Organized in 1960, the Westchester Psychoanalytic Society (WPsaS) was accepted by The American in May 1961 as an affiliate society. The thirteen charter members were Leopold Bellak, H. Robert Blank, Norbert Bromberg, I. Peter Glauber, Edward D. Joseph, Avraam T. Kazan, Joseph Lander, Henry Marasse, Paul D. McGehee, Burness E. Moore, Mortimer Ostow, Nathaniel E. Selby, and Julian L. Stamm. Currently the society has fifty-seven members, almost all of whom have retained membership in societies attached to their training institutes. Thus, most of its members are members also of either the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine (New York), the New York Psychoanalytic Society, or the Psychoanalytic Association of New York. Given this diversity, it is remarkable that in the Westchester Society factionalism has never been a problem.
From the outset WPsaA has been closely related to the Psychiatric Society of Westchester (WPS) and the New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center, Westchester Division, in White Plains. WPS was organized in 1952, with six psychoanalysts among its twenty-three charter members, and now numbers almost six hundred members. Eight analysts have been president of both WPsaS and WPS, and most members of the former belong also to the latter. Although the principal form of collaboration between the two societies has been a very successful series of joint scientific meetings, in the late sixties and early seventies the two groups together took strong public stands on political issues directly affecting mental health, notably the need to liberalize abortion law in the years preceding Roe v. Wade.
WPsaS's regular monthly scientific or business meetings, and occasional special meetings, have from the beginning been held at the superb facilities of Cornell's Westchester Division. Among the WPsaS membership are Robert Michels, former chair of the department of psychiatry and now Dean of Cornell University College of Medicine; Otto F. Kernberg, director until this year of the Westchester Division; and approximately ten full- or part-time faculty and staff there. In addition, eight WPsaS members are on the voluntary faculty and attending staff.
The final meeting of the society's year, each June, is the annual dinner meeting, highlighted by an outstanding lecturer. This year Morton F. Reiser spoke on the topic “The Role of Memory in Generating Dream Imagery: Implications for Clinical Technique.” Regular scientific meetings, consisting mostly of lecture-discussion or panel discussions, have covered major clinical and theoretical topics in psychoanalysis, as well as applied psychoanalysis in painting, literature, music, politics, and history. Joint meetings with WPS and meetings open to the public have been uniformly successful as regards both content and attendance. An instructive example is the joint meeting March 7, 1994, which was devoted to a panel discussion entitled “Antisemitism: An Historic Theological and Psychodynamic Exploration.” Panelists were Harold P. Blum, Norman Weiss, and the Reverend Robert S. MacLennan.
The most moving and best attended meeting in the history of the society was held April 3, 1995. The public was invited. Speaking on the topic “Courage and Decency during the Nazi Occupation of Holland in World War II” was a psychiatric colleague, Tina Strobos, who with her mother worked for five years in the Dutch underground in Amsterdam. During this period they sheltered over a hundred Jews in their home.
The society's Extension Division began auspiciously in 1968–1969, when the fledgling State University of New York at Purchase sponsored a series of public lectures, organized by the society and held at a local public school, on the application of psychoanalysis to social problems, particularly violence. The topic was particularly apt, as this was a period of serious social upheaval, with the Vietnam War at its worst, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, and major riots. Even so, the size of the well-educated audience that attended the lectures, and their enthusiastic participation in the discussions, were unanticipated. Though this success has been unequaled by subsequent extension programs, the response to many of them has been quite gratifying. As a result of the devoted labors of Richard C. Kopff, Arthur Lew, and chair Stanley Lituchy, the Extension Division is offering a new course for mental health professionals: The Relevance of Analysis to Present-Day Therapy. A distinguished faculty will conduct seven lecture-discussions between September 18, 1995, and April 29, 1996.
H. Robert Blank, M.D., is a past president of the Westchester Psychoanalytic Society.