Happily, the membership issue has been resolved; the vote in favor of extended associate membership for graduates of approved institutes was overwhelmingly positive. By the first of the year, administrative procedures for processing transfers into the new category should be ready for implementation. Meanwhile, on behalf of the officers and the Association, I would like to offer warm words of advance welcome to all who will now be joining our ranks on a permanent basis.
At the meetings in Philadelphia, issues related to training nonmedical candidates were discussed extensively in Board and Council, as well as in a variety of other official and unofficial gatherings. The report of the Spruiell Committee spelled out a series of alternate mechanisms that could be used to implement such training if the membership wishes it. The report, which was developed from broad and penetrating discussions within the committee (itself not of one mind), served as an effective stimulus for thoughtful discussion and debate about a range of controversial core issues that must be confronted as we move toward resolution of this question.
The committee will now utilize the ideas raised in Philadelphia as feedback in preparing a second report, for the Coordinating and Executive Committee meetings in October. Similarly, the deliberations in October will enable further honing of a third report to be presented to Board and Council in December. It is not clear whether or not all of this will bring us to readiness for a finite proposal in December and final action in 1984.
In any event, the system is moving, and at this stage the debates are generating more light than heat; I am hopeful that they will continue in this thoughtful and sober spirit. I should remind you how important it is for institutes and societies to continue discussions at local levels in preparation for the December meetings.
There are two important and interrelated issues that underlie or at least are embedded in some background aspects of the membership and nonmedical training issues, which have occupied the forefront of our attention in recent years. They deserve attention, and, for reasons I'll mention below, this may be an opportune time to bring them into the foreground. They are: (1) the need for strengthening and expanding research in psychoanalysis; and (2) the need for development of alternate career goals in psychoanalysis, in addition to “training and supervising analyst”; goals to which analysts may realistically and enthusiastically aspire, as they reach professional maturity and achieve full capacity for important productive and satisfying careers.
As Arnold Cooper pointed out in his Presidential Address last December, it is not only academically inappropriate and undesirable, but also logistically unfeasible and impractical, to perpetuate a monolithic career model, which served well in the past but now must be diversified in order to keep up with progress in an expanding scientific, professional, and intellectual field.
Opportunity to think about one highly desirable alternate career path may be developing. The National Institute of Mental Health has for some time been planning a grant program to support research on psychoanalytic process and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. A number of our members have been involved in these planning discussions, most recently Herbert Schlesinger, Robert Michels, Robert Wallerstein, and myself. As I understand it, the intent of the forthcoming grant program (soon to be initiated by an official “Request for Applications”) is for it to extend beyond studies of “efficacy” to include research on basic issues in psychoanalytic theory and process. Planning discussions have recognized that there will be a need to develop researchers who will be mature and sophisticated both in psychoanalysis and in scientific method.
Could this be an opportunity for us now seriously to think of a fund-raising effort to generate money for “matching grants” through the Fund for Psychoanalytic Research? Such matching funds could be used to augment focussed (peer reviewed and approved) project grants under this new program from NIMH and/or to subsidize career development for promising young investigator-psychoanalysts. Dreaming you say? Well, it's Spring — what better time for it?
Morton F. Reiser, M.D.
President.