The certification process of the Board on Professional Standards has from its beginning encapsulated conflicting aims of the Association. Procedures satisfying standards-setting, membership functions, and certifying functions have evolved under pressure for clarification and still contribute to tensions. Recent e-mail dialogue about certification indicates that members have begun the next in a series of debates about Association policies governing admission to membership and its privileges.
The focus is now on the compromise that enabled passage of the 1992 by-law amendment eliminating certification as a requirement for active membership. To facilitate discussion, the editors of TAP have asked members to write about aspects of certification. My task is to discuss its history.
Current by-laws require BOPS to examine and certify individuals and to set standards for admission to training, for training, and for membership for graduates of IPA institutes. Beyond this, certification is valued for what it reveals about the state of the current practice of analysis and the effectiveness of educational programs, and as a method to satisfy conflicting aims. It is also argued that certification has stultified growth of the science of analysis, has alienated potential members, and has been used as a device to promote the political agenda of an influential, conservative minority.
From the American's founding in 1911 until 1946, when a provision was passed by the societies providing for individual membership, there was no Association membership procedure and no certification. In 1947, as psychoanalysis rapidly grew in popularity and new societies and institutes emerged, a BOPS committee was appointed to review lists of proposed members. Its ponderous name, “Committee on Procedure for Certifying Institute-Endorsed Names for Membership in the Association,” described its charge. This committee embodied the controversial view that the Association was more than a membership organization. In 1948, the by-laws assigned BOPS the duty of receiving applications for membership. This charge has been understood by many to mean that membership was to be linked to educational standards beyond those satisfied by graduation from an accredited institute (one could apply for membership only after two years had passed since one's graduation). Others understood this to mean that BOPS was assigned the task of second-guessing the institutes. By 1949, a standing committee of BOPS, the Membership Committee, reviewed applications for membership.
Membership was based on certification by BOPS that the standards for training had been met by the graduating institute. The application for membership included reports of each training case. The kind and amount of information requested in these reports has changed with time, but the application from the beginning was based on reports of clinical work.
In addition, the Membership Committee requested information about each applicant from supervisors, training analysts, and the graduating institute. Applicants' names were circulated, and active members were invited to comment in confidence about the character and fitness of each applicant. Applications that did not meet the standards for recommendation for membership were interpreted to reveal difficulties in training. Certification of the individual and information relating to accreditation of institutes were approached simultaneously. Although there was an economy in pairing these functions, the applicant was on his or her own. Other than a letter from the chair of the committee to the deferred applicant, with a copy to the institute, there was no other feedback from the committee.
Following the Membership Committee's decision about the applications, the committee chair met with institute representatives to discuss difficulties in deferred applications. These meetings anticipated the graduate's return to the institute for assistance. Help, however, was not always forthcoming. Providing help was thought by many to contaminate the application. These practices too often led to the view that a distant Membership Committee, as agent of the leadership of BOPS, exercised judgments about the worth of an institute and its graduates.
In an attempt to increase opportunities for scrutiny of its functions and to dispel this characterization, BOPS invited observers from institutes not represented on the committee to participate in Membership Committee meetings. Interviews to aid applicants were added to reviews of deferred applications.
However, changes in procedure could not change what was in the by-laws. It was widely believed that the membership procedures were in place to monitor institutes and that withholding certification of the individual graduate was punishment. In the 1950s, Association leaders unsuccessfully pursued possibilities for assigning the certifying and accrediting functions to separate organizations. However, the questions remained unresolved, and in 1977 the by-laws were amended authorizing BOPS to issue a certificate to those who had met the standards for training. A Committee on Certification replaced the Membership Committee. This partial solution separated certification from membership only to the extent that graduates who did not wish to join the Association could apply for certification.
The greater change was that the Committee on Certification now made explicit what had been previously been implied: It was the individual's ability to work as an analyst that was certified, not the institute's meeting the standards for training. Other methods had been developed for monitoring the functioning of institutes.
However, as the procedures of the new Certification Committee were based upon those of its predecessor, it was not clear that any burden had been lifted from the applicant to demonstrate that his or her training had met Association standards. The Certification Committee's study of the training experience of each applicant was justified by the view that the institute made a series of latitudinal
Arthur Rosenbaum, M.D., was appointed to the Committee on Certification in 1988 and served as chair in 1990–96. He is a training analyst at the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute. He is now on the board of the Cleveland Foundation for Psychoanalysis. He is an associate clinical professor in the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
assessments at annual progress reviews and at graduation, in contrast to the longitudinal review of the committee at the time of application for certification/membership. The reasoning was that the review would document the applicant's growth as an analyst. If the applicant's development appeared progressive, it was inferred that training standards had been met, and a recommendation for certification, and in turn for membership, could be made.
As the number of graduates increased who were either unwilling or unable to subject themselves to an examination that often appeared enigmatic and redundant following graduation from an accredited institute, complaints about the certification process accumulated. Periodically, the Certification Committee, BOPS, and ad hoc groups reviewed procedures. Changes were proposed and adopted, but the procedure remained essentially that from Membership Committee days.
Increasing numbers of graduates and members felt that placing an examination at the gate to membership interfered with the growth of psychoanalysis and the Association. Pressure increased for a referendum allowing graduates of institutes to become active members without further review of credentials. After defeat of an unlinking amendment, a compromise was reached that facilitated passage of a by-laws change in 1992.
Graduates of institutes now could become (upon review of their credentials) active members. Later, a by-law amendment further eased the passage to active membership by eliminating the credential review if the graduate had been an affiliate member of the Association. Certified active members enjoyed full voting rights. Members not certified remained ineligible to serve as Executive Councilors, Fellows of BOPS, and officers of the Association and could not vote on by-law amendments. At the gate to full membership, the Committee on Certification, in its review of the training experience to assess the applicant's ability, was perceived by many as arrogant and confusing in carrying out its agenda.
Once membership and certification were at least partially unlinked, the Committee on Certification re-examined its procedures and recommended changes to make them consistent with the new situation. Because the benefits of certification now accrued only to members of the Association, instead of being a requirement for membership, membership now became a requirement before one could apply for certification.
The shift from a review of training experience to the assessment of the applicant's current function as an analyst was facilitated by a series of changes in certification procedures after 1990. The application now consisted of three reports of the applicant's best analytic work. Reports from supervisors and from the institute were no longer requested. The application form itself was revised to consist of information necessary to determine eligibility. Applicants' names were no longer circulated for comment by the membership. Meetings with institute representatives were discontinued, and copies of letters to applicants were no longer sent to institutes. Telephone contact between those whose applications were continued (the word deferred was no longer used) and the reviewers was initiated. The task of the committee was broadened to include supplying whatever information the applicant needed to address the questions asked by the committee, and the applicant was now invited to participate in deciding how best to address these questions. Discussion groups were added to the existing workshops at Association meetings to demystify the process.
Clarification of the procedures continues as the by-laws make clearer exactly what is asked of the certification process. Many continue to see certification as an important step in the development of an analyst, and the process itself helps us to understand better how to prepare candidates to take this step.
Predictably, tensions have again mounted to the point that there is talk of additional by-law proposals permitting full privileges for all active members. At the moment, the consensus seems that only election as a Fellow to BOPS and appointment to training analyst status might require certification. However, the debate is in its earliest phase, and the compromises to be worked out have not yet been framed. What is certain is that change will come as the membership struggles to sort out the inherent contradictions of our complex organization.