In this age of managed care, descriptive psychiatry with a focus on short-term interventions, and biological treatments, many psychoanalytically oriented clinicians feel isolated. Convinced that the psychoanalytic point of view is useful, these clinicians are interested in developing a more cohesive community that values them and their knowledge and training as psychoanalytic psychotherapists. The psychoanalytic orientation unifies these clinicians regardless of their clinical disciplines. Until recently, there has not been a community to bring them together.
The Ad Hoc Committee on Psychotherapy Associates of The American provides a forum for these psychotherapists at the national level. The committee is helping to develop a plan that will include them in the APsaA within a non-membership category. The committee also can provide advice to local societies that are planning to establish relationships with psychotherapists. Although societies are free to develop their own unique relationships with psychotherapists, a frequent model has been autonomous associations for psychoanalytic thought (APTs) affiliated with a local society.
APTs often include psychoanalytically oriented individuals from non-clinical disciplines who have an interest in applying the psychoanalytic viewpoint to their areas of expertise. The APTs have their own executive boards. They organize programs designed to satisfy the interests of their members and their communities at large. The topics covered include both clinical and applied activities in the arts, humanities, and everyday life.
Baltimore-Washington, Michigan, Philadelphia, and San Francisco have APTs at present. Their memberships range from less than 100 at the newer sites to more than 500 in San Francisco. The San Francisco group has both clinical and non-clinical membership categories. Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Virginia, and Wisconsin have all expressed interest in having APTs and are in various stages of establishing them.
As a co-chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Psychotherapy Associates, I visited two societies this past summer, and the visits resulted in the formation of two new APTs. In Cincinnati, in June, I met with those interested in being on an APT board under the leadership of the Cincinnati Society's president, Edward Kohn. I met with members of the society to address their questions and concerns. This was followed by a meeting over coffee, open to the greater community; many attended and seemed enthusiastic. The society hopes to establish an APT executive board by this fall.
In August, in Los Angeles, I met with Concetta Alfano and other analysts from the Southern California Society who are interested in the idea of an APT. Within two weeks of that meeting, they had developed an APT planning board and had their first planning meeting. By the new year, they may have their executive board in place.
I have also been consulting with Jane Belkin of the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Society. Jane has established an APT planning board, and I visited that group in November. Laurel E. Nelson, my committee co-chair, has been consulting with Gloria Shoemaker of the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Society to begin a planning committee there.
An active APT starts with a small group of clinicians with backgrounds in psychiatry, psychology, social work, and nursing. Sharing a common interest in psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy, they form a planning board or committee to conceptualize the organization. This planning board develops the mission statement and by-laws and proposes members of the first executive board. Programs are innovative and creative, reaching clinicians as well as other interested individuals.
A sampling of such programs includes the Baltimore-Washington APT's five-part seminar on ethics with Barry Landau, beginning in January 1999. The Michigan APT's yearly workshop on January 9, 1999, will be on “The Interface of Attachment, Trauma, and Gender,” with Susan Coates and Don Spivak. The San Francisco APT offers its members a series of ongoing, relaxed dialogues with analysts called “Informal Conversations.” The Philadelphia APT has applied for a grant to bring Serena Wieder, who works with Stanley Greenspan, to speak to daycare workers. Depending on the outcome of the grant application, the Philadelphia group hopes to enable up to 150 inner-city daycare workers to attend Wieder's presentation free of charge.
As APTs evolve, they have a positive influence on the local community. Attendance increases at programs, extension division courses, and psychotherapy training programs. The number of applicants for training also increases. There is the ripple effect as more therapists seek psychoanalytic treatment and supervision and support their local psychoanalytic institute, society, and foundation. Thus far, each APT enriches its psychoanalytic community. The greater community benefits by using the discipline's understanding of human behavior in a variety of outreach projects.
At the national level, the Ad Hoc Committee on Psychotherapy Associates has established a database of more than 700 psychotherapists. While the local APTs are multidisciplinary, representing various academicians, clinicians, and other professionals, this national database exclusively records psychotherapists (not candidates or students) licensed by the state in which they practice and holding at least a master's degree.
Our committee hopes to convert the database to a non-membership category within The American. Those electing to participate and pay minimal dues will receive pertinent mailings, pay reduced fees at national meetings, get a free subscription to TAP, and be included in a published directory. JAPA will be offered at the professional rate of $65.
To welcome psychotherapists to the APsaA national meetings, the Ad Hoc Committee on Psychotherapy Associates is organizing the first discussion group specifically designed for psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists who want to augment their skills. On Wednesday, December 16, at the Annual Meeting in New York, the discussion will focus on “The Use of the Transference and Countertransference in a Once- or Twice-Weekly Psychotherapy.” The discussion group will address the special difficulties of psychotherapists in understanding and working with transference and countertransference material in the once- or twice-weekly psychotherapy process. Notes from ongoing psychotherapies will be presented by an experienced psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and Theodore J. Jacobs will present the formal discussion. There will be an opportunity for open discussion.
The co-chairs of the Ad Hoc Committee on Psychotherapy Associates, Laurel E. Nelson (301-984-1619) and Gail Halem Trivedi (734-996-4281), are available to discuss the committee's activities. Please feel free to contact either of them.
Gail Halem Trivedi, M.S.W., is in private practice in Ann Arbor, Mich. She serves on the executive board at Allen Creek Preschool and is a family consultant there. She is an adjunct lecturer in the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan and co-chair of the APsaA's Ad Hoc Committee on Psychotherapy Associates.