A new psychoanalytic institute has been formed in Los Angeles by faculty members of the institutes there that are accredited by the American Psychoanalytic Association. The 12 founding members include prominent analysts from both the Southern California and the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institutes, and they have been joined by other faculty of the SCPI. All plan to maintain their present faculty positions while taking part in the activities of the new Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, which is to be unaffiliated either with The American or the International Psychoanalytical Association. (There is already an institute in Los Angeles accredited by the IPA but not by The American.)
The new institute appears to be the latest manifestation of conflict within the SCPI and between it and The American. Two years ago, some SCPI applications for waivers for the training of nonmedical candidates were rejected by the Committee on Nonmedical Clinical Training. The faculty voted to begin training these persons anyway, in violation of the by-laws of The American. Members of both Los Angeles institutes have been leading proponents of change in the operation of the CNMCT and of leaving the selection of nonmedical candidates up to local institutes. They have also been strong advocates of the delinkage of certification and full membership. The Board on Professional Standards and its committees have been in frequent contact with the SCPI in negotiating the impasse concerning unwaivered candidates. During that process, controversy emerged within the SCPI over the conduct of its relations with The American. According to some observers, that controversy developed in conjunction with the argument of issues concerning curriculum.
A consultative committee to the SCPI was set up by the BOPS in an effort to assist resolution of the conflicts between The American and SCPI and within that institute. The committee met with representatives of the two factions in Los Angeles in October and at the December meetings in Miami, and members of the committee felt that good progress had been made. Some waivers were granted by the CNMCT for previously rejected candidates,
and a process was designed for the granting of a waiver to the remaining one on the basis of successful progress in training.
A “middle committee” was established to bring the factions together, and so it came as a surprise to those from the BOPS who had taken part in the December meeting to learn a short time later that the new institute had been formed and that one reason for its formation was despair with the rate of change in The American. George H. Allison, President of The American, and Marvin Margolis, Chairman of the BOPS, met with members of the SCPI in Los Angeles in January and have been in touch with that group since. Allison believes that progress continues in improving the relationship between the SCPI and The American. In a letter to the SCPI, Allison and Margolis reiterated their “willingness to visit again so that we can discuss with all of you our mutual interest in strengthening psychoanalytic education at SCPI and psychoanalysis in the Los Angeles area.”