2022 Candidate for President of the American Psychological Association
- Promoting Existential Depth and Holistic Psychology
- Supporting Emotionally Restorative Relationships–Relationships that Help People Feel Seen and Heard and that Get At the Roots of Their Problems
- Addressing the Social Crises of our Time
- See My Platform Statement for Details Below
Brief Summary of Platform Statement
Social crises are exploding today and we need to mobilize our discipline for action. I propose that we develop a National Corps of Psychologists to facilitate “emotionally restorative relationships” throughout our country. These are relationships that help people to feel seen and heard and that get at the roots of their problems. Specifically, I call for this Corps to provide highly structured, healing dialogues to address the alarming cultural and political divides in our country. I also call for the Corps to provide equitable access to longer term, emotionally restorative psychotherapy. This framework moreover would be integrative, comprising, as appropriate, medical, cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic and existential dimensions of practice. The Corps would also foster a wide range of services to enhance individual and public well-being. For example, it could expand the availability of first responders to aid police dealing with mental health emergencies; provide consulting services to organizations in impoverished communities, and bolster the time and quality of psychological services in schools, hospitals, prisons, governmental and diplomatic settings–wherever such services are in greatest need today.
To fund this National Corps of Psychologists I would use the platform of APA president to call on the support of government, private industry and others who care about the state of our profession and world. Such funding in turn would generate the pilot studies, grants and other forms of support that would help to discern the viability and long-term sustainability of given Corps services. The superb resources of our research as well as applied and practice communities will be very much needed in this timely, broad-based effort.
Finally, to see my related proposals–such as a summit of APA Division leaders and a federal office of psychological advisors–by clicking on my full ‘Platform Statement and List of Supporters’ below.
Letter from the Past President of Division 46 (Society for Media Psychology and Technology) and Division 32 (Society for Humanistic Psychology):
Dear All,
On 9/15//22, you will be receiving a ballot for electing the President-Elect of the American Psychological Association. Please consider voting for our colleague Dr. Kirk Schneider who served as President of Division 32– Society for Humanistic Psychology and as Council Rep for Division 32 (now in his second term). Kirk is an internationally recognized scholar whose recent book The Depolarizing America has won wide acclaim in view of many recent events that highlight the continuing issues of systemic racism and political divisions in our country that APA needs to more fully address. In this light, Kirk’s focus is on supporting in depth “emotionally restorative relationships” across our society and world. As a highly experienced healthcare professional and a highly productive academic, he has the vision to address issues facing APA at many levels. Kirk has been influential in bringing about changes in the training of psychologists that has become increasingly manual-based, leaving out humanistic considerations in treating the symptoms and not the whole person. We need Kirk at the helm to make our Association more responsive to societal and divisional issues. I encourage you to look at his campaign material on this website to find out more about Kirk’s vision for APA.
–Krishna Kumar, Ph.D.
Recent Past President of Division 46
Past President Division 32
APA Fellow
Platform Statement and List of Supporters
Related Articles and Videos
New APA article ‘Healing the Political Divide’ to which I contributed
2-Minute APA Video of My Platform Statement
In Depth, Personal Interview on my Vision for Psychology at this Critical Time
New Article in The Guardian on Healing Dialogue Groups to which I Contributed
My Commentary on Monica Lewinsky’s Article in Psychology Today
Latest Endorsements and Partial List of Supporters:
William Doherty, Ph.D., University of Minnesota and Co-founder of the Conflict Mediation Organization ‘Braver Angels.’
The Medical and Addictions Working Group of the COVID-19 Psychology Task Force
(Established by 14 divisions of the American Psychological Association)*
*This is not an official statement, endorsement or position of the American Psychological Association and does not reflect the views of its officers, leaders or members.
Internal Family Systems Institute
National Institute for Integrative Healthcare
Innersource
Division 29, Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, APA
Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI)
Division 32: Society for Humanistic Psychology
PsiAN (the Psychotherapy Action Network)
The Rocky Mountain Humanistic Counseling & Psychological Association
The International Network on Personal Meaning
Partial List of Supporters:
Phillip Zimbardo
Nancy McWilliams
Bruce Wampold
John Norcross
Theopia Jackson
Susan Warshaw
Hanna Levenson
Frank Farley
Amy Taylor
Stanley Krippner
Judy Kuriansky
Paul Wong
Sara Nasserzadeh
Les Greenberg
Paul Wachtel
Gregg Enriques
Barry Wolfe
LInda Michaels
Stanley Messer
Louis Hoffman
Alberta Pos
Shawn Rubin
Donna Rockwell
Scott Barry Kaufman
Leilani Crane
Ilene Serln
Robert Buonfiglio
Gina Belton
Erik Craig
Jonathan Raskin
Todd Dubose
Barry Farber
David Feinstein
Maureen O’Reilly-Landry
Mary Beth Morrissey
Robert Gordon
Statement from the Society for Humanistic Psychology (APA):
“The Society for Humanistic Psychology (Division 32 of APA) is excited to endorse Kirk Schneider in his campaign for president of the American Psychological Association. Kirk’s commitment to the whole person, combined with his groundbreaking work on the polarized mind, makes him the perfect candidate for the present historical moment-a moment requiring empathy, communication, and relational engagement with others to bridge the divides we currently face. Kirk will bring creative energy and a set of practical initiatives to the APA presidency, such as his call for the US to create a position of Psychologist General. Kirk will use psychology to help us heal and grow during these turbulent times. The Society is proud to endorse him.”
Informative Videos:
An Existential-Humanistic Reflection on the Pandemic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSqCJnK–y8
New Horizons in Existential-Integrative Therapy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHym5sJA8aY
A Personal Reflection on The Spirituality of Awe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHRD0LKy_oo
Summary of My Campaign Platform for President of the American Psychological Association
More than ever, this is our time. This is the time for psychology to take the lead in repairing and transforming the world. This is the time to address the existential crises that are now flaring all about us. We are in crisis racially, politically, and environmentally. We are in crisis with gender and sexual injustices, and we are in crisis with mental and physical health. In short, America is poised on the precipice, and if our profession fails to grasp this problem, we are in danger of inflaming it.
In this light, my plan is to shift psychology from a secondary to a top national and international priority by
• Mobilizing psychologists to facilitate healing dialogues to address the alarming political and racial divides in our country and within our profession. See The Depolarizing of America: A Guidebook for Social Healing and demonstrations of a healing dialogue format I developed and continue to facilitate called the Experiential Democracy Dialogue. See also an application of this format to divisions within our profession.
• Empowering a Relational Equity Task Force to further the work of APA’s current Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Framework, but with an emphasis on optimizing in-depth emotionally reparative mental healthcare and organizational functioning-particularly in underserved areas. The elaboration of medical, vocational, criminal and other off-sets would be key to this Task Force. I also support an extension of the waiver for nationwide access to telehealth services, which is especially critical in underserved areas.
• Calling for a summit of leaders in all our specialties to investigate how we can holistically address the major mental health and organizational crises of our time-violence, racism, healthcare, political extremism, climate change etc.-and communicate our findings to the public.
• Calling for a Presidential Task Force to investigate the merit of urging the U.S. Congress to create an Office of Psychological Consultant(s) to the U.S. This office would be comprised of distinguished experts in psychosocial approaches to mental healthcare and organizational functioning, and would augment the excellent work of our current APA advocacy efforts by 1) promoting innovative national programs, such as the healing dialogues movement and in depth therapy in underserved communities; 2) being available 24/7 from within government to advise leaders from the Executive branch to Congress to the U.S. public on the present crises we face; and 3) utilizing the large presence of a government office to boost our media presence and public voice
Endorsements
I am deeply grateful for the following people and organizations who have pledged their support for my election for president of the American Psychological Association (note: this is a partial and evolving list):
Nancy McWilliams
Bruce Wampold
John Norcross
Hanna Levenson
Les Greenberg
Paul Wachtel
Frank Farley
Amy Taylor
Barry Wolfe
Serge Prengel
LInda Michaels
Stanley Messer
Louis Hoffman
Alberta Pos
Shawn Rubin
Donna Rockwell
Scott Barry Kaufman
Leilani Crane
Ilene Serln
Roxanne Christensen
Drake Spaeth
Jonathan Raskin
PsiAN (the Psychotherapy Action Network)
Division 32 (Humanistic Psychology)
International Meaning Conference
Ruthellen Josselson
Orah Krug
Joel Voss
Krishna Kumar
Theopia Jackson
Gina Belton
Shawn Rubin
Patrick Gannon
Justin Karter
Carly Larson
Paul Wong
Lisa Vallejos
Louis Hoffman
Stanley Krippner
Ruth Richards
Pamela McCrory