The Committee on Institutes functions as a Sub-committee of the Board on Professional Standards. Its membership has varied from ten to twelve psychoanalytic educators, each from a different Institute of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Its objective is to study and serve psychoanalytic education as it is conducted under the aegis of the American Psychoanalytic Association. It is through the Committee on Institutes that the Board on Professional Standards exercises its function of supervising the Institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association. The Committee and the Board also serve to mediate conflicts within Institutes. The present stage of development of this committee evolved from a long, tortuous, groping effort to solve complicated problems for which there were no preexisting guidelines.
On May 4, 1966, Dr. Royden Astley presented to the Board on Professional Standards, a splendid, detailed historical review of the committee's origin.
As far back as 1946 the Board had acknowledged that one of its essential and continuing functions was the “inspection and evaluation of the work of Institutes.” As always, the Association moved slowly before embarking on a new venture. For several years tentative steps were taken to translate the Board's resolution into some specific action.
In 1960-61, Dr. Bertram Lewin and Miss Helen Ross began their work as educational consultants to the APsaA. During their term of office they visited and examined every Institute for their study of psychoanalytic education. Concurrently, the officers of the Association deliberated over ways and means of implementing the Board's 1946 resolution to have Institutes visited.
Unhappily a great deal of uneasiness had developed in many people's minds concerning the intention behind the idea of visits to component Institutes of the Association. Over the years there had arisen the conviction that such a committee's sole aim would be to inspect, to evaluate and to make destructively critical recommendations, and that the visitors would be inquisitors who would take sanctions against anyone who disagreed with them. This feeling of distrust was unfortunately reinforced by the Board's actual interruption of training in an Institute during those years. By then credence was no longer given to the original statement in 1946, that the primary function of the Committee was to accumulative experience and to make suggestions which would be beneficial to all institutes.
To dissipate this unwholesome atmosphere, Dr. Joan Fleming suggested that the Committee on Institutes hold workshops at which the committee members would describe the operation of their own Institutes. It was further suggested that Institutes appoint representatives to attend these meetings. After the committee's membership list had been exhausted, the invited representatives were prepared to describe, freely and without undue embarrassment, the activities of their own Institutes.
Workshops devoted to a variety of topics grew out of these frank exchanges. They became a regular feature of the committee's meetings, which were attended by representatives from all Institutes with rare exceptions. The subject matter ranged from problems of organization of an institute, to selection of training analysts, to the retirement of those same training analysts.
Undoubtedly the committee's objective, dispassionate, inquiring attitude toward these subjects facilitated the personal revelations that sometimes took place at these meetings. It is assumed that it also helped resolve the original distrust of the committee's intention. Of greater importance, subjects were carefully scrutinized. These confrontations contributed toward dispelling anxiety generated by the belief that only one's own Institute had been unable to cope satisfactorily with the vexing education dilemmas common to all. The commonality of perplexing problems evoked a sense of relief with a subsequent critical and stimulating examination of traditional and heretofore unchallenged educational axioms.
For the present year, these workshops have been discontinued. They were replaced by the creation of an experimental discussion group. Administrative officers were polled to select a specific administrative problem for discussion. The educators concerned with this problem in their own Institutes met in Dec. 1967, and again in May, 1968. They have elected to continue their meetings but they will function independently from the Committee and under their own leadership.
The visits to institutes by Dr. Lewin and Miss Ross for their survey of psychoanalytic education were completed in 1961. In 1962 a Periodic Review Program was activated by the Board on Professional Standards. This meant that subcommittees of the Committee on Institutes would begin to visit Institutes and to accumulate observations. It was naturally hoped the visits would be of direct value to the visited Institutes. To start the program, the Chicago Institute graciously
offered to submit itself to a Site Visit by the Committee on Institutes. The cooperation and thoughtful participation by the administrative officers greatly encouraged the committee in its new venture. Since then 10 institutes have shared in the experience of a Site Visit.
In contrast to the atmosphere originally feared, the institutes have treated the members of the visiting team with every courtesy, with a spirit that quickly engenders mutual respect and with a frank, open presentation of its organizational structure in every respect.
The Institute commits itself to an enormous amount of work in preparation for the visit. It is expected to supply a detailed historical account of its development and present ecology. Its by-laws must be studied. It collates minute statistical data about its faculty, administrative officers and student body. The curriculum is presented in detail. In addition the minutes of various committee meetings are offered for study.
After digesting the volumes of carefully prepared reports the committee arrives for its 3 or 4 day visit to the Institute. Its schedule includes breakfast, luncheon and dinner meetings. There are conferences with administrative officers of the Institute, faculty and members. Advanced candidates and recent graduates have an opportunity to discuss psychoanalytic education in general and their own problems in particular. In addition meetings of most of the significant committees of the institute are observed. On the academic side, courses are audited, and many supervisory sessions are attended by the committee members. By the end of 3 or 4 strenuous days, the committee members have saturated themselves with first-hand information about every aspect of the Institute's being.
After the visit the chairman of the visiting sub-committee composes a detailed preliminary report, and administrative officers are given an opportunity to correct any errors. Both the original draft and the final report are submitted to the Chairman of the Board on Professional Standards before being forwarded to the appropriate administrative officer of the Institute.
Committee members invariably comment on how much they personally have learned from every visit to an Institute. It can be said that no member of a visiting Committee ever leaves an Institute with the idea that there are any simple answers to the pedagogical problems encountered in psychoanalytic education.
On occasion the Committee on Institutes has provided emergency consultations to institutes when they have been requested by members and officers of the institutes involved.
In essence the Committee on Institutes consists of members of the American Psychoanalytic Association with varied educational experiences in psychoanalysis. They bring their unique backgrounds to committee meetings, to workshops and to the Site Visits. Hopefully the opening of communication between a local Institute and psychoanalysts from other areas of the country will provide a basis for self-examination and consultation. In this way the psychoanalytic educational process will be subject to-continuous examination which may lead to progressive change in Institutes' programs. Neither size, age, tradition, nor prestige has determined which Institute will derive the most benefit from the work of the committee.