In May 1998, the newly reconstituted Membership Committee of the Council was charged with seeking out and bringing back into the fold the Lost Lambs (LLs). The LLs are graduate analysts who are eligible to be members of the American but who have resigned, been suspended for non-payment of dues (a kind of passive resignation), or have never joined. In recent years, many new categories of membership have been formed (please note cartoon). The time had come for internal outreach or perhaps external inreach. The committee was instructed to seek them out and bring them back alive. Though no bounty was to be awarded, the committee embarked on the search with enthusiasm.
The files of the ApsaA central office (CO) contained the names of those who had been, but no longer were, members because of the reasons cited above. (The CO files date back to the 1970s and contain the names of some members who are by now long dead.) Finding the names of those who were eligible for membership but who had never joined was a far more difficult task. The CO had no record of them. It was necessary to compare current society rosters with the CO roster database and note the names in the local rosters that did not appear in the CO files. Since each society has its own categories of membership and eligibility requirements (Society A might designate as a friend a person that Society B calls a regular member and Society C calls an associate member), the difficulty of finding those who might be eligible to (re)join was considerable. And just in case you wanted to know, the CO does not record the society to which members of the American belong. Only the Membership Committee has those data — and is currently negotiating sale to the Association for a mind-bogglingly large fee.
Ultimately, a list of almost 680 names was produced, about half from the CO files and half from the Membership Committee's endeavors. All of these analysts received a letter inviting them to join or rejoin the American. The letter mentioned some specific reasons they might have left the Association: the lawsuit, too much internal politicking, certification, interests of the organization different from their interests, dues too high, and practice not a focus of the Association, among others.
Initially, some objections were raised to the content of this letter — “You can't tell them that they may have been correct to leave” — but eventually the committee won out in its belief that only by addressing the legitimate complaints of the LLs could some of them be persuaded to join or rejoin. The most sanguine hopes were for thirty-five new members. As part of the “New Introductory Offer” made to the LLs, both JAPA and the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis generously agreed to offer free one-year subscriptions.
Twenty people responded to the letter. Almost sixty letters were returned marked “addressee unknown.” These names were checked using both the AMA and “Bigfoot” search engines on the Web, and the letters were remailed. The committee members and others who volunteered (were bribed, coerced, or otherwise dragooned) then began to call the approximately 80 people who had not responded to the mailing. At the time of this writing, 170 analysts remain to be called.
Many of the phone calls lasted forty-five minutes or more while the LLs recited a litany of their objections to the American. One surprising finding was that many analysts did not join because they did not want to write up their cases and go through the certification procedure; apparently they did not know (despite being active members of their local societies) about the de-linkage amendment. They were unaware that they could now join the Association as regular members without going through certification.
Among the most frequently listed reasons for not joining or for leaving:
“This is too little, too late — I am now retired.”
“The American's interests are not mine.”
“I no longer practice psychoanalysis.”
“The American is an arrogant organization, rife with internal politics, and not interested in the well-being of its members.”
“It was an insult to require a graduate of one of the approved institutes to undergo certification to join.”
Many had dropped out because they were refused certification; others left because they were passed over by their local institutes for appointment as training analysts. Some will not join because they feel that the American is still a two-tiered organization. Many left during the lawsuit with Division 39 because they felt that the American was taking an immoral and untenable position; others left after the resolution of the lawsuit because they did not wish to be members of a non-medical organization. Several rambunctious LLs commented that they did not want to be members of an organization where women played so large a role. Some were bitter. The word “arrogant” was used even by some who were not bitter. Some wished the American well but had no desire to (re)join. The size of the dues was a frequently expressed concern, both by older analysts and by young analysts: “Too little return for so much money.”
Almost everyone who responded to the phone call was surprised and pleased with the letter: “Finally the organization is telling the truth.” Many were surprised that they were being called, their opinions solicited and heard. The committee members and volunteers spoke to the LLs of the changes that had taken place in the American and the changes contemplated for the future, of the need for the American to represent analysts of all persuasions and views. All of the LLs had received a copy of TAP to which the callers referred when speaking of these organizational changes. Once the silence of the lambs was broken, a surprising number agreed to (re)join.
Another surprise — though to analysts it should not be surprising — was just how many people were willing to try again once they believed that their concerns had been heard.
The members of the Membership Committee who labored so hard are Jill Berkowitz, Arthur J. Farley, Lana Prince Fishkin, Ralph Fishkin, Daniel H. Jacobs, Salley S. Jessee, Henry Kaminer, M. Barrie Richmond, Joanne Seltzer, and Harriet L. Wolfe. The volunteers are Lycia Alexander-Guerra, Jerome Blackman, Mel Bornstein, Elizabeth Brett, John Booth, Barbara Deutsch, Scott Dowling, James Edgar, Ralph Engle, Robert Glick, Eugene Goldberg, Richard Gottlieb, James Hansell,
Arthur Lew, Richard Lightbody, Robert Lupi, Mali Mann, Carol Munschauer, Melissa Nelken, Malkah Notman, David Orbison, Floyd Rosen, Allan Rosenblatt, Barbara Rosenfeld, Richard West, Susan Workum, Josephine Wright, and Alan Zaur.