I believe that one of the most important contributions TAP has made to the democratic process within The American has been the policy, followed since the first issue in 1989, of publishing position statements by candidates for office. To date, we have done this for two presidential elections (1989, 1991), two elections for treasurer (1989, 1992), one election for secretary (1992), and one election for Councilor-at-Large (1992). In this issue we are publishing, for the first time, statements by candidates for the chair of the Board on Professional Standards. Although the BOPS chair is elected by the Fellows of the Board and not by the membership at large, we believe that electors welcome input regarding members' preferences and that the candidates, Morris Peltz and Lawrence Chalfin, will be interested in reactions to their framing of the issues and to the stands they have taken.
In this issue we continue our coverage of the history of the societies and institutes of The American with articles about the Los Angeles, Southern California, and San Diego groups. We are grateful to Mel Mandel, Allan Rosenblatt, and Sam Wilson, who planned and contributed to the special section on psychoanalysis in Southern California.
Since TAP's inception we have covered twelve groups. Currently we are planning articles on Denver in Fall 1993; the two Boston groups, PINE and BPSI, in Winter 1994; and the Philadelphia Society and the Philadelphia Association in Spring 1994. Also in the works, for Summer or Fall 1994, is a section on psychoanalysis in the “Rust Belt”—Pittsburgh, Michigan, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. We hope in time to include all the societies of The American and to collect the articles in a volume devoted to the history of psychoanalysis in America, to be edited by Arnold Richards, Sanford Gifford, and William Jeffrey, and to be published by Analytic Press.
With this issue we welcome two new members to the editorial staff: Jacqueline Heller and Arnold Wilson. Jacqueline Heller's important contribution to the Southern California section of this issue is entitled “LA Candidates Voice Concern.” She is herself a candidate at the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute, and her presentation of the attitudes of candidates toward their training should be carefully considered by everyone involved in any way with analytic education. She is our second candidate editorial board member. Our first, Robert McConaughy weighs in with a report on Last December's debate over The American's Statement on Homosexuality.
In the next issue of TAP will appear a conversation with Ted Shapiro, who in December 1993 will complete a decade of distinguished service as editor of JAPA. Edward Shapiro and Margaret Brenman-Gibson contribute an article about a venerable and still vibrant analytic institution, the Austin Riggs Center, entitled “From Menninger to Austin Riggs: A Circular Chronology.” Finally, we will soon inaugurate a regular research column that will report on various projects supported by members of The American through the Fund for Psychoanalytic Research. The column will be edited by our other new staff member, Arnold Wilson, Ph.D., recent graduate, member of the faculty of the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center, and a researcher in his own right.