For the past decade, a small and changing group of IPA members has been working quietly to alter the shape of the IPA to make it more functional and effective. No less than four committees, beginning in 1997, have formulated the major organizational changes that have occurred and those that are now being proposed by the Task Force on Structure and Mission (SAM).
At first there was no overall plan. The first three task forces had to solve three specific and urgent problems as they arose:
The task force that recommended the creation of the House of Delegates (HoD) under the administration of IPA president Joseph Sandler began a process of improving the representation of the presidents of societies and the regions in the IPA governance.
The task force that recommended a new corporate structure for the IPA as a nonprofit corporation in order to protect its assets against lawsuits, provide flexibility in spending, and acquire new contributions undertook this endeavor under the administration of IPA president Horacio Etchegoyen and was completed in his administration when …
The Task Force on the Constitution and By-Laws recommended changes necessary to accommodate the new non-profit corporate arrangement.
In retrospect, it is obvious that these problems were not isolated events but were symptoms linked to the breakdown of the organizational structure and function of the IPA. The appointment of the SAM task force represents a shift from damage control to a deliberate effort by the administration of IPA president Otto Kernberg to change the underlying structure.
The idea that an organization has an underlying structure that was adequate and appropriate to its beginnings, but is no longer capable of sustaining an organization that has grown and changed, should come as no surprise to psychoanalysts. First, a serious dystonic symptom — the lack of representation of the presidents of the societies in the IPA governance — was recognized and solved by a temporary measure, namely the creation of the HoD.
Not surprisingly, such modifications ultimately led to new and more severe conflicts between the old structure and the new structure of the HoD. Moreover, new “symptoms” began appearing. For example, the added expense of the HoD increased the administrative costs of the IPA to a level that was inconsistent with its being a non-profit corporation. As attempts were made to solve these new symptoms, it became increasingly apparent that the latent structure that forced the symptom to appear would need to be addressed. Unfortunately, this had to be deferred while the eruption of other symptoms were managed with the limited resources available to the IPA. Here I refer to the two task forces appointed to solve the extremely urgent problem of the unsafe non-profit corporate status.
The efforts of the various task forces led to a time of relative organizational calm, and the Executive Council acted promptly to appoint SAM. Its mandate, distributed to all members of the IPA, was to define the mission of the IPA and to create an organizational structure that can discharge this mission in a representative, accountable, and efficient manner. The members of SAM were asked to act on behalf of the IPA as a whole.
The SAM committee itself was selected to be as representative of the IPA as possible in terms of the HoD, the three regions (North America, Latin America, and Europe), and the Executive Council. It also was kept to a small size to maximize its efficiency and minimize its expense to the IPA. The members of the SAM committee are Inga Villarreal (chair), Jon Meyer, Robert Tyson, David Sachs, Sverre Varvin, Sara Zac de Filc, Luiz Carlos Mabilde, and Peter Fonagy.
SAM began its work in December 1998. The most important decision made by SAM at its first session was to circulate a series of reports for feedback from various constituencies within the IPA. No one believed that a workable plan could be achieved within the committee by a “top-down” approach. Each version circulated would be modified
David M. Sachs, M.D., is a training and supervising analyst in the Philadelphia Association for Psychoanalysis, a clinical professor of Mental Health Sciences at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, a past IPA vice-president, chair of the IPA Committee on New Groups, and IPA Associate Secretary for North America.
* With apologies to Budd Schulberg: What Makes Sammy Run? .
until one suitable for a vote by the entire IPA membership could be achieved. “SAM III” now has been circulated to the entire membership. It represents a stepwise improvement over the initial version. This interactive method provided extensive external feedback that added to the extensive internal feedback that preceded each version. (For example, there were nine intra-committee versions just of SAM III).
A SAM IV report will be developed after the feedback to SAM III is processed. This version will be presented to the Executive Council meeting in January 2001, along with a draft of the Constitution and bylaws changes it requires, so that a vote on the entire package can occur at the same time the ballots for the next IPA election are sent out to members in February 2001.
The spirit of the SAM task force has been extraordinary. We became entirely committed to the need to preserve the international organization of the IPA and to respect the fact that it had grown in remarkable and idiosyncratic ways that express differences among its members. Individuals often asked us what use the IPA is to them, their society, and their region. These people questioned the need to support an organization that seems irrelevant to them.
The SAM task force took these concerns seriously. The answers we arrived at in our internal discussions are the sustaining force behind the enormous efforts expended by everyone on SAM. We never would have agreed to serve on SAM if we believed that the IPA could long survive with its current structure, and we would all have resigned if we had come to the conclusion that the IPA is unnecessary.
The SAM task force believes that the IPA must change to meet new understandings of what the mission of psychoanalysis and the IPA is, to respect the differences in each society and each region of the world. The IPA must have the capacity to represent training standards in psychoanalysis that are meaningful in a competitive world filled with imitators of its essential values. Without a central administration that has the capacity to respond to the individual and local needs of its membership, the constituent components of the IPA would be in danger of fragmenting into separate organizational structures with limited authority and power and at war with other regional groups. This would be a disaster for those who believe psychoanalysis has so much to offer.
The SAM task force is convinced that the new structure will begin to address these concerns so that the IPA will become an integral part of the life of every IPA member and society. We are committed to making the new structure representative, democratic, accountable, and efficient. We have built into the new structure many levels of checks and balances that will make the new governance responsive but will not lead to organizational paralysis. SAM III recommends periodic and scheduled reviews of the IPA's organizational structure and function.
The challenge of producing the SAM reports was enormous. Many of us almost gave up during the difficult times. But there was always one or another of us who came to the rescue of the committee with a new idea, a possible compromise, or a decisive argument that swayed the members. We never worked harder, never addressed so many perplexing questions, and never felt more enthusiastic about the outcome of our efforts on behalf of the IPA. We believe that our work can serve as a model for the future of IPA governance; its proposed structure is an enlargement of the way our small committee worked.
It is our belief that anyone who follows the public record of the reports of the SAM task force will share with us the enthusiasm we feel for the new structure and for the importance of these changes for the future of the IPA.