The Fund for Psychoanalytic Research, in formal operation for three years, has become a stable and modestly thriving institution within organized psychoanalysis, able to fulfill—albeit at modest levels—its mission to promote and support psychoanalytic research. Its funds have come from (minimum) $25 voluntary assessments in support of the Fund on top of the regular dues of the American, and at this level it has been supported by over 75% of the membership each year. The Fund has been able to support all of the applications brought to it that have been deemed scientifically meritorious, within the originally set guidelines of $8,000 maximum per application for no more than one year, expanded after the first year's operating experience, to a higher maximum of $12,000 per year for up to two years.
Since the last Newsletter article one year ago, the Fund has approved seven of 14 applications submitted to it. The grants awarded—in alphabetical order by name of the principal investigator—are 1) $12,000 to Hartvig Dahl of New York University for “A Study of Psychoanalytical Clinical Inference” from combined clinical, logical, and linguistic perspectives; 2) $7,250 per year for two years to George Engel of Rochester, N.Y. for further data gathering, analysis, and write up of the 25-year longitudinal study of “Monica: Developmental Consequences of Trauma in Infancy”; 3) $2,000 to Christoph Heinicke of Los Angeles as closing out costs to bring to final conclusion a comparative study of intensive psychotherapeutic work with children, “Frequency of Sessions as a Factor Influencing Outcome”; 4) $2,500 to Milton Jucovy of New York for systematizing the data of a program of group study, “Psychoanalytic Study of the Effects of the Holocaust on the Second Generation;” 5) $8,260 to Peter Knapp of Boston for a study “Experimental Free Association: A Psychoanalytic and Psychologic Study”; 6) $2,036 to Jeff Masson, Professor in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Languages at Univ. Calif. Berkeley for the expenses involved in historical research with the Bernfeld papers in the Archives of the Library of Congress in Washington in an effort to compare and contrast Bernfeld's biographical perspectives on Freud with those in Jones' biography, and 7) $5,600 to Thomas McGlashan of Chestnut Lodge for a follow-up study of 580 patients treated over the years 1950 to 1975 attempting to correlate good and bad outcomes in the different categories of patients with predictors discerned during the original evaluation work-ups.
Over the several years of operation of the Fund since December 1976, 14 grant applications have been approved out of 24 submitted, for a total of $79,646 or an average of $5,689 for each approved and funded application. The range has been between $2,000 and $12,000, and in one instance the award was for $7,250 a year for each of two years. One investigator secured two separate grants a year apart, so the 14 approvals are to 13 individuals (or groups). To maintain its current ability to fund all approved applications, even within its very modest ceilings, the Fund must count on the continuation of the same level of support by the membership as has been enjoyed to this point.
Robert S. Wallerstein has been Chairman of the Board of Directors and Philip S. Holzman has been the Executive Secretary since the inception of the Fund. The other current directors are Harold Blum, Homer Curtis, George Klumpner, Arnold Modell (who replaced John Gedo), Mort Reiser, Bill Robbins (who replaced Alex Kaplan), Al Solnit, and Alfred Stanton. Inquiries for application for support by the Fund are always welcomed at either the Central Office or by Philip S. Holzman, the Executive Secretary.
Robert S. Wallerstein