The Conference on Psychoanalytic Education and Research (COPER) held at The Homestead in Virginia early in October, 1974, continues to stimulate national and local interest. At a plenary session during the APsaA's Fall Meeting on Saturday, December 14, 1974, a panel chaired by Dr. Herbert Gaskill reviewed the efforts of the nine COPER Commissions. Papers read by Drs. Kenneth Calder, Francis McLaughlin, Albert Solnit and Robert Wallerstein stressed the differing atmospheres implicit in the views of psychoanalysis as a profession as compared with psychoanalysis as a science. The challenge of integrating the two frames of reference was underscored.
Considerable local interest in the Commission reports appears to be developing. Many societies and institutes have established independent study groups and fostered seminars to further discuss the COPER efforts. The Central Office is preparing to reproduce all the reports at cost so that any interested member of the Association may easily study them. In addition, Dr. Herbert Gaskill, Chairman of the Planning Committee of COPER and Dr. Victor Calef, Chairman of the Post-COPER Committee, will soon jointly forward requests to all institutes and societies inquiring specifically about the kinds of seminars being promoted, and the nature of the interest developing at different locales. The Post-COPER Committee hopes to compile a listing of such efforts to further the exchange of information between areas.
The Post-COPER Committee has also assumed the task of systematically
reviewing each Commission Report as well as the appraisals and summations of them conducted by the Homestead discussion groups. The committee hopes to develop a series of study guides to be made available to local institutes and societies.
The continuing interest at both a national and local level is illustrative of the influence of the COPER Commissions, and the effectiveness of the Conference as an organizing focus for the future of psychoanalysis.
—Samuel Abrams, M.D.