The American's Committee on Psychoanalysis, Community, and Society was organized by Viola Bernard in 1968 as the result of polarization between psychoanalysis and the burgeoning community psychiatry movement. It provided support for analysts working in the community and encouraged synergistic relationships between psychoanalysis and community psychiatry. In study days held twice yearly at meetings of The American, it began a case-method study of community programs and developed an instrument to study them. The committee also organized discussion groups and presentations at “Reps” meetings for coordination with local analytic societies. Other “pioneers” included Jules Coleman, Bernard Bandler, Louis Linn, Elizabeth Davis, John Hitchcock, Mouchly Small, Ralph Wadeson, Jeanne Spurlock, Moisy Shopper, and Stanley Block.
In 1974, at a meeting of The American, the committee presented a panel chaired by Bernard. Papers included “Interactions between Community Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis in the Understanding of Ego Development” by Davis and Coleman and “Superego Variants: Lessons from Community Psychiatry” by Linn.
Within the discussion group format at the meetings, twelve teaching modules were developed in the late seventies for institute courses in Psychoanalysis and the Community that were used in Cincinnati, Topeka, and Baltimore-Washington.
In the eighties and early nineties, with Walter Menninger as chair, the committee's output included a paper on consultation, drafted by Ruth Fuller, and a survey of community activities by analysts from various local societies.
In 1994 the committee was reorganized by Bruce Sklarew to focus on the psychoanalytic aspects of trauma, loss, and violence in the inner city, as well as in disasters and war. Recent “Reps” meetings, now open, have featured presentations by committee members: “A Theoretical Perspective on The Traumatic Moment” by Robert Pynoos; “Coordinating Psychoanalysis and Law Enforcement Responses to Community Violence” by Steven Marans; “Preventing Repetitive Losses in Foster Care” by Gilbert Kliman; and “Developmental and Theoretical Issues in the Effects of Trauma on Young Children” by Joy Osofsky. Other committee members involved in community projects are Bennett Simon, Dale Meers, Herman A. Meyersburg, David Pollens, Ruth Fuller, Alan Felix, William Granatir, Stanley Cath, Arthur Meyerson, Henry Edwards, Deborah Link, Henri Parens, Bruce Sklarew, and Walter Menninger (consultant).
In May of this year Judith Schachter and Sklarew organized The American's symposium at the American Psychiatric Association's Miami meeting: Intervention for Children Exposed to Violence and War. Steven Marans presented children's responses to acute trauma as seen in his Child Development-Community Policing Program in New Haven, while Bennett Simon discussed trauma, resiliency, and long-term outcomes of children caught up in war.
A position paper drafted for the committee by Arthur Meyerson is currently being circulated among the committees on Social Issues, Racial and Ethnic Diversity, and Public Information, with whom we have established liaison. That paper recommends that we counter the image of the psychoanalyst working with the worried well and having minimal regard for the reality of violence and trauma in the world. A vital response to issues of public concern, community work by analysts also offers a natural laboratory for furthering our understanding of ego development and psychopathology. It thereby can enrich both our theory and our practice, allowing psychoanalysis to display its relevance to such pressing community concerns as sexual abuse, violence, the demonization of classes and other groups, racial prejudice, teenage pregnancy, traumatic and other losses, and the effects of family skew. The articles by Steven Marans and Joy Osofsky included here provide ample evidence of this relevance.
The morale of members, as well as their analytic rigor, will surely be enhanced by greater exposure to the broader community and by according the applications of psychoanalytic work to community problems a more central position in the concerns of The American.