The American Psychoanalytic Association held its fifty-seventh annual meeting in San Francisco from May 7 through 11, 1970. The meeting drew one of the largest registrations on record for an annual meeting.
At the Meeting of Members held May 10, Dr. Albert J. Solnit was installed as President, as Dr. Royden Astley's term ended. Dr. Robert Wallerstein began his term as President-Elect. Earlier, at the meeting of the Board on Professional Standards Dr. Francis McLaughlin started his term as Chairman of the Board, taking over the gavel from Dr. Jacob Arlow, whose three-year term was concluded. At the same time Dr. James McLaughlin took over the position of Secretary of the Board on Professional Standards, succeeding Dr. Seymour Lustman. The following day the Executive Council, sitting as a nominating committee, selected the following nominees for the election of officers to be held later this year:
President-Elect:
Drs. Edward D. Joseph
Seymour L. Lustman
Secretary:
Drs. Stanley Goodman
James Mann
Treasurer:
Drs. Alex Kaplan
Jacob Swartz
Councilor-at-Large:
Drs. Martin Berezin
Paul Gray
Marcel Heiman
Herman Serota
(Under a recently adopted By-Law amendment, two Councilors-at-Large are to be elected.)
Council also elected the following to the Editorial Board of the Journal for the years 1971-1974: Drs. Victor Calef, Joan Fleming, Peter Neubauer, Calvin F. Settlage. In addition, Dr. Kenneth F. Calder was named to complete Dr. Robert Wallerstein's term as Councilor-at-Large, Dr. Wallerstein having tendered his resignation to be effective May 10, 1970 upon his assumption of the office of President-Elect.
The scientific sessions began as always with a large series of workshops held on Thursday afternoon and evening. Between four and five hundred members, candidates and invited guests attended these sessions, which included discussion groups, clinical conferences, interdisciplinary colloquia and interdisciplinary seminars.
Four major panels were presented
on Friday and Saturday mornings: “Technical Problems in the Analysis of the Preoedipal and Preschool Child,” chaired by Dr. Anna Maenchen; “Models of the Psychic Apparatus,” Chairman, Dr. Robert S. Wallerstein; “Long Term Follow-up,” Chairman, Dr. Henrietta R. Klein; “The Basic Rule: Free Association — A Reconsideration,” chaired by Dr. Henry Wexler. The afternoon sessions on Friday and Saturday were devoted to a wide variety of individual papers.
A large audience attending the plenary session on Sunday morning was fascinated by a report on the demonstration in support of the Black Panthers which took place in New Haven earlier in the month. The report was given by President-Elect Albert J. Solnit, who is Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, and by Dr. Kenneth Kenniston, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the same medical school. The Solnit-Kenniston presentation had been rather hastily arranged for the plenary session when it became known that Professor Jean Piaget of Geneva, who was to have deliverd the address, was ill and would be unable to attend the meeting.
The grave national crisis through which the United States was passing at the time of the meeting colored the proceedings and led to an unprecedented action by the Executive Council regarding the Cambodia crisis (see page 1, column 1). A long-standing issue of our day received attention at the Sunday afternoon panel chaired by Dr. Samuel Ritvo and entitled “Genetic, Dynamic and Adaptive Aspects of Dissent.”
On Monday, May 11, the Association held its customary joint session with the American Psychiatric Association. This session consisted of a panel chaired by Drs. Norman Reider and Samuel A. Guttman, entitled “The Contribution of Psychoanalytic Thinking to the Psychotherapy of Borderline Patients.”