The Fall Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association will be held December 16–20 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
In its two-year history, the Ad Hoc Committee on Outreach for the Scientific and Educational Programs of The American has put much of its energy into the May Annual Meeting. Our efforts have paid off. Both in San Diego and Toronto, we received tremendous support from the local communities. Attendance was high, and our relationship to the greater psychoanalytic community was enhanced.
Now it is time to turn our attention to New York. Historically, our Fall Meeting has been successful without much work. But our mission is greater than attracting attendees. We want to get to know our psychoanalytic colleagues from other organizations.
The Program Committee, as usual, is making the Outreach Committee's work easy. The Fall Meeting offers a theoretically diverse group of presenters: ego psychologists, relationalists, Kleinians, intersubjectivists, and Jungians, among others. There will be more than 90 discussion groups, and we encourage members to submit further topics for discussion.
The panels promise to be thought-provoking. On Friday and Saturday, December 18–19, a two-part panel (“Have We Changed Our View of the Unconscious in Contemporary Clinical Work?”) will deal with the notion of the unconscious in contemporary clinical practice. A panel on December 19 will address an extremely important though often neglected topic, “Race in the Clinical Situation.” The public forum, “Homophobia: Analysis of a ‘Permissible’ Prejudice,” will include Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Professor Peter Gomes among the panelists [see page 2]. The final panel on Sunday will take up the historical debate between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, which continues to have implications for our contemporary clinical practice: “The Controversial Discussions: Fifty Years Later.”
Past president Marvin Margolis will be presenting an important plenary address titled “Psychoanalysis in the United States — A Troubled Passage” [see page 6]. Our plenary presentation will be clinically relevant. Shelley Orgel will present “Letting Go: Some Thoughts About Termination” [see page 6].
As usual we have specific programs designed for psychiatric residents, and students of psychology and social work. The Ad Hoc Committee on Psychotherapy Associates will offer a special discussion group on “The Use of Transference and Countertransference in Once- or Twice-Weekly Psychotherapy.” There will also be special presentations and social activities for candidates and affiliate members.
In the evening there will be many opportunities for friends and colleagues to meet at cocktail parties, dinners, the theater benefit (Art, which received the 1998 Tony Award for Best Play), and museums and galleries. Invite your colleagues, students, and supervisees to the meeting. Everyone appreciates a personal invitation. Our committee will do everything possible to welcome each attendee. Anyone who will be attending the meeting for the first time and who wants a little special attention is encouraged to call me at 310-826-1281 or e-mail me at szalusky@aol.com.
Hope to see you in New York!
Sharon Zalusky, Ph.D., is chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Outreach for Scientific and Educational Programs.