A proposal for a National Conference on Psychoanalytic Education and Research received enthusiastic endorsement from the Board on Professional Standards, the Executive Council and the Meeting of Members. It is contemplated that the Conference would provide an overview of present day psychoanalytic education and research and an unhurried reappraisal in the context of the sweeping changes taking place in medical education and psychiatric residency training. It would be comparable to the Conference on Psychiatric Education held at Cornell University in 1952.
The conception for the undertaking took shape out of discussions conducted by the Officers of the Association with Dr. Herbert Gaskill and with Dr. Bernard Bandler,
Acting Director of Manpower and Training of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). An Ad Hoc Joint Committee of the Board and Council, consisting of Dr. Gaskill as Chairman, and Drs. Kenneth Calder, Francis McLaughlin, Albert Solnit and Robert Wallerstein, was constituted to undertake preliminary planning.
The planning group hopes to issue a preliminary document for the reaction of the Association by the latter part of the summer. Although there are reasons for the Association to move swiftly, sufficient time will be allowed for an input from the deliberations of the individual Institutes. The present target date for the Conference is the autumn of 1972 or early 1973.
It is probable that application will be made for a grant from NIMH to finance the Conference, but there was general agreement in both Board and Council, and the Meeting of Members that the undertaking is of sufficient importance that planning should proceed whether or not a favorable response is obtained.