In spite of its small size (45 members), The Cleveland Psychoanalytic Society is an important educational and treatment source to the community. About 20 years ago, we developed extension courses to reach the community at large. These are held in the evenings throughout the academic year. Topics range from basic psychoanalytic concepts to applied psychoanalysis in the study of film and literature. A study of Shakespeare's writing was well attended for the past eight years, followed by a study of Dante's work. This year we are going to tackle Milton's Paradise Lost.
In 1991, we had a “town meeting” of all members of the Cleveland psychoanalytic community, including non-M.D. child analysts of the Hanna Perkins Center for Child Development, to discuss problems facing us in the current anti-psychoanalytic climate. As a result of this meeting we began a number of projects, including publication of a newsletter, Psychoanalysis in Cleveland, which goes out five times per year to all mental health professionals in the area. The September issue provides dates of scientific meetings, conferences, symposia, etc., and is delivered to all physicians in the area in addition to its regular distribution.
Another development that year was the establishment of the Katan Center for Psychoanalytic Treatment. This was in response to our concern over the growing crisis in the care of those with emotional problems. With the increasing use of medication and a variety of short-term treatment modalities encouraged by third-party payers and HMOs — a problem with which TAP readers are familiar — psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy were becoming less and less available, as was training in psychodynamic psychotherapy.
The Katan Center is named after Annie and Maurits Katan, who were instrumental in the establishment of The Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute in the 1950s (see “Growing Pains in the Cleveland Institute,” page 37). The Katan Center is unique in being staffed by both candidates and full members of the society who are willing to give their time at reduced fees for the evaluation and treatment of patients according to their ability to pay. The treatment of these patients is modestly subsidized by monies collected from full-fee patients seen at the center, as well as grants and funds raised from the community. The first grant, awarded by the Siehler Mental Health Foundation of Cleveland, had to be matched by $25,000 raised from the society's membership, to get the Katan Center off the ground. Every single member contributed to this matching grant.
In 1992 we recruited The Friends of the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Society to help raise funds for the Katan Center as well as to educate the community on the need to keep psychoanalysis alive. The Friends have proven an important source of intellectual enrichment to the community. They sponsor activities illustrating applied psychoanalysis through the discussion of movies, plays, and books. Members of the Friends also are invited to attend selected scientific meetings of the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Society.
Since 1992, the Katan Center has offered three scientific symposia dealing with trauma and the cycle of life. All were well attended and well received. The Katan Center schedules twice-monthly case conferences focusing on suitability for analysis as well as such issues as the meaning of subsidies to the treatment process, which we hope will lead to a research project. In tandem with the Katan Center we also offer a postgraduate psychoanalytic psychotherapy program. This is a two-year program for clinicians with at least a master's degree and licensure.
Society members teach a comprehensive four-year course in dynamic psychotherapy to residents in the three psychiatric residency training programs in Cleveland. The curriculum, established by the Institute's Liaison Committee, working with the residency training directors, includes didactic courses in dynamic psychiatry and individual supervision, plus a continuous case seminar. Individual electives are also available. The Hanna Perkins Center offers rotation to residents to observe children in the therapeutic nursery and kindergarten and discuss these observations with child psychoanalysts. This exposes them to the treatment method of therapy via the parent (a program peculiar to Hanna Perkins), besides the application of psychoanalytic method to the understanding and treatment of children.
During the past two years, psychiatry residents who have been exposed to our teaching applied for the fellowship sponsored by the American Psychoanalytic Association. Two residents were awarded fellowships, and a third was assigned an analyst mentor.
Our library of more than 3,000 books and bound volumes of periodicals on psychoanalysis also offers the Duallook search program with Jour-look files (a database of psychiatric publications) and is open to the academic community. Monthly scientific meetings in which papers are presented by local and nationally recognized psychoanalysts are scheduled throughout the academic year. Psychiatric residents and interested mental health workers are invited to attend and are welcome to participate in the stimulating discussions.
A group of internists has been meeting monthly for the last three years with two analysts to discuss the dynamics of their “difficult” patients. Graduate students in psychology have had year-long seminars with analysts to discuss their evaluations and continued cases. For several years in the past, members of the society met with a group of judges to study the process of sentencing and such issues as the insanity plea.
Over the years there have been several study groups sponsored by the society, studying the psychoanalytic process through ongoing case discussions by its members. For the past couple of years we have had a well-attended group studying object relation theories. This last one is institute-sponsored to prepare the faculty to teach such a course to the candidates.
We have also taken the first steps toward establishing a foundation to help support our endeavors. This is of pressing importance, since we gradually have been getting more applicants to the Katan Center for psychoanalytic treatment than we are currently able to subsidize. In addition to providing a service to the community, the Katan Center also provides control cases for the candidates.
Rachel M. Baker, M.D., is president of the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Society.