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In your interview in this edition of DIVISION/Review, you alluded to the widespread misconceptions and negative stereotypes about psychoanalysis. What can the division do?
Quite a lot, actually. But our challenges are internal as well as external. Psychoanalysis as a profession has a deeply rooted culture of insularity. We tend to occupy ourselves with internecine issues instead of engaging with professional colleagues outside our own circles. This no longer serves us. Actually, it is suicidal.
The perception of psychoanalysis in the eyes of policy makers and the educated public could hardly be worse. Barely a month goes by without an article in a major news outlet saying that manualized, “evidence-based” therapy is superior. Misinformation and disinformation about psychoanalytic treatment abound.
Here's one concrete example of something the division could do. In the midst of all the buzz about “evidence-based” therapies, the American Psychological Association actually commissioned a blue-ribbon panel of experts to review the scientific literature. They concluded that the therapies that are being promoted and marketed as “evidence based” are not more effective than other forms of psychotherapy. APA (2013) issued a formal policy resolution saying so. (For more on this, see my blog Bamboozled by Bad Science.)
How many Division 39 members even know about this APA resolution? How many are talking about it? If the division can't find ways to educate the public, we could at least launch an information campaign to inform our own members. So, the next time any division member talks to a patient who has been told that “evidence-based” therapy is superior-or to a fellow psychologist, or a medical professional, or a student or supervisee, or a journalist, or simply an interested layperson-they could say, “No, actually, scientific research does not show that. That is not just my personal opinion. That is the official scientific conclusion of the American Psychological Association.”