The Group of Executive Secretaries (GOES) celebrated its 10th Anniversary at the 1968 Annual Meeting of the Association in Boston. The occasion was recognized as one of special significance to the Association, and was marked by an Anniversary dinner at which representatives of the Affiliated Societies and Institutes paid tribute to the executive secretaries as a group of dedicated and indispensable administrators. A special feature of the celebration was the publication of an Anniversary Monograph describing the history, responsibilities and accomplishments of the organization.
The Group of Executive Secretaries was organized in 1957 at the suggestion of Dr. Bertram Lewin and Miss Helen Ross. In their survey of psychoanalytic education they observed that the various institutes followed their own paths, all “blissfully happy” in their divergent ways of dealing with vital issues. At the invitation of succeeding presidents of the American Psychoanalytic Association, GOES has regularly had representatives at key meetings. Since 1959 they have attended the Board on Professional Standards; since 1962, the Coordinating Committee, and they have been represented at various workshops. In 1966 and 1967 GOES conducted its own Workshops on Site Visits, which are such a key feature of the educational program of the A.Psa.A. Today the meetings of GOES are regularly scheduled along with those of other committees at all meetings of the American.
The Anniversary Monograph describes the role of the Executive Secretary: “… a complex one, with many responsibilities and duties not easy to define. These duties include the tangible functions of office manager, assistant administrative director, ‘administrative assistant,’
registrar, bursar, ‘gal Friday,’ ‘assistant dean,’ and a myriad of others. They include such less tangible functions as her ready availability; her understanding of confidentiality; her value as the liaison between candidate and teacher, and between member and officer, and in the more delicate and sensitive interpersonal relationships in any organization, her accessibility for guidance in respect to policy, procedure, etc….”
After detailing the endless list of functions of the Executive Secretary, and citing the increasing size and complexity of the organizational structure devoted to analytic education, The Monograph comments that the one element of continuity and the heart of the communications network has been the Executive Secretary, the one person who — apart from highest matters of policy—had a skill superior to that of the faculty in assuring competent functioning of the organization.
From the time of its organization in 1957 until 1960, GOES had a “one-man officership”, Mr. Merrill Whitney of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. He is also the only male member and has had the longest period of service. In 1960 a more formal structure included Mary Green (Philadelphia) as Vice-Chairman, and Mollie Schoenberg (Boston) as secretary.
The current officers are: Chairman—Mrs. Mollie Schoenberg (Boston), Vice-Chairman—Mrs. Mary Hooper (Topeka), Secretary—Mrs. Grace L. Lamont (Pittsburgh), Treasurer—Mrs. Alberta Z. Kefer (Western New England).
Speakers at the Anniversary Dinner expressed the sentiment of analysts all over the country in wishing GOES a vigorous and healthy future.