At the recent Fall Meeting in New York the Executive Council unanimously endorsed a Bylaws amendment proposal for increasing the participation by the Executive Council in the selection of members for the Exploratory Subcommittee of the Nominating Committee. The function of the Exploratory Subcommittee is to select names of members for nomination for officer-ship to be considered by the Executive Council, when the Council is functioning in its capacity as the Nominating Committee.
Under the present Bylaws, the Executive Committee submits to the Executive Council a slate of names (usually four) from which the Executive Council selects two new members each year for three year staggered terms on the Exploratory Subcommittee. The proposed amendment would allow members of the Executive Council to propose additional names for consideration by the Council for election to the Exploratory Subcommittee.
The proponents of this proposal emphasized the need for the broadest possible participation of the Executive Council in the nominating process, this being consistent with the democratic ideals of our Association.
At the Business Meeting of Members in New York, Bernard Pacella, Treasurer of the Association, reported that he hoped we were nearing the end of a serious “financial crunch.” However, he went on, despite a stringent austerity program, a recent dues increase, and a newly instituted registration fee for the meetings, a mandatory assessment of all members would be necessary. The Executive Committee recommended and the Executive Council approved it the assessment will be $150 for Full and Associate Members and $50 for Affiliate Members.
There are two major causes for our cash flow problem. First, there was the purchase of the condominium for the new Central Office of the Association, for which we paid cash, leaving our liquid funds quite depleted. This property is now worth more than one million dollars. Second, defending ourselves in the legal suit has been costly. We expect additional bills as the legal action continues. Additional financial costs included considerable construction, equipment, furniture and decoration of the new office, which was a bare shell when we bought it. Necessary pension plans for several senior employees added further expenses.
The Executive Committee, acting as its own “oversight committee,” has imposed limitations and restraints on expenses wherever they believed it was possible. A number of projects, “worthy as they may be,” have not been approved, while others have been delayed in the hope that full implementation will be possible later. A more detailed report on the Association's financial status will appear in the next Newsletter.
On behalf of the Association, President Edward D. Joseph conferred Honorary Membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association on Professor Peter Gay at the meetings in New York. In his remarks to the membership Dr. Joseph described Professor Gay as a distinguished historian and Sterling Professor of History at Yale University. His research and writings over nearly four decades on a wide range of historical subjects have won him international recognition as a scholar. For the past fifteen years or so his historical research
and writing have been focused on the application of psychoanalytic concepts to social and cultural history. His major works in this field are: Freud, Jews and Other Germans: Masters and Victims in Modernist Culture and The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, the first of a three volume series.
A research graduate of the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis, Professor Gay addressed a plenary session of the Association in 1981 and has been a frequent contributor to Scientific Meetings and to numerous psychoanalytic societies here and abroad.
As an inspiring and dedicated teacher, he has introduced many undergraduate and graduate students to psychoanalytic thinking and has shown how it can contribute to the study of man in his social and cultural setting. Dr. Joseph concluded that conferring Honorary Membership on Peter Gay is a fitting recognition of his achievements in bringing psychoanalysis into the study of history.
President Edward D. Joseph informed the membership of the current status of the legal action against the Association at the New York meeting. He told the Meeting of Members that the attorneys acting on behalf of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, and the Columbia Psychoanalytic Institute had filed a motion for dismissal of the antitrust suit brought against them by four plaintiff psychologists. Briefs supporting this motion were filed by the Association's attorneys, as well as a reply to a rebuttal of these briefs by the attorneys for the plaintiffs.
At the end of October, attorneys for the Association were able to present a brief, but hurried, oral argument concerning the motion for dismissal of the suit before the judge hearing this case. At that time the judge reserved decision and pending that decision, all further actions are to be suspended. Therefore, at the present time there has been no further action on the part of either the defense or the plaintiffs.
It was the impression of the members of the Executive Council who had the occasion to read the attorneys' briefs asking for dismissal that these were closely reasoned and persuasive. One important point was that the issues of the case are not truly of an anti-trust nature, but rather enter more into the nature of the educational process, academic freedom, and questions of scientific judgement. As our attorneys point out, these are not matters for courts to decide. Just how long it will take for the judge to rule is uncertain, so that the matters remain pending at the present time.