The Executive Council, at its meeting in May, 1968, took two affirmative actions in relation to Community Psychiatry. Acting on a recommendation made by the Committee on Social Problems and endorsed by the Executive Committee, Council first voted to establish a Standing Committee on Community Psychiatry. In a companion action, Council then affirmed its “positive support” for the aims of Community Psychiatry, along the lines of a resolution transmitted from the New York Psychoanalytic Society.
The Association and its Affiliate Societies had for a long time given consideration to the question of what role organized psychoanalysis could play in the expanding programs for community mental health. In 1966 the Committee on Social Problems, then chaired by Dr. Edward Joseph, composed a preliminary Statement on Community Psychiatry (Newsletter, February, 1967) as a basis for discussion among the membership.
Many members found this statement satisfactory. Others criticized it as not taking a sufficiently affirmative position. Throughout, it was recognized that a great many analysts are actively involved, as individuals, in a variety of community programs and that the issue at hand had to do with the position of the national and local organizations with regard to these programs.
Early in 1968 the Committee on Social Problems, now chaired by
Dr. Robert Dorn, recommended to the Executive Committee that a new committee be created to deal with the whole area of Community Psychiatry; the Executive Committee approved the recommendation and brought it to the May meeting of Council.
The charge to the new committee will be based on the proposal submitted by Dr. Dorn's Committee. In this proposal the new committee would be instructed to:
¶ study the contributions and limitations of psychoanalysis in relation to community psychiatry;
¶ recommend to Council where the A.Psa.A. might involve itself with meetings, conferences, and organizations so as to facilitate a rapprochement between psychoanalysis and community psychiatry;
¶ recommend to the Program Committee topics for relevant panels and workshops;
¶ consider the promotion of publications in the field;
¶ maintain relationships with similar committees in the local Societies of the A.Psa.A. and with the Committee on Social Problems.
Beyond this, the proposal went on to point out that the function of the A.Psa.A. is to promote psychoanalysis and foster its development, that the analyst's main field of expertise is the individual in relation to his unconscious processes and that recommendations for social engineering and social action are best left to those better qualified in those fields. At the same time the Committee stated that its recommendation is not to be considered a substitute for or a guideline for the individual activities of each analyst with relation to his own community.
The resolution from the New York Psychoanalytic Society, which was reported by one of its Council representatives, Dr. Burness Moore, stated: “….the New York Psychoanalytic Society recommends to the Council of the A.Psa.A. and Affiliated Societies that it adopt a statement expressing its positive support for the aims of community and social psychiatry and encouraging its members to participate appropriately in the development and implementation of research, sound programs and well founded principles in this complex and far reaching field.” The New York resolution also favored the establishment of a Standing Committee on Community and Social Psychiatry.
To date the President of the Association has not yet announced the composition of the new committee.