The Treasurer of our Association, as a member of its Executive Committee, has marvelous opportunity to share in guiding the Association during the months between Executive Council meetings. Considering the accelerating pace of developments affecting the very structure of the Association, as well as its important relationships with psychiatry, medicine, and the larger community in which we practice, the role of the Treasurer as member of the Executive Committee can only become increasingly important.
My participation as member of the Executive Council for more than 3 years; as member before that of the committees on Social Issues and on Continuing Medical Education; and 8 years on the Board of Directors of the New York Psychoanalytic Society has acquainted me through “hands-on” experience with the problems we must address.
The Treasurer is specifically charged to oversee our funds- -their collection, investment, and appropriate allocation to the many important activities of the Association. This is a most important monitoring function.
Fiscal problems are familiar to me, having served more than 2 years as Treasurer of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, and having followed closely the recent work of the Finance Committees of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
Review of Association committee reports draws attention to the work of numerous significant task forces. The committees on research and scentific activity; on university and medical education (which funds lecturer/visitors to schools without an analyst on faculty); on publications; on establishment of training programs in child analysis; on loans for candidates not yet in full private practice; and on governmental relations are among those requiring funds to expand their worthy activities. We have till now depended upon general funds, contributions and bequests to defray these expenses.
To expand the activities of these task forces will naturally require additional funds. Our dues being already of a respectable level, there is a limit to the degree that we can dig more deeply into our pockets. We must, in my view, enlarge our efforts to recruit grant funds from sources outside the Association's membership. In this undertaking the leadership of the Treasurer is essential.