"I have to be part of my professional association, because this is how I can communicate with the public."
1. Important purposes of associations such as the American Psychiaytric Association is:
(i). to propagate the ideas of its members and give them a wider audience and
(ii). to be focus point of important views: the views are directed at the association which informs its members
of them and they can engage with those views.
2. The communication goes both ways. When this happens, you have a more enlightened public and the field
(psychiatry, in this case) also benefits: it can correct mistakes and is exposed to a range of views.
3. The communications I sent to the Association should have been welcomed and perhaps shared and discussed with
the members. In the normal course of things, I imagine they would. Instead, they were ignored. That is something I
will have difficulty understanding until, perhaps, the APA offers an explanation.