A while back, I wrote to Ken Calder who was then President of our Association raising the question of why the Membership Committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association was situated in the Board on Professional Standards instead of being under the Executive Council where it seemed to me to rightly belong. I noted at that time that since we now had a certifying body within the Board on Professional Standards that it made sense to separate clearly the two functions of membership and certification and place them in the separate arms of the Association.
I believe the Board on Professional Standards should correctly be involved in the establishing and maintaining of standards of training through its advisory-supervisory function to institutes and in its certifying function of qualified candidates. However, I believe the Association as a scientific organization should be a place where all individuals who are interested in psychoanalysis and especially those who have gone through or are presently enrolled in one of the approved institutes' training programs can meet to present, discuss, and debate the scientific issues of the day within our field.
To this end, it seems to me to be a waste of talent and support for our science to exclude from some form of membership individuals who have graduated from approved institutes but have not as yet (or perhaps may never) become certified as psychoanalysts by the Board on Professional Standards. In this context, it is interesting to note that we sometimes have as officers of affiliate societies (and of course, many members of affiliate societies) who are not or cannot become members of the American Psychoanalytic Association. This sometimes raises interesting discrepancies at meetings of the Committee on Affiliate Societies.
Since we have clearly established a certifying board to ensure standards, it seems to me that to have categories of membership such as Associate and Affiliate Membership in which individuals may continue to have an affiliation with the field of psychoanalysis in America for extended periods of time does not present a threat to the quality and integrity of our training programs. Careful selection for membership is a function that belongs to the members under the Executive Council and not within the Board, which should confine itself to its function related to institutes and to the certifying function. It also occurs to me that such a separate function within the Association and the potential increase of membership categories other than Active Members would be an advantage to us in view of the problem of the steadily increasing age of our current Active Members.
I appreciate that the issues I have raised were discussed by the Executive Committee and on the floor during the spring meeting in Atlanta; however, I do not believe the issues are closed and I hope that this brief article will serve to re-open discussion on both the separation of function and the maintenance of affiliation for graduates who do not receive certification.
Sol Altschul
Chicago