At the Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, Judith Schachter will complete her term as fifty-eighth president of The American. The gavel will be passed to Marvin Margolis at the conclusion of the meeting of the Executive Council on May 2. In her 1991 campaign for president-elect, Schachter emphasized that “the challenge of the next decade is to develop active responses to the increasingly competitive climate in which practice and education are set!' During her two-year term as president, which coincided with the Clinton health care reform effort and the increased intrusion of managed care, this challenge was indeed paramount. During these troubled times, Schachter led The American as increasingly it contended with serious social and economic changes.
The effort was not easy. Faced with the possibility of legislation harmful to the practice of psychoanalysis, The American, in a 1993 watershed decision, hired a Washington lobbyist to work with its Committee on Government Relations and Insurance. With professional assistance, The American presented to Congress the needs and concerns of psychoanalytic practitioners. However, because differences existed within the organization regarding the proper goals of lobbying, enormous amounts of energy were needed to achieve a unified effort. Finally, at the end of 1995, a satisfactory resolution was achieved when a lobbyist agreeable to all members of The American was retained.
A second area of struggle inherited by Schachter involved the attempt by NAAP/ABAP to win recognition by CORPA, the Council on Recognition of Postsecondary Accreditation, as sole U.S. accrediting agency for psychoanalytic institutes. To head off this effort, The American joined with the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, Division 39 of the American Psychological Association, and the National Membership Committee on Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work to form the Psychoanalytic Consortium. The American also worked closely with the four independent IPA institutes. In 1995 the NAAP/ABAP accreditation bid was rejected. During the period when sweeping health care changes seemed imminent under the Clinton administration, the Consortium lobbied for psychoanalysis both nationally and at the state level. Many felt the Consortium provided valuable allies in difficult times. The American became an official member in December 1994 and approved the Consortium bylaws a year later. A current joint effort is the filing of an amici curiae brief in Jaffee v. Redmond, a case involving issues of confidentiality.
At the time of her election, Schachter strongly supported delinkage, an aspect of her goal for a more open and inclusive organization. A major step in this direction was the establishment of the
Affiliates Council, a group representing candidates and promoting their active involvement. Schachter encouraged the strengthening of the Executive Council, both to further the democratization of The American and to deal more effectively with the many external threats facing analysis. The Council's functioning was enhanced by an active Steering Committee, representing chairs of Council committees, and a Committee on Societies to facilitate communication between The American and local societies. The two committees, established under Bernard Pacella's presidency, were enthusiastically taken up by Schachter during her term.
The Fellowship program, under Elise Snyder's direction, has also flourished. Over the past two years the number of applicants has risen dramatically, and the quality of applicants has been so high that the number of fellowships awarded has been doubled.
Attempts to restructure The American moved forward slowly during Schachter's tenure. Two groups — the Bylaws Committee and the Task Force on Organizational Structure and Functioning — worked jointly to prepare a report. An ad hoc select committee of the Council will continue this effort, which includes examining the often delicate relationship between Board and Council. Another unresolved issue is the question of external credentialing. Following the December meeting, the Board appointed its own committee to study the matter, in addition to the joint committee already in place.
More immediate results have been shown in the Central Office, where significant advances have been made in computerization, thereby facilitating the rapid distribution of information and the timely preparation of detailed annual budgets. In August 1995 Schachter appointed the very able Ellen Fertig to the position of administrative director.
The unresolved issues and new challenges will be taken up by incoming president Marvin Margolis. Among the areas he has identified as requiring particular attention are the private practice of analysis (including child analysis), research, community outreach, and the further empowerment of all members of The American. Margolis is known for the innovative ideas that have helped give the Michigan Psychoanalytic Society, his home base, one of the highest ratios of analytic patients to analysts in the country. (For further information, see Schachter's final President's Column on page 3 and Nancy Kulish's interview with Margolis on page 7.)