At the 1999 Fall Meeting in New York, the Executive Council established an award for the “American Psychoanalytic Association Community Service Clinic of the Year.” Applications for the award will be reviewed by the Council's Committee on Community Clinics. Its recommendations will be presented to the Executive Council in December 2000.
The criteria for a community service clinic are outlined below.
The clinic is affiliated actively with or is part of a psychoanalytic society or institute.
It provides a broad range of services, offering psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, medication management, psychological testing, and specialized treatment techniques.
It provides services to the community on an ongoing basis — operating continuously, becoming an integral part of community mental health care.
It offers a sliding fee scale, making the benefits of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy available to undergraduate and graduate students, young couples and their families, and managed care–limited clientele — thereby counteracting managed care–driven denial of such therapies and claims that they are invalid and undesirable.
It provides a means through which psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic ideas actively interact with the community, offering programs that are part of the intellectual and academic life of the community through the clinic directly or through related society and institute programs.
It provides a site for training in psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalytic concepts, offering psychodynamic clinical experience to psychotherapists enrolled in psychodynamic psychotherapy certificate programs and/or graduate students in the mental health–related disciplines, such as medicine, psychiatry, psychology, social work, family counseling, and others.
It provides supervised cases for psychoanalytic candidates, fulfilling the traditional role of some psychoanalytic clinics.
It provides a venue for clinical research, fostering outcome and other clinical research.
Applications for consideration as the “American Psychoanalytic Association Community Service Clinic of the Year” may be made by presidents of psychoanalytic societies or directors of psychoanalytic institutes. The letters of application should detail how the particular clinic is affiliated with the society and/or institute, how it meets all or most of the above criteria, what it has contributed to the development of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic ideas, its significance and duration within the community it serves, and the way in which it contributes to the functions of the society and/or institute.
Synergies between the community clinic and the psychoanalytic effort will be important considerations in making this award. Supporting letters and materials are welcome and may be very important in assessing the contribution made by the clinic.
Nominations should be addressed to Jon Meyer, M.D., Chairman, Committee on Psychoanalytic Clinics, American Psychoanalytic Association, 309 East 49th Street, New York, NY 10017, no later than October 1, 2000.