Convinced that the membership is increasingly engaged with issues debated by the Executive Committee and Council, Program Committee chair Arnold Rothstein has relinquished the time traditionally assigned to the morning plenary address to accommodate brief presentations and active floor debate at the Meeting of Members in Philadelphia.
A continental breakfast for members and spouses will begin at 8:00 A.M. Members envious of spouses going off to a morning of sightseeing or gallery hopping can find solace in the fact that President Bernard Pacella will be opening a very different kind of meeting. In order to minimize the pro forma, rubber-stamp aspect of past Meetings of Members, a new format has been designed to make the proceedings more open and substantive. While minutes of Board and Council will still be posted and must be approved by members, as is legally required, the focus will be on the pressing issues of health care reform, analytic practice, and external credentialing.
The Executive Committee has at times failed to communicate the intensity and ongoing nature of its deliberations. Several steps have been taken to remedy this. Not only do members write and fax the Committee, who are continually in touch with one another, but the new Committee on Societies now distributes summaries of Executive Committee debates to affiliate societies so that their leaders, councilors, and members can discuss the issues and formulate local positions before meetings of Council. Nothing, however, allows The Americans diverse membership to grasp what the national organization is all about, and what it does on its members' behalf, as much as an open forum in which officers and committee chairs are available for free dialogue.
To facilitate informed debate, a number of brief presentations will frame the issues. Secretary David Hurst will first present a précis of positions and actions taken by the Council, after which Treasurer Stephen Firestein will review the Association's budget and financial statements— “our priorities, your pocketbook” will be made explicit. Since money issues will be a subtext to ensuing discussions, financial priorities must be made clear in order to provide a realistic and solid context. Members with experience in budgeting for other organizations, some of whom have expressed doubts about The Americans procedures, will have a chance not only to review and criticize, but to make helpful suggestions.
The most pressing concerns about health care reform will be answered by Arthur J. Farley, co-chair of the Committee on Government Relations and Insurance, and The American's legislative consultant, Daniel E. Leach. The latter, a lawyer, has already met with James Pyles, attorney for the Coalition for Patients' Rights, and will have already submitted a feasibility study to the Executive Committee. At the meeting on May 20 he will be able to provide an update. Discussion should be lively and is expected to touch on many of the same issues that will be raised by George Allison and Lee David Brauers presentation of the recent survey conducted by the Committee on Psychoanalytic Practice (see TAP 28/1). The finding that younger members are working for HMOs in increasing numbers in order to supplement their practice, and that they have lower analytic case loads, comes as no surprise; nonetheless, it should occasion great concern. The incomes of younger members and candidates must be considered by the membership as it debates strategies to be employed in the areas of government relations and insurance.
A new focus of attention for the membership is the alliance The American has made with other psychoanalytic organizations. Forged under the pressing need to present a united front to the
Gore Committee almost a year ago, the Psychoanalytic Consortium subsequently turned its attention to the legal issues involved in opposing NAAP's attempt to become sole U.S. accrediting body for psychoanalysis. Marvin Margolis will present the rationale for entering alliances and will describe the attendant problems. Allan D. Rosenblatt, chair of the committee charged by Board and Council with formulating plans for accreditation and external credentialing, will report on the aborted CORPA hearing of January 18 (see TAP 28/1) and present late-breaking news on a change in CORPA guidelines, a move that opens new possibilities for The American.
Although the new open forum at the Meeting of Members has no formal power to make policy, it does allow members to participate significantly in debates over the complex issues that are decided finally in the Council. The ideas and creative alternatives articulated in the forum can make those decisions both easier and more truly representative. It is also anticipated that knowledgeable members will emerge in these discussions who are willing to commit themselves to furthering policy on important issues, providing Board and Council a rich new source of talent to be tapped for committee work.