We must move forward into the professional and political arenas facing us today with a sense of ourselves as an essential profession and as members of a cohesive organization. We must improve our governing structure to facilitate the responsiveness required in todays changing world. We can make the decisions required of us only when we have consolidated our identity as an efficiently governed organization with a coherent voice.
Much work has already begun and does not need to be repeated; it needs only to be enacted. As an Executive Councilor for the past six years, as a member of the Task Force on Board/Council Structure and Functions, and as chair of the Joint Board/Council Committee on Foundations—as well as in my local capacity as curriculum chair at the Washington Institute and as founder, chair, and president of the Washington Psychoanalytic Foundation—I have devoted myself to helping form an effective identity and voice for organized psychoanalysis.
On the Task Force on Board/Council Structure and Functions I have worked on internal structural changes that can strengthen both Board and Council, clearly delineating their functions and complementary roles. The task force has recommended the creation of a Board of Directors, with equal representation from Board, Council, and membership, that could go about The American's business in a more efficient and informed manner. The task force has recommended also the creation of the position of Executive Director, in order to maintain continuity within the organization and to interface more effectively with outside interests. This change would give The American greater influence in the larger community and on the national scene.
The Committee on Foundations, which I chair, has brought together a national consortium of local psychoanalytic foundations and has assisted the development of many new foundations around the country. In locales where foundations have already been established, we see positive results in recruitment, patient referrals, and community awareness. In Washington, where I have established such a foundation, I have worked with many of our members and candidates to make it an integral part of our psychoanalytic community. Where once we generated programs only for ourselves, we now create them at the request of the public and the wider professional community.
As chair of my local curriculum committee, I have begun to explore more democratic ways of running the Institute, procedures that would involve the entire faculty in its administration. While the unconscious might be timeless, the world in which The American functions is the very opposite. We must forcefully and in a timely manner represent the interests of psychoanalysts to patients, government, third-party payers, and other mental health care groups. We must demonstrate conviction about who we are and what we want, and show the flexibility that such conviction affords. First and foremost, I am an analyst. I have put my energies where I have thought we should act—in the best interests of psychoanalysts and psychoanalysis. I will continue to do so while representing you as councilor-at-large.