaged in other profession-related efforts to which I am able to contribute. At this time, I serve on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Counseling Psychology (ABCoP) as Cochair of Oral Examinations, and as a mentor of ABCoP board certification candidates. I also serve on the Board of Directors of the Brazos Valley Psychological Association, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization of 100 + multidiscipline, mental health professionals and graduate students.  

• What do you enjoy most about your job?

Striving toward competence is a continuous journey. The personal and professional rewards that I experience from participating in this journey are many. I can’t imagine not being a part of it. I likewise find reward in joining with colleagues advocating for the mental health needs of the communities in which we live.  

• What inspired you to get board certified?

In the early stage of my career, a colleague who was an ABPP Diplomate, whom I highly respected, casually asked me during a meeting of an organization in which we both served, why I wasn’t board certified. Until that time I had not considered that I had the qualifications to become (what was then designated as) a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology. Becoming board certified seemed beyond my reach. Without that brief but impactful encouragement, I doubt that I would have made the commitment to seek board certification.  

• How has board certification contributed to your professional activities?

The encouragement that a colleague provided me to seek board certification resulted in an unplanned, long term involvement with ABPP, which has included conducting ABCoP board certification examinations, serving in ABCoP related leadership positions, and mentoring ABCoP candidates. This remains an important part of my professional life.

• What advice would you give to psychologists or trainees interested in pursuing board certification?

The process itself of becoming board certified is an extraordinary venture into self-study and growth. For many of us the doctoral internship may have been our first intense, profession-related, growth experience. But after we have gained post-doctoral experience, initially under supervision and then likely without or only with intermittent supervision during subsequent years, the process of board certification provides a unique opportunity for a “take-time-for-yourself” commitment to look closely at how the years of academic preparation, supervision, professional experience, and personal development have come together, and to be intentional about how we want our careers to go forward.

Unlike most of our experiences of being assessed for knowledge created by others, a meaningful ABPP difference is that, while ABPP defines the required competencies, you, the candidate, determine the content of your Practice Sample, upon which a substantial portion of the examination is based. This time the examination is about you, and what you know about what you do – how you have become your professional self. During the Self-Study and Work Sample preparation, you grow professionally, personally and are enriched by your demonstrated commitment to lifelong learning and competence that board certification represents. 

• What is one piece of advice you’ve found helpful in your career?

When the door to your office closes behind you and your client for the first time, it closes primarily to two people who don’t know each other very well.  Only secondarily does it close to a “client” and a “psychologist.”