This is the seventh of a series of articles designed to inform the membership of the functions of the Association's various offices, governing bodies, and committees.
In her essay on “The Birth of COPE as Viewed in 1972,” Joan Fleming pointed out, “The responsibility for the education of new analysts has a long and steady progression from the self-taught days of the early pioneers through the master-apprentice stage to the present day institute where education is the responsibility of a group of analytic educators who coordinate and integrate the three phases of psychoanalytic training: the personal analysis, the theoretical, and the clinical learning experiences. In no other field is the education process so complex, so involved with the imbrication of inner and outer worlds, so firmly rooted in knowing oneself in order to use oneself in therapy, in scientific discovery, and in teaching the what and the how of psychoanalysis”.
The American Psychoanalytic Association has, from its inception, been cognizant of and has accepted this responsibility as one of its central raisons d'etre. The establishment of the Board on Professional Standards in 1946, together with a somewhat earlier formulation of Training Standards, institutionalized that responsibility. The early experiences of the Board and its various committees in their contact with the component institutes revealed just how complex those processes of psychoanalytic education were. That complexity and the recognition of the myriad problems, both internal and external, which contributed to the complexity were highlighted in the highly influential study and report by Lewin and Ross in 1960.
That report was the most immediate stimulus for the formation of COPE in 1961 with the charge “to define, set up priorities, and to study the wide range of educational problems being encountered locally and nationally”. More concisely, Dr. Fleming's phrase, “educating the educators”, has become the shorthand for the Committee. In the past 23 years, COPE has essentially operated with those goals in mind. The specific emphases and modes of activity have varied, depending on the evaluation of what constituted the most significant and pressing current educational problems, the realities under which COPE functioned (primarily the availability of time and money), and the interests and styles of its membership and chairpersons (Drs. E. Windholz, J. Arlow, B. Bird, K. Calder, and S. Abrams preceded me).
The central COPE Committee (consisting of 10 to 12 experienced psychoanalytic educators) gathers at each of the two regular yearly meetings of the American (and, in more prosperous times, in between those meetings) to review and assess its activities, to plan new ones, and to find appropriate approaches to identify and study various aspects of analytic education. Until relatively recently, the principal modality of long-range, in-depth scrutiny of a particular issue or problem was the study group. These groups were set up under the leadership of an analyst with special interest and experience in the subject to be studied; and, by and large, no strict deadline was imposed on the study group for the completion of its work. For a long time, therefore, COPE was viewed (both by itself and by others) as a kind of mini-think tank.
Study groups dealing with training analysis, supervision, curriculum, selection, and the natural history of institutes have functioned over varying periods of time; and from these deliberations have come a great deal of data and information. Some of the material has been transmitted directly, via the members of COPE or COPE Study Groups, back to the local institutes; some has come more indirectly through the reports of the Chairman of COPE or chairmen of study groups to the Board; and some has been communicated through a variety of publications. The most recent publication is the work of the Study Group on Supervision, Becoming A Psychoanalyst, edited by its secretary, Robert Wallerstein (1981). For a longer list of contributions based on the work of COPE and COPE study groups, see the report by Kenneth Calder (and especially the bibliography for that report), “Ten Years of COPE: Perspectives in Psychoanalytic Education” (1972).
More recently there has been an increasing desire on the part of the institutes to share in COPE's thinking, observations, and accrued knowledge, either on an ongoing basis or at least prior to the conclusion of a particular project. This very legitimate wish is understandable, since only a fraction of the institutes can at any one time have representatives either on COPE or on the various study groups, and not all of the COPE projects carry their deliberations to an anticipated conclusion or commemorate that conclusion with a formal report.
COPE has, from time to time, offered workshops for institute representatives as a means of sharing accumulated data and ideas or as a vehicle for obtaining further input from the local institutes. More and more, these workshops have been conducted on a regular basis. They serve not only as a means for a
wider dissemination of information and ideas among the various institutes and between the institutes and COPE, but also to provide COPE with an instrument by which we can assess more carefully — and on a first-hand basis — the need and the interest for further, more detailed study of a given topic.
For instance, after a series of workshops on the curriculum, chaired by Dr. Martin Silverman, it was found that they tended to focus on the more immediate issues and problems that local curriculum committees had to deal with in a concrete fashion. Moreover, representatives from institutes were often changed from meeting to meeting. Although the workshops had been spirited, interesting, and productive, by their very nature they did not permit the pursuit of the more basic questions and issues which underlie the philosophy and the systematic integration of a psychoanalytic curriculum.
It was felt, however, that a Study Group, composed of a group of knowledgeable analysts, could and should approach the fundamental propositions of the aims, the content, and the sequence of a psychoanalytic curriculum, as well as ways in which we might, both practically and reasonably effectively, assess the “products” of such a curriculum. Therefore COPE decided to organize a Study Group on the same subject.
It is anticipated that this Study Group, chaired by Dr. Vann Spruiell, will begin its deliberations this December and will continue its work over a number of years. We anticipate further that Dr. Spruiell will report to the central COPE committee at regular intervals, at which time we will have the opportunity of following the progress of the Study Group's activities and of offering our observations and suggestions. We hope that the results of those activities will be shared with the institutes at appropriate times.
Conversely, the Study Group on The Natural History of Institutes (established originally to investigate the background and causes for splits in institutes), chaired by Dr. James Bing, found that it did not possess a sufficiently broad data source to carry on its research in a more satisfactory and convincing manner; and as a consequence of this recognition, it was decided to establish a Workshop carrying a similar title.
This Workshop, chaired by Dr. Stephen Morgenstern, has been meeting for a number of years and has engaged in a series of active and productive discussions, which have been useful to both the participating institutes and to the Study Group on the Natural History of Institutes. We have reason to believe that this type of concurrent and/or intercurrent (and cooperative) sponsorship by COPE of the two kinds of groups may offer a more effective way of dealing with the problems of the communication between COPE and the local institutes.
This problem of appropriate communication and feedback from COPE to the institutes in a way that is neither belated nor premature has been a chronic one and is a problem that is shared by all of the committees of the Board. We feel that it is imperative that the study groups have the time necessary to carry out their investigations and deliberations in a reasonably leisurely fashion, but we believe it equally important that the accumulated data and the ongoing or final reports do not become lost and forgotten in the labyrinthine files of the American.
Other longstanding problems and, at times, controversies which preoccupy COPE are: the question of the relative autonomy of the Study Groups and Workshops, i.e., the degree of monitoring and supervision that should be exercised by COPE; the vexing issues of confidentiality and the methodology of study; and the practical issue of how to best avoid (or not avoid) the repetition and overlap of COPE's activities with those of the other Board committees.
Perhaps the most vivid picture of COPE and its activities is the presentation of what we have scheduled for this December. The central committee will meet all day on Monday, December 12. We will review the work of the various study groups and workshops, consider plans for possible new ones, and hear and discuss a progress report from Dr. Stanley Goodman's Study Group on Supervision. In the afternoon, we will continue the interchange, initiated in Philadelphia, on the Psychoanalytic Process, especially as that concept might best be utilized by the Committee on Certification.
During that week the Study Groups on Curriculum, Selection (chaired by Dr. Alan Eisnitz), Supervision, the Natural History of Institutes, and (perhaps) The Training Analysis will convene; and we will offer workshops for institute representatives on Curriculum, the Natural History of Institutes, Post-Graduate Education (a new endeavor chaired by Dr. James McLaughlin), and the Problems of Women in Psychoanalytic Training (chaired by Drs. B. Deutsch and H. Meyers).
Between the time this report was composed and the midwinter meetings in New York, it is not unlikely that we will find an additional chore or two. This is COPE's current contribution to educating the educators.
Edward M. Weinshel, M.D.
Chairman, COPE