Candidate representatives of almost every institute in the country met in Washington, D. C. during the Annual Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association for a round of deliberations culminating in a very productive and well-attended National Candidates' Council (NCC) Board of Director's Meeting on April 30, 1971. The issue of a Candidate Associate Membership in the APsaA attracted the greatest interest of the delegates. The Western New England Candidates' statement regarding Associate Membership contains the following proposals:
It is proposed that there be a category of membership in the APsaA called Associate Member and that each person when accepted for psychoanalytic training by an accredited Institute in the U. S. be invited to join. Associate membership, if it is to have substance, should include the following provisions:
that Associate Members be appointed to committees of the APsaA, with full voting privileges;
that there be extensive participation of Associate Members in the meetings of the Association; and
that consideration of their student status be taken into account in setting the fee for Associate Members.
The proposal was unanimously accepted by the delegates. It was felt that the adoption of these recommendations by the APsaA would encourage an increased involvement of candidates in the APsaA and diminish the feeling of alienation that has been present in relationships between candidates and the Association.
It was obvious from the reports of delegates that in the space of a year after the reorganization of the NCC at the 1970 San Francisco Meeting, candidate participation in the APsaA had risen markedly. Candidate representatives on the Arrangements, Program, and Newsletter Committees of the Association have been warmly received and are already participating actively in their work. At the local level, candidate involvement has also been increasing in a meaningful way. Many local Institutes and Societies now have candidate representatives on Committees dealing with curriculum, program, membership, public affairs, post-graduate education, clinic, and professional education/extension schools. The pace of these healthy developments is quickening and clearly much credit should go to the many analysts who have supported this wider candidate involvement in society, institute, and APsaA affairs.
The Washington meeting of the NCC Board of Directors led to proposals in several other areas. The Board urged that all Workshops at National Meetings be open to interested candidates. The Board also voted to hire an Executive Secretary who will function for candidate affairs in a manner similar to the Executive Secretary of the APsaA. One major responsibility of such a secretary will be to maintain an up-to-date roster of candidate membership. The first roster of candidates is now near completion, and for the first time, individual mailings to candidates by both the NCC and the APsaA (e.g., this Newsletter) will be possible. Finally, plans for regional meetings of candidates were discussed and were well received. The first such meeting is now in the planning stage: the West Coast Candidate Organizations will hold their first regional meeting in Los Angeles on November 6, 1971. The topic of their discussions will be “Problems of Psychoanalytic Education.” Dr. Charles Stone is coordinating the arrangements for this meeting.
The Board ended the meeting with the election of the following officers for 1971-1972: Barrie Richmond, M.D. — President-Elect; Richard Cole, M.D. — Treasurer, and Margaret Garrett, M.D. — Secretary. Robert Nemiroff, M.D. began his term of office as President of the NCC. In his closing comments to the assembled delegates, Dr. Nemiroff stated that, in the coming year, he will continue to encourage the open, democratic, anti-elitist style of the NCC. He also intends to stress the Candidate Associate Membership issue at both national and local levels as the principle NCC organizational goal for 1971-1972. Dr. Joseph Hinchliffe, who ended his term of office as NCC President, was congratulated for his sound leadership in guiding the NCC through this past very crucial organizational year.
At the close of these meetings, candidates felt that the NCC and its constituent candidate groups had finally arrived on the American Psychoanalytic scene with a program and style of its own. The assembled candidates, despite short personal acquaintanceships, and divergent backgrounds, have quickly come together in a factionless, harmonious manner around a set of common organizational goals which, it is felt, will further the development of psychoanalysis in the next decades.
The NCC Executive met on Sunday, May 2, with the APsaA President and President-Elect, Drs. Robert S. Wallerstein and Edward D. Joseph and Mrs. Helen Fischer, the Executive Secretary of the APsaA. There was a congenial discussion of the membership proposal and related issues. The meeting represented a first for the two organizations, constituting as it did the formal beginning of a mutual effort to work together towards common purposes.
Another important development will be the first Candidates' Pre-Congress Meeting at the 27th International Psychoanalytic Congress in Vienna on July 23 & 24, 1971. Dr. David Terman, who has been in charge of Pre-Congress planning, has
received over 500 pre-registrations and urges all interested candidates who are not yet registered to contact him immediately. One hundred U. S. candidates are expected at the meetings, which will be held at the University of Vienna. The theme of the Pre-Congress is: “The Relationship between Dependence and Autonomy in the Student Situation.”
Marvin Margolis, M.D.