Following are brief reports on some of the major items which were discussed and acted upon at the meeting of the Executive Council held in New York in December, 1968. Other items on the agenda of the Executive Council are reported more fully elsewhere in this issue of the Newsletter.
Problems of Membership: Addressing the meeting of the Executive Council, Association President Samuel Ritvo called attention to the fact that a number of issues which have come before the Council in the past year deal in various ways with questions of membership in the Association. There was first the report of Dr. Leo Loomie, Chairman of the Membership Committee, calling attention to the fact that there has been a tendency in recent years for Institute graduates to delay applying for membership in the Association. This was followed by some correspondence between Dr. Gerhart Piers of Chicago and Dr. Loomie, in which Dr. Piers proposed that the Association establish a number of categories of membership, including a special category available to candidates during their period of training. He also envisioned a category for recent graduates which might involve a smaller membership fee than the regular dues of the Association. There has been discussion also about the two-year delay which is now required between graduation from an Institute and eligibility to apply for membership in the APsaA. Concurrently with the concern about these aspects of membership, the Executive Council has now for some time been dealing with the special problem of finding a form of recognition for a group of non-physician training and supervising analysts (see below). On yet a third front, an ad hoc committee has been at work for some time on the question of finding a way to afford recognition to those individuals who have been graduated from various Institutes as Research Candidates. Looking at all of these problems of membership, Dr. Ritvo reported that the question had come up in the Executive Committee and that there had been some feeling that, instead of having these issues dealt with piecemeal in a variety of committees, it might be worthwhile to establish a single Committee which could take a broader view of the entire question of membership problems and policy. The Council received this suggestion favorably and passed a motion that such an Ad Hoc Committee be established.
Multiple Voting: An Ad Hoc Committee, chaired by Dr. Eli Marcovitz, recommended the adoption of by-law amendments referring to problems of multiple voting and of disproportionate representation in the Executive Council. With regard to the first of these, the Committee's study had ascertained that about 14% of the members of the Association held membership in two or more affiliate Societies (Newsletter, February 1968). The Committee felt that this situation warranted the recommendation of a by-law amendment stating “that each member of the American Psychoanalytic Association who is a member of more than one local Society must designate to the secretaries of the American and of each Society of which he is a member that Society in which he will vote for representative councillor.”
With regard to the second item, that of disproportionate representation, the Committee had reviewed the finding of the COP Report in relation to the number of councillors-at-large as compared to representative councillors. On the basis of its study, the Committee recommended a change in the by-laws stating “that there be two councillors-at-large elected each year for a term of four years, so that there would eventually be eight instead of four.”
There was considerable discussion in Council about the first of these two proposed amendments. One view was that there is no great need for such an amendment since the members who hold double membership are widely scattered and in no way constitute a voting blocc. Concern was also expressed that such a by-law would create conflict when individual members were forced to make a choice as to which Society they would prefer to vote with. Other speakers pointed out that in principle the holding of dual membership gave those members a disproportionate voting power in selecting representatives to Council and that this was in essence undemocratic. The second proposed by-law amendment stirred little discussion in Council.
In the end, Council voted to approve both by-law amendments and recommended that the Ad Hoc Committee which had made the recommendation be reconstituted as a committee to draft the appropriate by-laws for submission to the membership.
Post-Graduate Development. The Committee on Post-Graduate Development, chaired by Dr. Victor Calef, asked that it be discharged by the Executive Council. Dr. Calef reported that the committee felt that it had done all that could be done to fulfill the original charge made to it, namely that it endeavor to stimulate post-graduate activity at the local Society level. The committee reported that its activity had had an impact in promoting post-graduate work in a variety of localities, and that the local Societies at this point seemed to feel no need for a national committee to help in the initiation or continuation of local post-graduate activity. The Executive Council, after some discussion, approved the Committee's request and it was accordingly discharged.
The Committee on Arrangements is interested in learning the preferences of members and others who regularly attend the Fall meetings, concerning the dates of those meetings. In 1968, the Fall Meeting ended just a few days before Christmas. This arrangement was apparently quite agreeable to many and quits uncomfortable for many others. The date for 1969 has already been set and the convention will end around the middle of December. Beginning in 1970, however, the Association has available a choice of dates which would bring the meetings into either the first or the second week of December. The Arrangements Committee would be grateful for an expression of opinion from any members who have strong feelings on the subject of the dates of the December meetings.
Treasurer's Report: The Treasurer of the Association, Dr. Edward D. Joseph, reported that there had been a deficit of $45,000 in the last fiscal year, continuing a recent trend. He suggested that it may be necessary to propose an increase in membership dues at the annual meeting of the Association in May. The essential problem remains, as it has been in the past, a continuing increase in the expenses of the Association, while income remains relatively static.