Having begun with 14 members in 1962, the Denver Psychoanalytic Society is now 75 members strong. This still fairly small but enthusiastic base supports a myriad of educational and community-oriented programs designed to make available to the general community the humanistic aims of psychoanalytic and psychoanalytic developmental ideas. These members staff the Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis, but the particular mission of our society is educational outreach and service to the community. Our newsletter is published twice a year. A recent expanded mailing netted 142 new subscribers.
Besides wearing two hats (as members of both institute and society), most of us are active as teachers in many settings. In conjunction with the Denver Institute, we offer a two-year Psychodynamic Psychotherapies Program which has found an eager subscription among colleagues in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and social work. We will graduate our third class of eight students next spring.
Many society members teach and supervise psychiatric residents, child fellows, and psychology and social worker interns as part of their respective training programs. In November 1997, two of our members received outstanding clinical faculty awards from the Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, bringing to five the total number of teaching awards received by our members this past year. Analysts teach and supervise at all levels of the residency, but starting in July 1998, PGY3 residents will have the opportunity to enroll in a new Intensive Psychodynamic Treatment Track for PGY3s, a collaboration between the Department of Psychiatry and the Denver Psychoanalytic Institute. Our members are also active in teaching and training medical students.
We encourage psychoanalytic thinking through an academic awards program. Some of our members are available to function officially as psychoanalytic mentors to residents and graduate students in our area.
For the professional and public community, we have developed a tremendously varied and stimulating program of monthly scientific presentations under the leadership of Laurence Hall. He has brought new vigor to the program committee and has drawn upon his long and significant relationship with psychoanalysis to bring important national contributors to our community. Local contributors' papers have met with an excellent reception.
In addition to formal scientific programs, members offer an extension program. We also offer consultation to community programs, schools, and preschools. We are particularly excited and proud of this developing contribution to children and families in our community.
We are working in conjunction with the Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis to establish a foundation. Meanwhile, we are in the process of setting up a 501(c)3 fund for our society, so that we may receive donations to help support our many community activities.
The challenge ever on our minds is how one can have a career in psychoanalysis in these stressful times. Nevertheless, enthusiasm is high among younger members, who bring talent and energy to our many enterprises. We've had a lot of feedback from people who have had psychoanalytic training and feel good about their experience. We want to be helpful and useful, to share ideas with one another, and to make ourselves accessible to the community.
Our biggest problem may be that we often feel overextended; we are still too few in number to do all we want to do. But this also means that no one need feel excluded from the opportunity to participate in the society's activities.
Earlene Dal Pozzo, M.D., is the editor of the Newsletter of the Denver Psychoanalytic Society.