Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy (SAP) Board of Directors Meeting Recap

The Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy (SAP) Board of Directors recently gathered in Scottsdale, Arizona, for an intensive two-day business meeting to set the course for the division in 2025 and beyond. Our discussions centered on visioning our current directions, strengthening our strategic priorities, addressing emerging challenges in the field of psychotherapy, and enhancing member engagement and influence. This meeting underscored our commitment to equity, innovation, and the future of psychotherapy within an evolving healthcare landscape. Below, are some highlights and decisions from the meeting.

We began our meeting with a 3-hour training aimed at deepening our Commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). A comprehensive training led by Drs. Lisa Spanierman and Cristalis Capielo Rosario challenged us to think critically about how our division can continue to promote inclusion and equity in our work as leaders across psychotherapy research, training, and practice. This session reinforced the need for ongoing efforts to amplify diverse voices, address systemic barriers, and ensure that SAP remains at the forefront of culturally responsive psychotherapy.

There were also many business items addressed: voting on our new SAP fellows and reviewing our many impressive award winners.

On our second day, President Stewart Cooper highlighted our twin goals of visioning and high engagement using dyadic as well as small and large group processes to create high engagement. He facilitated a brainstorming session to envision what success would look like for SAP in 2025. We examined our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for both our division specifically as well as the field of psychotherapy. We also spent considerable time reviewing our mission statement, bylaws, and several Society priorities. We reaffirmed our commitment to expanding public awareness and mental health literacy, strengthening advocacy for psychotherapy in healthcare policy and funding, enhancing member engagement and professional development opportunities, and innovating in psychotherapy research, training, and practice.

Discussions were had about APA’s endorsement of a Population Health paradigm and the transition toward a multi-tiered profession. We explored how these changes will impact SAP, its members, and the broader field of psychotherapy. Key concerns included how we can ensure adequate representation from both Doctoral and Masters-level clinicians in our membership and governance and how we as a division can advocate for the continued integrity and value of psychotherapy within an expanding mental health workforce.

Drs. Libby Williams and Jeffrey Younggren provided insights on SAP’s growing influence within APA. Drs. Jeffrey Younggren and Dr. Gerry Koocher discussed ongoing efforts to collaborate with other practice divisions on providing feedback to the recently released initial draft of APA’s revised Ethics Code. Dr. Kenneth Critchfield presented a budget overview, highlighting the strength of our flagship journal, Psychotherapy, in supporting our division financially and enabling us to fund our innovative projects.

A critical discussion for us is how we as a division can continue to attract and retain members.

Alongside Dr. Amy Ellis’s review of the SAP’s journal, bulletin, and website publications, we brainstormed a number of ways to strengthen our visibility across and within APA.

See below pictures!

From Left to Right: Libby Nutt Williams, Jairo Fuentes (standing), Jeffrey Younggren, Gerry Koocher, Jim Lichtenberg, Xu Li, Alice Coyne, Ken Critchfield, Tracey Martin, Pat Spangler, Linda Campbell, Amy Ellis, Stewart Cooper, Marcy Rowland, Astrea Greig, Shenelle Dell, Erica Marshall-Lee, Melissa Jones, Peter Franz, Yujia Lei, Mariafe Panizo, Susan Woodhouse, Rosemary Phelps, Wonjin Sim, Changming Duan

Not pictured, but in attendance: Joshua Swift, Andres Perez-Rojas, Fiz Ardalan