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At the dinner held in Washington during the annual meeting, our President, Dr. William Menninger, in his talk brought up many important issues. His presentation was in the form of a psychiatric examination of the American Psychoanalytic Association and he concluded with a series of recommendations which he prescribed for the patient. Unfortunately, space does not permit the reproduction in full of Dr. Menninger's speech or even a detailed description of his recommendations. We have, however, abstracted very briefly the essential points of his recommendations as we see them and here they are:
A certification board for psychoanalysis
Why? To safeguard standards of training and practice. To centralize and unify standards by placing the responsibility upon the national association rather than on constituent groups.
Affiliate non-voting membership
Dr. Menninger would like us to enlist the support and stimulate scientific contributions of research workers, psychiatrists who do not practice analysis but are well-informed about it, and scientists in allied fields by offering them affiliate membership.
A committee on basic concepts
Such a committee would attempt to establish a national, and possibly international system to test new ideas, approaches, and techniques in psychoanalysis.
Evaluation of the results of psychoanalytic therapy
This aspect of the treatment is already in the hands of the Committee on the Evaluation of Psychoanalytic Therapy.
Improvement in the selection of candidates for training