President’s Column

Happy summer! It has been an honor to serve as the SoAP president this year. I am very proud of what our board and committees have accomplished. Being active in professional societies like SoAP has many benefits and I encourage others to join committees, become familiar with governance, and then run for office! Involvement at the national level provides an excellent way to stay at the forefront of our ever-evolving field.

The Spotlight Is On Us.

Have you noticed that APA is featuring opioid advocacy on its home page? The organization has stepped up its role in the opioid crisis. They are working to put together resources and committees to influence the country’s policies and practices. Many SoAP members are involved! If you follow the link on the APA home page, you will see our division in action. The cover story as well as other articles in the Special Report feature many of our past presidents and board members. These activities are essential to keep the nation’s focus on the ongoing opioid crisis, and remind them that addiction has been an epidemic in this country for decades. Our field has “come out of the shadows” – society is watching and caring. Now, more than ever, is a time to push forward the clinical science and treatment advances we have made; disseminate the new concepts and theories that are emerging; and expose the stigma that continues to affect those with addiction.

We Need Out Of The Box Thinking.

I hope to see many of you at the APA Convention in August. This year is worth attending! The truly cutting-edge program is a direct result of the hard work and passion of Seema Clifasefi, this year’s program chair. Seema and I sought submissions that were “Outside the Box”, and the membership responded. The division’s program is available on our website and in the pages that follow. You’ll see sessions on harm reduction, social justice, pain, psychedelics, recovery, ambivalence, habit, and diversity. And, in an effort to move “outside the box” of the classic symposium, Seema orchestrated an opportunity to visit an off-site safer consumption site (limited space available). What an amazing opportunity for our division members!

One session worth highlighting (because it has the dreaded last day/early morning slot): “Is addiction a psychiatric disorder and does it matter?” parallels the rumblings around “brain disease” and “neuropathology” that are gaining traction in the addiction field. I hope many of you consider staying (and getting up) for this session. I suspect that it, and many of this year’s sessions, will leave attendees with more questions than answers, but that, I believe, is what pushes our field forward.

We Are A Digital Society.

The Addiction Newsletter – aka SoAP Box – has gone digital. SoAP Box is drawing more traffic than ever to our addictionpsychology.org website, and we hope to continue to gain momentum in the digital age. The SoAP Box content has also been updated to be more interactive and inclusive of all of the division’s members. Look out for our Clinical Pearls series as well as other new columns tailored to the division’s clinicians, early career psychologists, and student members. Members now have opportunities to contribute and participate. Read each issue to find out how you can be involved.

Addiction Is Equal Opportunity. Addiction Science and Clinical Practice Should Be Too.

Our mid-year Collaborative Perspectives on Addiction (CPA) conference continues to flourish. Our April meeting in Providence, Rhode Island had an outstanding array of psychological science sessions that had cross-cutting appeal for basic scientists, clinical researchers, and frontline practitioners. Personally, I can attest to the high level science I see each year at CPA; it never fails to provide new insights, generate new ideas, and enhance my research approach.

This year’s theme, “Addictive Behaviors across Diverse Populations: Innovations in Science and Practice”, was eye-opening in other ways too. The organizers certainly had no expectation that this theme would change the world, but sought to use it, and a program shaped around it, as a way to further the conversation. And, there were many diversity-focused conversations, both formally, as part of sessions, and informally, among the attendees. We all know that talk is important. We also know that it is limited unless it is followed by action and change. Here, I wish to touch upon several different conversations I had during CPA. They are offered only as a starting point for your own discussions and consideration, and as a reminder that the division must continue to move forward in this domain.

First, one attendee made the important distinction between individuals who self-identify as members of marginalized populations and individuals who are “diversity-focused” in their research and practice. An Asian scientist may not study addiction in the Asian community. An LGBTQ practitioner may not specialize in treating individuals with stigmatized gender identities and sexual orientations. Often our unconscious bias causes us to expect that because a colleague appears to be a member of a marginalized group, their research and practice necessarily focus on this group.

Second, a question was posed to me: Do we unintentionally “tax” our members who are from marginalized groups? This individual suggested that we may burden individuals from marginalized groups in two ways: By asking them to represent the entirety of the diverse spectrum of humanity or even for the entirety of the group with whom they identify AND by having higher expectations for their involvement on panels and committees (either because these initiatives are diversity focused or because we want these initiatives to appear diverse).

Building on this was a conversation I had with an early career attendee who reminded me that whereas talent is equally distributed across our society, opportunity is not. Our division needs to continue to make opportunities for individuals from marginalized groups when society does not. Should we provide additional scholarships and awards to individuals who self-identify with these groups? Should we should consider moving earlier in the career pipeline and embark on initiatives to encourage high school and early college students from marginalized groups to choose careers in psychology, science, and the field of addiction? Can we advocate for diversity by partnering with other national and governmental initiatives? To accomplish any of this, we need active and vocal members with a sustained commitment to inclusion.

Third, I noticed as I sat in many CPA sessions that many of us continue to “check the box” on diversity in our research samples, initiatives, and practices by simply reporting the number of participants from marginalized groups, but do not embrace diversity in our conceptualizations, theories, or statistical methods. At CPA, many speakers described their sample in terms of race/ethnicity (“65% white” appears to be the new norm), but few addressed the implications of how a lack of diversity impacted their results. Many studies appear to continue to conflate sex and gender by offering only male and female as response options, and disregard sexual orientation entirely. I suspect that this arises from a lack of understanding of how to “be” inclusive (e.g., how can I recruit more young black men into my study?) and what is at stake when we are not.

I invite you to consider our 2019 conference as a call to action. We should expand our actions beyond attending a conference with a theme about diverse populations to facilitating conversations at our home institutions and clinical practice. I suspect that conscious efforts to include members from marginalized groups in our research teams or as members of our clinical practice would be an excellent starting point for building a culture of inclusion in our division and field, but we should be cautious of stopping at this point and absolving ourselves of further responsibility. I urge us all to identify at least one concrete step to take now to promote diversity and inclusion in our research and practice.