With the resignation of Stephen Sonnenberg, a committee member since 1980 and chair since 1986, the leadership of The American's Committee on Public Information has been passed to Irene Chiarandini. Long a member of the TAP staff and currently Associate Editor for North America of International Psychoanalysis, the IPA newsletter, Chiarandini assumes leadership of the committee at an important juncture in The American's history.
In her first report to the Executive Council following her appointment in December, Chiarandini characterized the committees current functions as twofold: to represent The American to the community and the outside world; and to facilitate in-house communication. Although the committee had been urged to produce “official” responses to a number of recent attacks on psychoanalysis appearing in the lay press, Chiarandini made it clear that the committee may not speak for The American, which represents not one monolithic voice but a variety of positions. Within this framework, she offered her vision of The American's charge to the committee and reported on recent work.
A major project has been the rewriting of the brochure “About Psychoanalysis.” Although immensely successful to date (over thirty thousand copies have been sold or distributed), the brochure stood in need of revision, particularly to emphasize The Americans mix of medical and nonmedical practitioners. To undertake the work, Chiarandini organized a subcommittee consisting of Cecile Bassen, Jerry Grunes, Arlene Heyman, Barbara Jones, Judy Viorst, and herself. The revised text has been approved by the Executive Committee and will appear this fall in a press run of ten thousand.
Recently Claire Coyne, in her capacity as Practice and Public Education Coordinator, has begun to work closely with the “Quad” committees: Peer Review, Psychoanalytic Practice, Public Information, and Government Relations and Insurance. Her tasks, many of which facilitate the work of the Public Information Committee, include lobbying and monitoring public agencies and third-party payers; initiating and responding to discussions of psychoanalysis in the media; and overseeing and facilitating the practice development activities of affiliate societies. Under Stephen Sonnenberg's guidance, she has become the Public Information Committee's Staffperson and network coordinator; over the next year she should become well known to local societies and institutes.
Future efforts of the committee will address community education, recruitment of members,
and responses to media criticism of psychoanalysis. A more long-term plan is to recruit writers sympathetic to psychoanalysis to produce articles for the national press.
Regarding the dissemination of information within The American, discussions have been held with TAP editor William Jeffrey on how the committee might best speak to the membership through its pages. When it is necessary to achieve more rapid communication and mobilization of the membership (on such issues as health care reform legislation), mailings such as the “Red Flag” system suggested by Claire Coyne may also be used. These updates may include summaries of important news on psychoanalytic practice and the activities of the Quad.
Bridging the committee's internal and external roles are two other proposed activities: the publishing in TAP of “model” letters showing how to write responses to the media; and the planning of open workshops on the same topic to be held at national meetings.
Early in his work with the committee, Sonnenberg had favored contracting with the American Psychiatric Association to provide public relations services to The American. He hoped thereby that both the public and the psychiatric profession would be kept informed about the benefits of psychoanalysis. At that time, targeting psychiatrists and other physicians was considered crucial. In these efforts, Sonnenberg worked closely with three presidents—Richard Simons, Homer Curtis, and George Allison—as well as with the Executive Committee.
Over the past thirteen and a half years, Sonnenberg's work to bridge the private practice of psychoanalysis and academic psychiatry led to an active involvement with the APAs Division of Public affairs. Encouraged by the Executive Committee, he was able to secure an appointment to the APA's Joint Commission on Public Affairs. Working closely with analytically trained psychiatrists within the APA committee structure, Sonnenberg emphasized psychoanalytic clinical theory as a major part of academic psychiatry; eventually this became an important function of the Public Information Committee.
During Sonnenberg's tenure as chair, the committee turned its attention from providing media backup and press releases at national meetings, and from earlier concerns about the ethics of public activity by analysts, to the discussion and planning of more preemptive outreach strategies. Gradually, the committee became a more active advisory board, proposing public information policies to the officers of The American.
Over the years, Sonnenberg had developed a number of unofficial guidelines for the work of the committee and for the public information activities of The American. In October 1993 a draft of these guidelines was sent to members of both the Public Information and the Executive Committees for consideration and discussion. The guidelines, intended to provide an agreed-upon set of strategies and reachable goals in the realm of public information, included the following. (1) The American should professionalize its public information activities and focus its educative efforts in a primarily reactive rather than proactive and more costly fashion. (2) The American would concentrate on developing a network of analysts who are able and willing to speak in public, both to the media and to lay audiences. (3) That network would also respond to criticisms encountered at the local and national levels. (4) Officers of The American would respond to criticisms of psychoanalysis selectively, concentrating on those appearing in the professional press (Psychiatric News, Psychiatric Times) or national publications (Newsweek, the New York Times, etc.). (5) The committee would provide consultation services, including drafts of letters, to officers responding to these criticisms. The committee would (6) consult with local groups about local public relations problems and (7) undertake special projects of national significance, such as the 1992 presentation at the AAAS and the current revision of “About Psychoanalysis.” Committee members and the chair would (8) work locally and nationally to build the Public Information Network, (9) advocate within The American for the establishment of a public information staff, and (10) work to educate the membership as regards the appropriateness of public information activities by analysts.