At its meeting in May, 1969, the Executive Council considered the final reports of both the Ad Hoc Committee on Disaffiliation and Disaccreditation and the Committee on Multiple Voting. Action on these reports was postponed until December 1969 so that Institutes and Societies might have time for their consideration. Since every member will have the opportunity through his Institute or Society to read and discuss these reports in detail, only some pertinent features will be presented here.
The first of these committees was confronted by the problem of preparing more satisfactory procedures to deal with complaints against a Society or Institute for failure to carry out its functions properly. To accomplish the task of setting up such standards it recommended that the present By-Laws be amended, since they only incompletely deal with the matter. Among the corrective measures emphasized as a first step was the opportunity to correct difficulties through consultation and cooperation. Disaffiliation and disaccreditation were suggested only as a drastic and terminal action which it was hoped would occur only rarely. Above all a concern for psychoanalytic education and the welfare of the students were to be of primary importance and consideration.
Essentially, it was proposed that any such complaints failing to be resolved by informal means would be referred to an investigative committee appointed by the proper official of the Association as designated in the detailed recommendations. An alternative to the appointment of such a committee might be the use of a “Panel”, consisting of the nationally elected Councillors-at-Large. The Panel may find that no formal action need be taken in which instance the matter would end. Other considerations might be procedures to correct the cause of the complaint, or consultation and assistance from the Board to improve the functions of the training facility, or reduction of training to the level of provisional or training center status. Thus disaccreditation would be the strongest action to be recommended. Any such formal action would then have to be approved by the appropriate majority votes of the Fellows of the Board, the Executive Committee and Executive Council, plus a two thirds majority vote of the membership.
Comparable arrangements are proposed with regard to the disaffiliation of a Society.
In view of the fact that about 14% of the membership are active in two or more societies, the Ad Hoc Committee on Multiple Voting suggests that the By-Laws be amended so that a member of more than one local society must designate to the secretaries of the Association and of each Society of which he is a member, that Society in which he will vote for Representative Councillor. The issue of the disproportion between representative Councillors and those elected at-large was not felt to be a serious problem. The Ad Hoc Committee noted that there has not been a conflict between large and small societies or between the representatives of the Societies on the one side and the elected Councillors on the other. However, in order to make available to Council the wide experience and the longer continuity of such experience of the Councillors-at-Large, a change in the By-Laws was recommended: namely, that two Councillors-at-Large be elected each year for a term of 4 years, so that there would eventually be 8 instead of 4.