Activities of Component Organisations 1991-1993

These have been years of great activity at the American Psychoanalytic Association. With the delinkage of the requirement of postgraduate certification from active membership, the American had 2, 404 active members as at March 1993. A group of Strategic Planning Task Forces has been submitting reports recommending alterations in the structure of the Association, membership policies, and Central Office reorganisation and computerisation, which are being considered by the Executive Council and the Board on Professional Standards. Dr Pacella, President of the American, has initiated a series of working conferences to discuss the future of psychoanalysis in America, and the ways in which the Association could influence, and adapt to, these prospects. The first of these meetings was held in July 1993 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Executive Committee has met with representatives of the four provisional IPA groups in the United States (IPTAR, LAISPS, NYFS, PCC) and officers of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, and is establishing a working party to consider a federation of North American IPA psychoanalytic groups comparable, but not necessarily identical, to FEPAL and the EPF.

The American is also working with other mental health groups to have input into the current government considerations of health insurance benefits so that long-term psychotherapy would be given proper consideration.

At the December 1992 meetings of the Association, Stephen Firestein was reelected Treasurer, David Hurst was elected Secretary, and Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer and Richard Fox were elected Councillors-at-Large. Bernard Pacella continues his term as President, and Judith Schachter continues her term as President-Elect. A meeting was held at the same event with Drs Joseph Sandler, Horacio Etchegoyen, Jacqueline Amati Mehler and Arnold Cooper of the IPA, at which a number of issues were clarified, particularly improvement of communication between the IPA Cen