As I see it, here are some ideas whose time has come.
Candidate voting rights. As cultural and educational perspectives have changed, there have been profound changes in candidates' role in institute, society, and national organizational life. It is now time to extend to candidates the right to vote in national elections. This initiative is being proposed by our Affiliate Council. The inclusion of candidates as voting members can be another way for our national organization to support candidates' emerging identity as analysts. It will also help to forge closer and mutually beneficial connections between candidates and our national organization.
Help for the impaired faculty analyst. At the BOPS meeting in December 1998, Jerome Winer presented the recommendations of the Committee on Psychoanalytic Education (COPE) Study Group on the Impaired Faculty Analyst. The study group recommended that institutes develop procedures to address the problem of the impaired faculty analyst. The committee further recommended that BOPS establish a standing committee to support and advise the local institutes as they develop their procedures and to provide a forum where institutes can exchange experience. In May, BOPS will consider whether to establish this committee (see page 9).
A separate budget for BOPS. In December, the Ad Hoc Task Force on BOPS Structure and Function recommended an independent budgetary process for BOPS. The task force further recommended that a successor committee continue to consider the issue of funding for BOPS and other related matters. The successor committee, chaired by Mort Reiser, is the BOPS Ad Hoc Committee on Structure and Function.
The relationship between an educational board and a membership organization is a delicate one; ultimately, both educational and membership aims (which include practice needs) determine the health and integrity of our profession. In striving to create optimal support for the discipline of psychoanalysis, we must balance autonomy and interrelationship of membership and educational goals. Our current budget arrangement does not contribute to this optimal balance. Educational budgetary needs are currently weighed, item by item, against a variety of other vital organizational needs. The budgetary needs of BOPS, which are the actualization of educational policy determinations, are subject to further review by the Budget Committee and the Executive Council.
Those with the official capacity to recognize the authenticity of educational boards, such as the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) or the Department of Education, insist that the budget of an educational board must be appropriately shielded from other organizational interests. This kind of protection helps guarantee that an educational board will function with both the reality and the perception of integrity.
There are a number of possible ways to provide BOPS with a fixed amount of funding to dispense according to an internal budgetary process. Although I am suggesting that BOPS “micromanage” its funding, the Executive Council, in its responsibility as the Board of Directors of the Association, must maintain oversight of BOPS expenditures. The Executive Council would determine and verify that BOPS used its funds for educational purposes in accordance with the by-law mandates to BOPS.
Voting representatives to BOPS from new training facilities and provisional institutes. As developing institutes progress toward full accreditation by BOPS, they graduate from new training facility status to provisional institute status. Currently, the by-laws allow for. one non-voting Fellow to BOPS from new training facilities and two non-voting Fellows to BOPS from provisional institutes.
In May, BOPS will consider the Committee on New Training Facilities' proposal that our new training facilities have one voting Fellow and our provisional institutes have two voting Fellows (as do accredited institutes). Should we not include within BOPS the experience and perspectives of our educators from the developing facilities? Such inclusion will be of benefit both to the developing programs and to BOPS, and it will enhance the emerging working relationship between the new facilities and BOPS. I hope that this proposal will be supported by BOPS and then by the Executive Council, which would consider the required by-law change.
BOPS recognition of outstanding pedagogy. We have a remarkable national cadre of dedicated and talented educators. Many of our teachers are exploring innovative ways to achieve the rigorous and open inquiry that we now understand is crucial for analytic education and the formation of analytic identity. Is it not time to recognize those who have made singular contributions to local and national education? In May, the BOPS Membership Committee will ask BOPS to endorse its proposal to define and implement awards for excellence in psychoanalytic pedagogy. These awards will both recognize deserving recipients and help highlight and disseminate the values and approaches of the honored educators.
Enhanced educational aspects of the certification process. In December, BOPS endorsed a wide range of changes in the procedures of the Certification Committee. These changes will allow each applicant to present work in a written form and to discuss cases with members of the Certification Committee. The anonymity of the applicant will be protected to the extent feasible. We expect that these changes will help the committee achieve its goals of providing a process that is as open, fair, and collegial as possible. (See page 11.)
BOPS is also developing programs to support the educational aspects of certification. In May, under the leadership of Stephen Bernstein, BOPS will launch one workshop to assist members with case writing and a second workshop to assist educators in creating curricular approaches to teaching candidates and recent graduates about case writing. One of the goals of these workshops will be to develop the institute faculty skills in teaching case writing.
In May, the Membership Committee will also propose that BOPS begin an initiative to provide a regular case-writing consultant to institutes that might be interested in such a service. These consultants would visit each assigned institute for one weekend each year and work with candidates and recent graduates to build their skills and confidence in writing up their work. With new support from the BOPS workshops and the Membership Committee, not only will more of our members feel prepared and confident about achieving certification, but also we will have also helped develop our members' analytic identities.
Fellows of the American Psychoanalytic Association. There are various paths to distinguished achievement in psychoanalysis.
Many of our members have contributed to clinical and theoretical scholarship, research, and pedagogy. We should recognize these accomplishments, just as through our current certification we recognize accomplishments in clinical psychoanalysis. I propose that BOPS broaden the concept of certification to recognize distinction in a range of post-graduation psychoanalytic areas.
The current certification would become a “certification in clinical psychoanalysis.” When a member achieved one of the various forms of certification that I am proposing, the member would become a “Fellow of the American Psychoanalytic Association.” Fellows of the Association would be eligible for all the current organizational rights of “certified” members, with the sole exception that only Fellows who are certified in clinical psychoanalysis could become training analysts and serve as Fellows to the Board.
Advanced psychoanalytic degrees. In recent years, a number of our institutes have explored the possibility of offering advanced degrees. The Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute has granted doctoral degrees for some time. Because of some recent developments from CHEA, an organization that recognizes accrediting agencies, BOPS should investigate the possibility of our institutes granting psychoanalytic advanced degrees.
As you may know, CHEA (formerly CORPA) and DOE both recognize credentialing agencies. CHEA's recognition may be the more important one to achieve. According to the newly emerging CHEA regulations, accrediting agencies will qualify for CHEA recognition only if more than 50 percent of the institutions accredited by the agency are degree-granting programs. Unless we are able to qualify as an exception, an accrediting agency in psychoanalysis would not be eligible for CHEA recognition.
In addition to the issue of CHEA regulations, there is an inherent value to granting degrees. Although many of our institutes are already offering some of what would be required to achieve a doctoral degree, institutes would be inspired to develop their programs further. Such development might include recruiting faculty members from universities and requiring basic training in research methodologies.
I have appointed a BOPS Ad Hoc Task Force on Psychoanalytic Advanced Degrees, chaired by Phyllis Tyson, to explore the desirability and feasibility of our educational programs granting advanced degrees.
Accrediting independent training facilities. A growing number of independent training facilities have expressed interest in exploring affiliation with the American. A fundamental aspect of such an affiliation would be accreditation by BOPS. We do not have a model or history to guide us through the many issues involved in exploring the accreditation of independent training facilities. BOPS must actively address this matter, for the benefit of the Association and, more importantly, for the benefit of psychoanalysis. David Carlson will chair an Ad Hoc Task Force on Accreditation of Independent Training Facilities. The committee is charged to develop principles and guidelines for working with independent institutes. Ronald Benson and Ralph Engle, the two candidates running for the next chair of BOPS, are the remaining members of the task force.