Frontline—A Cause for Optimism

The decade of the brain is ending. Is the decade of psychodynamic psychiatry its heir?

I am very optimistic about the prospects of our field. The state of psycho-dynamic psychotherapy has turned a corner. Fears that analysis and dynamic therapy are doomed by the double assault of managed care and biological reductionism seems more exaggerated than real to me than only a few years ago. Why do I say this? One reason for my optimism is that the registration for the most recent meeting of the Academy surpassed its goal for the first time in a number of years. Participants came not only from the New York metropolitan region but also from throughout this country and from England, Germany, Australia, and the Netherlands as well.

Membership in the Academy has also increased, reversing the downward slope of the past several years. New members are younger and enthusiastic about finding a professional home where they can share ideas and clinical experiences about dynamic psychiatry.

I write this Frontline during the May 2004 meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in New York City and having just attended the 48th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry. Just this morning, as the new President of the Academy, I attended the leadership meeting of the APA allied organizations, of which the Academy is one of fourteen.

Today's meeting of the allied organizations was extraordinarily encouraging to me in that many of the leaders present spoke positively about the role of psychodynamic psychiatry and the need organizationally (within APA) to increase its presence at future annual meetings. For example, the Emergency Psychiatric Association president, Dr. Jon S. Berlin, spoke of his desire to collaborate in writing a piece for Psychiatric News about the need for a psychodynamic understanding in psychiatric emergency room settings. The American Association for Psychiatry and the Law representatives likewise spoke of the need for collaboration