Greetings, Iowa psychologists! Here we are in March and it is well past time for me to introduce myself as your current Iowa Psychological Association President. I am relatively new to the IPA community, so I’ll start by sharing a bit about myself. I’m an early career psychologist, having graduated from the counseling psychology program at the University of Iowa in 2020. I was invited back into the IPA community by joining Dr. Matt Cooper’s postdoc consultation group (Dr. Cooper is IPA’s Training Director) and by the hospitality of the Early Career Psychologist Committee. I learned quickly how important this professional community would be for me and am honored to take my turn serving as a leader for the association. My family and I live in Iowa City, and life these days is full of playgrounds, board games and general chaos. As a psychologist, I provide supervision to doctoral students as clinical staff in the University of Iowa counseling psychology program, and run my own solo practice providing psychotherapy to adults. 

I recently attended the annual meeting for state psychological association leaders hosted by the American Psychological Association in Washington, D.C. In many ways, our gathering was a microcosm of the dynamics of our own psychological community in Iowa – a coalition of psychologists with a range of perspectives on the work and future of our profession, caught up in a larger cultural moment of uncertainty and disruption. 

The most useful message for me, and one I want to share with you all, was the reminder to invest in relationships as we advocate for the health and wellbeing of all humans. A system of polarized politics prioritizes the performance of virtue over honoring the humanity of others of difference. Virtue performance (as embodied by any political ilk) is rigid and precarious, while real relationships are ambiguous and contextual. Our work may be to resist – as we are safely able – the larger trend toward simplified and ahistorical frameworks for understanding each other.  And we have more work to do in discovering how to better articulate the ways in which systems of oppression and marginalization contribute to negative health outcomes in disproportionate ways for some members of our communities. Even finding the language for these conversations can feel fraught. 

As advocates for our clients, communities and profession, we must act quickly and slowly – quickly to leverage opportunities as they arise, and slowly in sustaining the social capital that anchors change over time. Finding that balance can feel impossible, (perhaps better described as tension than balance), especially in a moment of rapid change and loss of human rights for many already marginalized people. During the past year, I prioritized hearing from psychologists across the state and I consistently heard a similar message: we are at (or beyond) capacity in our work, scrambling to address the mental health needs of our communities. Many of us don’t have any extra hours to give to anything else, much less care for ourselves. Attending to relationships, especially across differences, can be slow, messy and inefficient. But here we are. 

The good news is that we are already working at navigating this tension, this balance, in IPA! Our members and leaders are actively engaged in building connections between each other and with community leaders. If you are a psychologist in our community, I invite you to consider becoming more actively involved in even one small way in this shared work. If you’re a licensed psychologist, reach out to a student in your network, or send a text or note to a colleague. Introduce yourself to your state legislators as a constituent and offer to speak to questions they may have about mental health or psychological concerns. If you’re a student, reach out to peers or someone already working in your field of interest. Remember that Dr. Bethe Lonning, our Director of Professional Affairs, is available to answer any practice-related questions you might have. Consider joining an IPA committee working in your areas of interest (like disaster response, ethics, psychopharmacology, diversity and social justice…and many more). We all need to find fast and slow ways to promote the wellbeing of all people in our communities. And we don’t need to do this work in isolation.

I’m grateful to be part of this community of psychologists with you all. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me – I’ll make time for a conversation with you over zoom, email or coffee. We’re in this together.