As the assistant director of a CIL, I challenge you to learn more about CILs and recognize their work when addressing the issues of individuals with disAbilities. The Monitor postures for prescription privileges. First, empirical support for the underlying mechanism of emotional complaints, the biochemical imbalance, simply does not exist. Ditto for drug efficacy. Studies are fatally flawed because of compromises to the double blind.
Psychologists have a respected heritage of empirical scrutiny and moral integrity.
We need to face the data and consider the risks before jumping on the prescription bandwagon. Although it is important for practicing psychologists to be trained in basic psychopharmacology, the pursuit of prescription privileges is a misguided attempt to improve psychology's tenuous position in the current healthcare market. For our profession to survive we must, at a minimum, be able to distinguish ourselves from other practitioners. However, prescription privileges would only further blur professional boundaries. As it is unlikely that prescription privileges would come without physician oversight, we would become analogous to nurse practitioners and physician's assistants who already have such physician-dependent privileges.