Monitor on Psychology - March 2012 - (Page 61)

Working in the community Early career psychologists are also embracing community mental health as a rewarding interdisciplinary profession. Allison Ponce, PhD, has found herself on the streets of New Haven, Conn., helping homeless people as part of her job as associate director of the Community Services Network of Greater New Haven. Ponce works with psychologists, social workers, nurses, psychiatrists and employment specialists to help clients with therapy, housing, employment and social skills. “We work together to create solutions for the clients,” she says. “One of the beauties of working in an interdisciplinary field is that no one person is expected to hold all the knowledge. I’ve taken the approach of not needing to be an expert in every area but knowing who I need to talk with and consult with.” Ponce also serves as an assistant professor in psychiatry at Yale University, where she researches community-based mental health services and supervises psychology interns and postdoctoral fellows at the Connecticut Mental Health Center. Anne Klee, PhD, also works in community mental health as the training director for a postdoctoral program in psychosocial rehabilitation at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. The fellowship offers interdisciplinary training in clinical services and research for students in psychology, psychiatry, nursing and social work. Klee supervises the fellows at a community care center serving veterans with severe mental illness and often co-occurring substance abuse disorders. Many of the veterans are homeless or unemployed, and some suffer post-traumatic stress disorder from recent deployments in Iraq or Afghanistan. “Each team member comes with different skills and experiences based on their professional training,” Klee says. “On a multidisciplinary team, you can get a richer sense of your clients because there are so many perspectives on how to help them. It’s a great training ground. It’s also the real world, and this is where the jobs are.” Breaking into public policy Psychologists aren’t usually associated with public policy, but Jennifer Lerner, PhD, is connecting the two fields through her research at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where she is a professor of public policy. She also co-founded the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory with two economists to study how emotions and other factors affect decisions by consumers. “The research being done at the M a rc h 2 0 1 2 • M o n i to r o n p s yc h o l o g y intersection of fields has always appealed to me. I find it to be especially fascinating at the intersection of psychology, economics and public policy,” Lerner says. “One way to have more influence on public policy is to be able to speak the language of policy and translate it. The key is to work with economists who recognize that psychology has so many contributions to make.” Lerner, who earned her PhD in psychology from the University of California–Berkeley in 1998, also teaches Harvard students in an interdisciplinary doctoral program in decision science. She advises early career psychologists interested in interdisciplinary work to find postdoctoral programs in those fields to get a feel for the work. But she warns that psychologists need a clear focus for their work. Even though she collaborates with economists, Lerner publishes most of her research in psychology journals. “You need to decide where your research is going to make its mark, and it’s impossible to make a really significant mark if you’re publishing in multiple fields,” she says. But the most important advice for choosing a career path is simple. “Ultimately, you just have to go where your passion is,” Lerner says. n Brendan L. Smith is a writer in Washington, D.C. 61 http://www.MedicalCredentialing.org http://www.MedicalCredentialing.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - March 2012

Monitor on Psychology - March 2012
Letters
President’s column
Contents
From the CEO
Supreme Court rejects eyewitness protections
New member benefit: prevention screenings
A psychodynamic treatment for PTSD shows promise for soldiers
Was ‘Little Albert’ ill during the famed conditioning study?
New research identifies ways to improve eyewitness identifications
In Brief
‘Our health at risk’
Perspective on Practice
APA endorses higher education guidelines
TIME CAPSULE
QUESTIONNAIRE
Random Sample
Judicial Notebook
Help for struggling veterans
Driving out cancer disparities
In the Public Interest
SCIENCE WATCH
Practice, virtually
The legal and ethical issues of virtual therapy
Psychologist PROFILE
EARLY CAREER PSYCHOLOGY
Bringing life into focus
Pay attention to me
AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION
Division Spotlight
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - March 2012