President's Report

This report was written before the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. I decided to leave the report as it was originally written to reflect a different sensibility in our country and in our hearts. The task ahead of us — in addition to living our lives as fully and sanely as we can under the current circumstances — is to grapple with the many meanings of these unimaginable and heinous acts. It is my belief that psychoanalytic psychology can help us understand something about these events, the world we currently live in, and our own and our patients' reactions.

Fall is definitely in the air, our own Northern California version of it: a mix of Indian summer with warm days and cooler nights. This is my favorite time of year, and carries a sense of excitement of new beginnings and renewal - new projects and friendships, and settling into familiar routines with a sense of recommitment. Once again we are enjoying a full round of NCSPP activities that deepen our clinical work and thinking in psychoanalytic psychology. We've enjoyed Anne Alvarez and Michael Eigen, and started a new year of the Intensive Study Group focused on the work of Wilfred R. Bion in San Francisco and the East Bay, and The British Middle School in the South Bay. In addition, we have new offerings in the form of workshops and classes and the final meeting of the cinema series, “Out of the Tower and off the Couch.”

NCSPP thrives, in part, because we are fortunate to live in a part of the country where psychoanalysis is alive and well. We are able to draw upon a large pool of talented local faculty and speakers, as well as national and international psychoanalysts and scholars. I continue to be amazed that these events are produced on a strictly volunteer basis with the support of our talented administrative assistant, Michele McGuinness. Please take the time to read the accompanying committee reports in this edition of fort da and know the countless number of hours that the comm