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IN 1959 THE PLANNING COMMITTEE FOR COPE recommended to the Board on Professional Standards that COPE be established to "provide consultation, initiate studies of various problems, collect data, pool information, conduct conferences, and carry on other activities deemed appropriate by the Board." A general goal for COPE was to educate the educators.
This goal need not be defended, but perhaps its importance should be emphasized. It seems self-evident that what we teach and how we teach it is of great concern to all psychoanalytic educators. Psychoanalysts, and especially psychoanalysts who teach, however, are extraordinarily busy. We have too little time to evaluate what we do. Furthermore, as educators we are amateurs. We are not trained or experienced in thinking about teaching goals and methods. We need all the help we can get; hence our special interest in consultations, studies, and the pooling of information designed to improve psychoanalytic education.
Some information about what COPE has done and how COPE now functions may be of interest and of aid in reading the papers that follow. COPE has now been in existence for slightly more than 10 years. In that time COPE has met as a Central Committee 23 times, and has influenced the publications of 10 or more papers or books.
I shall first review what COPE has done in the past 10 years. To