George Pollock reports that final drawings of the Freud Room at the American Psychiatric Association headquarters have been set, and it looks as though the room may be finished within the next three months. Thus far, $18,155 has been contributed by various analytic institutions and individuals, including our own Association. However, a sum of several thousand dollars is still needed to complete the project. Dr. Pollock, Treasurer of the American Psychiatric Association, hopes that this relatively small sum will be forthcoming in the near future from analysts and analytic groups that have not heretofore been able to support this venture. Many of our members who have not yet done so may want to add their contribution to this worthy project.
Photos of the Freud Room should be available to members soon, and any who will be visiting Washington, D.C. should come to the American Psychiatric Association headquarters and see the conference room itself.
Dr. Vamik D. Volkan, president of the Virginia Psychoanalytic Society, recently became president of the International Society of Political Psychology, an organization that may be described as an invisible university. Dr. Volkan is the first medical professional to lead the thousand-member organization of psychologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, historians, government leaders and public policy makers.
Volkan, who succeeds James McGregor Burns, a Pulitzer prize winning political scientist, began his one-year term at the society's international scientific conference in Oxford, England, this past summer. The conference theme was “People, Politics and War,” emphasizing East-West relations.
Established in 1978, the society strives to facilitate improved communication across disciplines, as well as geographical and political boundaries, on psychological processes pertaining to political and international affairs. Research also is exchanged on topics ranging from performance of leaders under stress to the effects of aging in government.
During his presidency, Volkan plans to focus the society's attention on “The Developing Areas and the Third World.”
Philip Mechanick, a member of the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Society, received an honorary degree, Doctor Honoris Causa, from Semmelwis University of Medicine, in Budapest, Hungary. The ceremony was held on June 7, 1983. At it, he presented a paper on “Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Human Nature.”
This official status may provide him an ongoing basis for expanding the awareness of psychoanalysis in Hungary. At the present time under Soviet rule, psychoanalysis has had a largely underground status.
Gary, Audrey and Us, an hour-long documentary film, produced by Lawrence Deutsch, M.D. and Ms. Debra Freedman, received the National Education Association's first place award for the Advancement of Learning through Broadcasting. Viewed from a psychoanalytic perspective, the story concerns a twenty-four-year-old man with severe cerebral palsy who married his nonhandicapped nurse's aide.
Dr. Louis Breger, a graduate of the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute and member of the American, has recently been promoted to the new position of Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies at the California Institute of Technology. This is especially noteworthy, as professorships at prominent academic institutions with psychoanalysis in the title are relatively rare.
George H. Pollock has been nominated for reelection as Treasurer of the American Psychiatric Assocaition. Dr. Pollock is a past-president of the American (1974-75), and has served our Association in many capacities. He is liaison from and to the APA and the American. His countless activities and accomplishments within psychoanalysis and psychiatry are well known to all of us.