Dr. Samuel Ritvo, President of the Association, has announced the appointment of Dr. Viola Bernard as Chairman of the new Standing Committee on Community Psychiatry. The creation of this Committee was authorized by the Executive Council at its Meeting in May.
Those appointed as members of the Committee to serve with Dr. Bernard are: Drs. Bernard Bandler, Elizabeth B. Davis, Jules V. Coleman, Louis Linn, Reginald S. Lourie, Judd Marmor, Fritz Redl, S. Mouchly Small and Albert J. Solnit.
The decision to establish a Committee to deal with the area of Community Psychiatry was the culmination of a long debate within the Association and its Affiliate Societies over the question of the appropriate role of organized psychoanalysis with regard to this area of psychiatric endeavor. In voting to create such a Committee, the Council at the same time affirmed its positive support for the aims of community psychiatry.
Dr. Bernard intends to call her Committee together for its first meeting during the week of the forthcoming Fall Meeting of the Association; at this time initial plans for a program will be discussed.
The creation of this Committee resulted from a recommendation made by the Committee on Social Problems, chaired by Dr. Robert Dorn, and it is planned that the
Committee on Social Problems and the Committee on Community Psychiatry will maintain a close working relationship. In order to initiate this collaboration from the outset, Dr. Bernard attended a weekend meeting of the Committee on Social Problems in New York this Fall, and discussed with Dr. Dorn's Committee the practical questions of implementing cooperation between the two Committees.
Each of the analysts who have been appointed to the new Committee, as well as Dr. Bernard herself, have been actively associated with programs in the field of community psychiatry.