Research in psychoanalysis serves several functions. It allows us to verify clinical hypotheses developed from behind the couch. It studies both analytic process and outcome. In a developmental framework, it supplements reconstructive efforts with observations of children and adolescents. Following Hartmanns idea that analysis as a theory is a general psychology, it augments the usual clinical source of data, although much research is, in fact, based on a careful study of recorded analyses.
In the current cynical scientific and economic climate, research serves to demonstrate that psychoanalysis is a viable scientific endeavor and an important clinical tool. Third-party coverage is often denied, and intrusive review procedures are justified, because at this point the efficacy of the procedure and the central tenets of the need for confidentiality have not been rigorously demonstrated.
Typical sources for research money have dried up, because agencies like NIMH seek to fund work, such as narrowly construed drug research, or short-term, goal-limited therapy to further current political and economic ends.
Psychoanalytic research will require support from within the American Psychoanalytic Association for it to remain viable. The quality of research funded in this manner has been clearly established. The Fund for Psychoanalytic Research has done enormously good work over the past twenty years. This work is detailed in a recent report prepared by Stuart Hauser (TAP 29/4). Over five hundred publications and presentations have resulted, careers have been established, and the money invested has led to outside support perhaps fourteen times as much as was generated from the fund itself. Unfortunately, voluntary contributions to the fund have dwindled markedly to less than a fifth of what was collected only a few years ago.
Because research is vital to our interests as both a scientific and a professional organization, we feel it is imperative that the organization support its own efforts regularly and dependably. Further, we believe it is an important organizational value to assume this responsibility and espouse these efforts. We therefore propose that the current voluntary contribution to the Fund for Psychoanalytic Research be changed to an obligatory annual assessment of 10 percent of a member's annual dues, which currently are $660. This would require an annual obligatory contribution of $66 from each member. Further voluntary contributions would be welcomed. Ninety-five percent of the money raised would be administered by the Fund for Psychoanalytic Research; 5 percent would be allocated by the treasurer of the American Psychoanalytic Association for surveys and other research conducted by committees.
Members could be automatically exempted from the contribution, by checking an appropriate box on the returned portion of the dues statement, if they are in less than half-time practice or if the contribution would present an economic hardship. This information would be kept in confidence.
We welcome discussion and further ideas about this issue prior to its being proposed to Council at the May meeting.
Lee David Brauer, M.D.
Chair, Committee on Psychoanalytic Practice
Paul Mosher, M.D.
Chair, Committee on Confidentiality
Robert Galatzer-Levy, M.D.
Cochair, Fund for Psychoanalytic Research