Being secretary of The American during this first year has meant a great deal to me. The responsibility is awesome and the work load is heavier than I expected, but I am grateful for this opportunity to contribute and perhaps to make a difference in these challenging times.
The external challenges to psychoanalysis as a profession have never been greater. Our work is threatened most of all by prejudice and ignorance about what we do and whom we serve.
We must continue to educate the public, and we must continue to fight for the highest quality of care for everyone as needed, and to fight against the “financial bottom-line” mentality of managed care. Ignorance, prejudice, and “cost accounting” are powerful adversaries, but we can take real encouragement from The American's own lobbying efforts and those of the Coalition for Patients' Rights, which we endorse. We are making impressive gains in educating legislators to include specific principles in any health care reform bill affecting our work as psychoanalysts.
For example, the most fundamental of these principles is the right of patients to contract privately with whomever they choose without third-party interference. Only when that right is secure can we work toward the inclusion of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy within health care reform legislation.
Internal challenges also require our urgent attention. The ongoing computerization of the Central Office promises greater efficiency and important savings. The new Steering Committee of the Executive Council, parallel to the Coordinating Committee of the Board, is a boon to improved communication within the organization, as is the new Committee on Societies of the Executive Council. We need to reaffirm the ideals that inspired all of us to become analysts in the first place. In Denver, applicants are turning to us for analytic training in record numbers. These are clinicians, both medical and nonmedical, who are not satisfied with what they have been taught, dedicated people who will never be content to force everyone, regardless of what they need, into the Procrustean bed of short-term managed care.
Many other institutes are experiencing the same rejuvenation of interest in analytic training. In Michigan, where analysts are involved in every psychiatry and psychology training program available, and in every possible community activity, graduate analysts see an average of 6.5 analytic cases. In Seattle and in Pittsburgh and in Chicago and in Denver, major organizational changes in recent years have led to renewed energy and enthusiasm, and higher candidate and faculty morale. The former leaders at Pittsburgh and Michigan are now the leaders of our national organization. They form the backbone of an increasingly strong and optimistic Executive Committee. I hope you will give me the opportunity to use the experience I have gained as secretary to make further contributions at this crucial time to the important work of that committee.