I am thrilled to receive the Harold Hildreth Award from the Division of Psychologists in Public Service of the American Psychological Association and honored to join the illustrious group of previous award recipients.

      This award means a great deal to me. For most of my career I have been involved as a clinician, clinical supervisor and administrator in the care of those suffering from serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and major depression.

      In my current position as dean and professor At Nova Southeastern University, I have created a concentration on the psychology of long term mental illness in our doctoral programs in clinical psychology. We have the advantage of operating a large Community Mental Health Center with outpatient, day treatment and residential programs, which provide tremendous opportunities for training students to work with people diagnosed with serious mental illness.

      Although psychology has not been a major player in the non-veteran public sector care and treatment of patients suffering from serious mental illness, I have maintained the hope and articulated the vision that psychologists could play a very significant role in this field. And I have done this for several reasons. First of all, there is no profession better qualified than psychology to conduct the careful diagnostic assessments that would tease out the complex comorbidities that many of these individuals suffer from. Second, since psychologists have taken the lead in developing and evaluating psychological rehabilitation and recovery methods, we can surely lay claim to the role of designing, implementing and training staff members to carry out psychological rehabilitation. Third, we can develop and provide empirically validated therapies for persons with serious mental illness. Fourth, psychologists can play a larger role in medications. Ultimately, of course, we could prescribe after the successful passage of prescription privilege legislation. Right now psychologists with the appropriate knowledge can function as consultative psychopharmacologists. Finally, such an enhanced role in the care of the seriously mentally ill would go a long way toward furthering our aim of becoming the premier primary behavioral health care profession. By reaching out and responding effectively to a public health problem of this size and scope we would surely establish our credibility.

      In closing let me point out that less than 5% of the public holds a doctoral degree. We are therefore the educated elite. As former APA President Pat DeLeon has said, If we take care of society's pressing needs society will take care of us. Hence, our future is as bright as we dare to imagine it to be!

      Thank you!

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