As the new president of the Affiliate Council, I am pursuing three major goals: (1) maximum participation of affiliate members in the Affiliate Council, with an emphasis on encouraging new members to become involved in leadership roles and committees, both on an affiliate level and on a national level; (2) pursuit of excellence in training of candidates, and (3) putting into process the request of the affiliates that their membership be changed to a voting membership.
The Affiliate Council has existed for nine years. During that time the organizational structure of the council has become quite solid, with an active membership as of September 1, 1999, of 79 percent. There are 748 affiliate members, out of a total of 946 candidates; these figures do not include the new candidates matriculating in the fall of 1999. We have a very active Affiliate Participation Committee, chaired by Nancy Bleiden, and a Local Candidate's Organizations Committee, chaired by Gail Glenn. These committees are creatively finding ways to involve new affiliate members into the council. The second issue of the Affiliate Council newsletter was published in April before the Washington meetings. Andrea Weiss is our editor. The newsletter presented reports of all of the candidate's activities and information about affiliate activities for the Washington meetings.
Our major concern at this time is to find affiliates who are willing to become involved in the work of the Executive Committee of the Affiliate Council. Our delegates are continually changing, presenting problems in continuity. We made a concerted effort last spring to contact each delegate to find out their interests and what committee they might be interested in serving on. In the last election it was impossible to get a full slate of candidates to run for office. Two of our officers may not be able to continue serving because of the financial burden of more travel and lost time from work. In response, the Budget and Finance Committee agreed to increase the council's travel budget. We have greatly appreciated the support of this committee and the Executive Committee of the American.
Photo by William Jeffrey
Participation in leadership of the Affiliate Council clearly leads to further leadership roles in the American and in the international organization. Andrea Weiss was appointed to the Board's Committee on Institutes as the candidate representative. Lee Jaffe, outgoing president of the Affiliate Council, has been appointed chairman of the Membership Committee of the Executive Council. He has also recently been elected the next president of the International Psychoanalytic Studies Organization; affiliate members are automatically members of IPSO. Bill Glover was elected the treasurer of IPSO, and Era Lowenstein is the new IPSO North American Vice President.
The emphasis of the Executive Committee on the pursuit of excellence in training has been threefold. We have attempted to maximize the opportunity for affiliate members to exchange their experiences about their training. We recently completed a detailed questionnaire, developed in collaboration with Project 2000, asking each candidate to evaluate his or her experiences of training. We are continuing to give the Scientific Paper Prize for the outstanding paper on psychoanalysis written by an affiliate member.
The topic of the spirited round-robin discussion at the Affiliate Council meetings in Washington meetings was “Achieving Good-Enough Training Through Better Communication.” We discussed ways to facilitate communication among candidates, faculty, and the progression committees. In some institutes candidates appeared to be highly integrated into the organizational structure of the institutes; one institute had a candidate on its Education Committee for certain portions of the meetings. Others reported no integration at all. Most appeared to be moving toward encouraging open dialogue.
The questionnaire “Foundations of Creativity and Curiosity — The Development of Analytic Identity” was mailed to each candidate in May. We received close to 200 replies, an excellent return. The questionnaire attempted to elicit both subjective experiences, such as “What was your best/worst experience in training?” and yes/no responses about creativity, critical thinking, and clinical immersion. The results of the questionnaire have been mailed to the other members of Project 2000, and a report of the results will be presented to the Board at the December meetings.
The winner of the Scientific Paper Prize for the best affiliate paper on psychoanalysis in 1999 will present his or her winning paper at the December meetings. Joan Lynch has been in charge of the competition for the past two years. The idea of the prize was to encourage affiliate scholars to present their work at a special forum. Burton Hutto presented his paper in New York in December 1998, and it was very well received. There were many inquiries this year, and interest was high.
At the December 1998 meeting the Affiliate Council voted overwhelmingly to request that the affiliate non-voting membership be changed to a voting membership. We are presenting this request to the Board on Professional Standards in the belief that it can be considered with sensitivity and the implications carefully thought through. The average age and amount of experience that most candidates have at this time suggest a much more mature individual than the previous composition of the candidates. The Affiliate Council hopes to explore this proposition slowly and thoughtfully, beginning at the institute level and then presenting it to the Board.
Nancy Brehm, Ph.D., has been involved with the Affiliate Council since its inception, first as membership chairman, then as president-elect, and now as president. She is in private practice in Boston and supervises trainees at Cambridge Hospital, a training facility of Harvard.