Critical conversations in continuing education: Contemporary memes, themes, and dreams

Continuing education (CE) and ongoing professional development have occupied a sustained presence within the field of professional psychology across the course of the field's development. Contemporary conversations in this area highlight a commitment to aligning the processes and procedures of continuing education with its primary objectives, which include the maintenance of competence, the improvement of clinical service, and the protection of the public. But a wide range of different perspectives inform the pursuit of this common cause, providing broadly complementary, and sometimes acutely competing, visions. Prominent memes, themes, and dreams animate the divergent discussions regarding these visions, and this special issue gives expression to that full chorus of voices. United in their collective concern with CE as a lopsidedly "talking head" approach to professional training, each contribution to this special issue introduces different images and elements into the discussion of continuing professional development. Their otherwise diverse perspectives nonetheless converge on 3 predominant themes, which address (a) the quality and consistency in continuing education, (b) the importance of continuing competence as one of its key objectives, and (c) the growing groundswell of demand for interprofessional continuing professional development in the evolving world of integrated care. These varying perspectives give rise to a range of different visions that promise a plurality of possibilities for the field of professional psychology as it continues to articulate, and implement, its developing images across time