Testing Times
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TESTING TIMES SECTION IX QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER VOL. 1, ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2020 COMMENTS FROM THE PRESIDENT SECTION IX BOARD Greetings to Section IX members (and potential members!). This is the David McCord, Ph.D., President inaugural issue of our newsletter, which will be issued quarterly, hopefully forever. I would like to thank our President-Elect Hadas Pade, and Martin Sellbom, Ph.D., Past President especially graduate student Alexa Barrett, for their creative input and energetic help in putting this together. Hadas Pade, Psy.D., President- Elect Despite the historic challenges of 2020, this has been a productive year for Emily Gottfried, Ph.D., Section IX. We sponsored (or co-sponsored) four events at the APA Virtual Treasurer Convention in August: (1) A major symposium, “Introduction to the MMPI- 3,” which included presentations by Yossef S. Ben-Porath and six additional Sara Lowmaster, Ph.D., Section IX members; (2) The Section IX Award for Distinguished Secretary Contribution to Assessment Psychology was given to Dr. Ben-Porath, Priscilla Lui, Ph.D., Membership whose award talk was very well attended live on Zoom, recorded, and Chair available here – https://catamountwcu- my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/mccord_wcu_edu/EXk- Paul Ingram, Ph.D., Section AXmVg_ZDkU9fp0OIF78BFAdE2fL0bo8b47eyNx40uw?e=F2F2Mu; (3) Representative to Division 12 Section IX Social Hour was an hour-and-a-half, actually, immediately Cassie Boness, M.A., Student following Dr. Ben-Porath’s talk, in a self-navigating Zoom environment, Representative and about 50 members and friends enjoyed seeing each other in breakout rooms; (4) our annual Assessment Community Breakfast and Student Douglas B. Samuel, Ph.D., Awards event (co-sponsored with Divisions 5 and 40) was recorded rather Editor of Assessment than live, and is available here – link to student assessment poster award. Alexa Barrett, Newsletter Editor This is just 12 minutes long and is well worth watching, as the three winning posters were really excellent [https://youtu.be/sXuIfyN7A34].. Special thanks to Dr. Sara Lowmaster for all her work on I want to briefly and inadequately recognize the significant contributions of the Section IX website! New two of our leaders during this awful year. The pandemic literally posed an resources for teachers, students, and telehealth practices can be existential threat to our specialty area of psychological assessment, and found at: many assessment psychologists reacted to these very daunting challenges by https://apadiv12secix.com putting their assessment practice “on pause.” Section IX member Jordan Wright responded quickly, during March and April, to assemble a working If you would like to become a group of colleagues from Section IX and SPA to develop a broad set of member, please visit the website. If interested in joining the guidelines for adapting our assessment practices to these new constraints. Board, please contact Dr. This very badly needed guidance was reviewed by APA in an astonishingly McCord at few number of days and incorporated on the website of the Practice [email protected] Directorate [https://www.apaservices.org/practice/reimbursement/health- codes/testing/tele-assessment-covid-19]. Soon after, Hadas Pade began work on a complex set of guidelines that addressed the many issues involved in extending the practice of tele-assessment to the teaching and supervision of tele-assessment, in the layered contexts of beginning students, advanced students, interns, and post-docs. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mkTEz9Qyo55jOIpmdX5ukGm5S1hvlkdi/view]. To be clear, others contributed to these efforts, and both Hadas and Jordan have worked on many additional projects in the past few months. I suspect most people reading this newsletter have found themselves in a Jordan Wright tele-assessment webinar at some point recently! I highlight these two specific achievements because they occurred so early in the pandemic, were so badly needed by our colleagues, and thus reached such a broad audience very quickly. We are fortunate to have these talented professionals in our organization. Finally, we will be focusing very soon on programming for the 2021 APA Convention, so email any ideas you have in that regard. And remember to pay your dues for 2021! --- David McCord Pay Your Dues Here! A TRIBUTE TO DR. SCOTT LILIENFELD The loss of our colleague Scott O. Lilienfeld to pancreatic cancer is a tragedy of almost indescribable impact. He was a Professor of Psychology at Emory University where he taught courses in advanced assessment, diagnostic interviewing, introductory psychology, and science and pseudoscience in psychology. Dr. Lilienfeld earned his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Minnesota. His principal areas of research include the causes and assessment of personality disorders (especially psychopathic personality) and personality traits, personality assessment (e.g., validity of projective techniques), psychiatric classification and diagnosis, evidence-based practices in psychology, philosophy of science and psychology, and the challenges posed by pseudoscience to clinical psychology. He has won many of the major awards in psychology, across both APA and APS. Scott was a giant in our field and leaves an enormous legacy. But more than anything, the profound impact he has had on people was truly amazing. He was a contrarian and iconoclast but at the same time incredibly humble and genuinely kind to everyone. Indeed, the stories and memories of Scott that are now flooding social media focus on his kindness, warmth, connections with others, encouragement to students, and unbounded generosity. “No one is irreplaceable” is generally a useful humility-promoting adage to live by, with more than a grain of truth to it. Scott Lilienfeld is an exception to this rule. MEMBER NEWS • Dr. Jaime Anderson (Sam Houston State University) was appointed as a new Associate Editor for Psychological Assessment. • Drs. Lindsay Ayearst (University of Toronto), and Thomas Fergus (Baylor University) were just appointed as new Associate Editors for Assessment. • Drs. Emily Gottfried and Abby Mulay (Medical University of South Carolina) received a grant from the University of Minnesota Press for their study “The Examination of Behavioral Outcomes and Personality Functioning of Police Officers: A Longitudinal Study.” MEMBER SPOTLIGHT A. Jordan Wright By Hadas Pade A. Jordan Wright has become a familiar name and leading figure in the field of psychological assessment over the past two decades with an outstanding commitment to the integrity of assessment work. The Basics: Jordan received his Master’s in Psychology in Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and his PhD in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University. His career has primarily included teaching and supervising assessment as well as a thriving private practice in New York City. He is currently a faculty member at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and the founding director of the Center for Counseling and Community Wellbeing, the training clinic in NYU's Counseling Psychology program. Jordan was previously a faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University and Empire State College, State University of New York. Originally trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy, his private practice primarily entails various types of assessments with children, adolescents, and adults. But, perhaps his most unique work is conducting pre-employment evaluations of nannies for families in New York City. Jordan is a Fellow of the Society of Personality Assessment and previously served on their Board of Trustees. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Assessment Psychology and is by far the youngest psychologist on that Executive Board. Professional Accomplishments & Contributions: Jordan’s never-ending efforts focus on strengthening a multi-method and integrated approach toward producing valid and meaningful assessments. His 2010 book, Conducting Psychological Assessment: A Guide for Practitioners, includes clear and user-friendly steps for data integration, that will likely become (especially with the 2nd edition currently in press and out this fall), if they have not already, the standard guide for effective integration of data. He followed with nothing less than co-authoring of the 6th edition of the Handbook of Psychological Assessment with Gary Groth-Marnat. The handbook has of course been a long-time staple for graduate teaching and training as well as licensed clinicians. Meanwhile he has co-facilitated numerous presentations and workshops at the SPA and APA conventions as well as a multitude of publications. More recently, he edited the first true resource on assessment supervision with a book in the Wiley Essentials series. Jordan has held and continues to hold various positions within the APA, including currently on the Board of Educational Affairs, where he regularly advocates for the importance of psychological assessment and assessment education and training. Jordan was also Section IX President a couple of years ago and has remained intimately involved since then with the Board’s activities, mostly voluntarily. While his past and ongoing contributions are substantial, it has been in recent months that Jordan has taken his dedication to assessment to another level. He has been leading tireless efforts to address assessment issues amidst the impact of COVID-19. He has co-authored guidance documents, hosted webinars (some with thousands in attendance)