The Integrated Scientist-Practitioner: A New Model for Combining Research and Clinical Practice in Fee-For-Service Settings.

American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines require that all psychologists be trained to integrate science and practice in their work. The majority of psychologists have been trained in a scientist-practitioner model to both utilize and produce scientific research. However, the day-to-day integration of research and clinical practice is rare for most psychologists. Changes in the health care system, increased emphasis on evidence-based practices, diminished funding for psychosocial research, and decreases in tenure track faculty positions mean that new models are needed for both clinical practice and research productivity. Although this rapidly changing professional landscape poses significant challenges, these changes may also create new opportunities to fulfill the ideal of an integrated psychological science. Some fee-for-service settings could be restructured based on social business models to promote research productivity among clinicians, improve clinical outcomes, and provide a new home for psychological researchers who would like their work to be more connected to the applied aspects of their science. In this paper, we outline some of the reasons why, to this point, psychosocial research has never occurred in a robust fashion in private fee-for-service settings. We then outline some potential ways of overcoming barriers to conducting research outside of academia, including how to carve out and fund dedicated research time within a clinical practice setting. Finally, we provide a case example of a new business model to support this research, called the clinical-research social business model, in which profits from the income-generating activities of the business serve as a stable, internal funding source for in-house research endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]