At a time when government is telling us that private funds will have to make up for cutbacks in the public financing of social and scientific programs, the history of a modest effort to advance psychoanalysis, particularly in the academic community, might be instructive.
Years ago I thought to bring an eminent colleague, a renowned researcher and teacher, to join the analytic community in Los Angeles. This required, unfortunately, raising money to support the project, and this I was unable to do. When in recent years psychoanalysis locally, as in so many other places, began to lose what once was a significant role in medical education, the idea recurred to me in the form of establishing a chair in psychoanalysis at UCLA-NPI. There were then only two or three analysts on the full-time staff at that institution, and the situation was not much different at area medical schools.
When in 1990 I discussed the idea with Lee Shershow, he responded with enthusiasm. The two of us then gathered a group of interested colleagues, including Gerry Aronson, Paul Benson, Jay Cohen, Allen Johnson, Peter Loewenberg, Mel Mandel, Arthur Ourieff, Hilda Rollman-Branch, Len Rosengarten, and Robert Stoller, to develop a program. In its work, the group became increasingly aware of how much psychoanalytic interest and activity there was on the nonmedical campus, where a large number of research psychoanalysts worked in several departments. It was then we considered establishing a chair in psychoanalysis in one of them. As we grew ever more ambitions, we considered still other programs — essay prizes, lectures locally and in conjunction with national meetings, and interdisciplinary conferences.
In September 1991, Bob Stoller, who was such a significant researcher and teacher, and who had been very active in this group, was tragically killed. To honor his memory, we decided to establish a foundation in his name, with an initial emphasis on creating a forum for papers relating to his work in gender and sexual identity. In establishing this tax-exempt entity, the Robert J. Stoller Foundation, we had the able legal assistance of Bob's cousin, Herbert Smith. Soon after, Sybil Stoller, Bob's widow, joined us.
Various avenues of fund-raising were explored, though none of us had any experience in this line or any bent for it. We all lacked connections to significant funding sources. In the spring of 1992 we invited a number of psychoanalysts, in other parts of the country and abroad, to be sponsors of our endeavor. Most of them kindly lent their support. We then wrote to members of The American and the IPA, informing them of the foundation's existence and inviting contributions. This was a cottage industry sort of operation, but the results were encouraging. The positive response, I am sure, was in large measure attributable to the great esteem in which Robert Stoller and his work are held worldwide.
Upon reviewing our efforts and reflecting on future prospects, we concluded that an endowed chair was beyond our present capacity. We decided for the moment to focus on more modest projects and so directed our efforts to nonmedical academicians. We first instituted an annual lectureship at UCLA that would feature important academic contributors in applied psychoanalysis. In keeping with Bob's interests, our first lecturer, in 1993, was Nancy Chodorow of UC-Berkeley. She was followed by William McGrath of the University of Rochester and, most recently, by Peter Gay of Yale. Dominick LaCapra of Cornell has accepted an invitation for the fall of 1996. The lectures, well attended, have brought psychoanalysis more visibly to the academic community.
The second program undertaken was to offer prizes for psychoanalytically informed papers, one for predoctoral students and one for post-docs. Entries in the competition are judged by an independent panel selected each year, and the quality of submissions has been impressive. Initially the call for papers was directed locally, but it has since been extended to the country at large. Recipients of these $1,000 prizes, which have been awarded in 1994 and 1995, are invited to present their work at a local forum.
Another project considered was the sponsorship of an interdisciplinary institute at UCLA. Although this was beyond our current means, Peter Loewenberg was able independently to organize and raise funds for a UC-wide consortium of psychoanalytically involved faculty, which has been holding successful annual retreats. A limited number of graduate students are invited to attend, and the foundation has helped support them.
This is the extent of our programs to date. More modest than originally intended, they nonetheless have been well received. At present we are considering projects beyond the borders of California, others directed to clinical areas, modest seed grants for research, programs for the public, and so on. The major limiting factor right now is money, as the foundation wishes to preserve its small but growing capital endowment, funding current projects out of investment income. Just recently the foundation has received a most generous gift from Sybil Stoller, which will enable it to expand severalfold and so implement some of the plans we have formulated. The gift sustains the hope that we may yet find a way to fund the chair that was our original goal.
The current climate is a difficult one for fund-raising and particularly for psychoanalysis, which has not retained the popularity it enjoyed in earlier decades. It is not helped by the fact that it cannot promise quick benefits to the community. Out of our five years of experience certain lessons have emerged, commonsensical and familiar, I am sure, to any experienced fund-raiser. You must first have a group of committed people with imagination and energy. The esprit that develops has a value of its own, as well as helping to accomplish the goal. New and younger people must be brought on board periodically to offset the ravages of age with new ideas and energy.
The group must define its purpose and goals and lay out at least a preliminary program in order to establish its identity in the minds of its supporters and the larger public. Unless the effort is built around an already existing funding base, potential funding sources should be identified, as well as a strategy for gaining their support. Later there can be evolution and change, but one should not be diffuse to start.
There are societies and foundations with many more years of experience than we, with programs that are well established, more ambitious, and quite successful. Because in recent years we have seen an increased need for privately funded programs, conferences to address these issues should be held more frequently, including an ongoing workshop at meetings of The American. There ideas and experience can be shared as we work to preserve our profession.