I am concerned about the way in which certain developments and trends in the American Psychoanalytic Association may threaten the very existence of psychoanalysis. I have of course no official position and my only basis in writing now is that of one who has been associated with psychoanalytic work continuously for 45 years.
I refer especially to the current proposal to create a new class of membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association, to consist of dues-paying, permanent, voting membership, for graduates from the component institutes who for one reason or another have not fulfilled the requirements of the Committee on Certification of the Board of Professional Standards. This proposal has implications far-reaching and potentially undermining to the quality of our work. The suggestion of lowering standards for admission to training, and of taking a more lenient attitude about requirements for graduation may seem fitting to the atmosphere of the present times. But our profession has its own unique requirements that cannot be abandoned without compromising the full value of our work.
The Alphabetical Listing of the members in the roster (p. 19) has a statistical table giving the total membership as 2,629 in four classes: Life Members 259, Active Members 1,268; Affiliates 645, and Associates 457. Thus the Affiliate Members are second to the Active (formerly called ‘regular‘) Members in number. The KEY list indicates that Active Members are designated by the letters ACT, Associates by ASC, and Affiliates by AFF, while Life Members are simply LIFE. Nowhere in the roster is there any explanation of what are the significant differences in the three first groups. In the roster of 1971-73, the total membership was recorded as 1,332. Thus in the last seven to nine years the total membership in the Association would seem to have doubled. But one must realize that half of this apparent increase was due to the number of affiliate members added, i.e. advanced students were listed as members. This is misleading as they are not graduates.
The Key letters all are very small. The three-letter Keys all begin with A, and are not easy to read. A very small asterisk after some names refers to a footnote on each page: “Certified in Psychoanalysis,” or “Certified in Child Analysis.” There is no statement of the meaning of certification, or whether “Certified in Child Analysis” means that the psychoanalyst must have been Certified in Psychoanalysis—generally. Anyone unacquainted with all the various Key combinations must do a little research, including discovering the meaning of the date following the three-letter Keys after each name.
All this listing of different unexplained grades of membership seems to me an unfortunate solution especially in the case of the affiliate member, for he is clearly a student and is not yet ready to practice analysis independently, if at all. It puts him in the peculiarly ambiguous position of being able to honestly say that he is a member of the American when he cannot truly say that he is a psychoanalyst. It is certainly a temptation to the student to accept actively what has been offered to him passively. But all this goes a bit deeper—in the fact that at the same time he is supposed to speak only the truth during his personal analytic hours. A faint unhealthy odor of collusion gets into the air. It is bad for senior analysts as well as for the affiliate member who is really a student. It may not seem severe, but it may become pervasive.
There is somewhat similar a problem for the Associate Members if the new class of those members with permanent voting powers becomes a fact. Such members would be in the false position of having the additional power of voting as though they were active members, although they have not passed Certification. The outcome of such a move is difficult to predict. But it risks at least the destruction of the organization as it is, and a loss of the genuine flexibility in training procedures, which is essential for analytic training and work. It puts the associate member in a false position that can only make for conflict and need for some sort of neurotic rationalization—and other defenses.
One other aspect of these complicated ‘membership’ problems has to do with the inevitable increase in narcissistic distress of students and young analysts who find they cannot or should not continue in the profession. Not all students find themselves, or are found to be, temperamentally equipped to become analysts. The difficulty in coming to this decision is great for both faculty and student. But it is inevitably increased very much if the unsuitable student has been in the position of seeming to be already a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association. The fact that such dropped students have been paying dues may increase the problems of the situation. The plight of such a ‘dropped’ student is made much more painful if he has been presented or has presented himself as a member of the Association. This is also the situation of the one who has been granted a ‘compassionate’ graduation with the understanding that he will not practice analysis, as the price for his not being publically dropped. It is a high price on any terms but is especially hard for the conscientious but vulnerable ‘graduate,‘ for there is a concealed duplicity in it. Compassion here often leads to greater suffering.
Phyllis Greenacre, M.D.
New York