This is the first of twelve reports from us about the Board and our thoughts on issues that we would like you to think about with us. The Ad Hoc Joint Task Force on Education and Membership is the first on our list. We hope that you will let us know your ideas and concerns.
First, we would like you to know that the Board and its committees are in very good shape. Good leadership, energy, and cooperation has been evident in the past year as we have been surveying the organization and learning the ropes. Don Rosenblitt and Bob Cummings have our thanks and gratitude, not only for what they have done for the Board — and much has been accomplished — but also for the generous way they shared their knowledge of BOPS with us, especially during the past year. They set a new standard for collegiality.
Why are we writing this together? We thought that the job was big enough for two. We each have different experiences in the American and different subspecialties that each of us will help develop by working more closely with the committees. We both see the American and the Board as organizations with a need to increase their preoccupation with change. During the past year we have made enormous strides organizationally.
Working together with different but allied purposes, the past, present, and future leadership of the Board and Executive Council found ways to agree on fundamental principled change (not compromise) that make the functioning of both sides of our organization stronger, clearer, and less fractious. We have a confident feeling that the necessary work has been done in analyzing the actual tensions that were problems for decades and agreeing unanimously on measures to relieve them. These changes will increase the autonomy of both Board and Council while increasing cooperation between the two bodies in achieving our overall goals.
There are several reasons for our confidence. First, the work of the Joint Task Force on Education and Membership was done by those with actual leadership experience and responsibility. A large enough committee was formed so that the argument was not limited by experience or an ad hominem exchange between The President and The Chair of the Board. We had four presidents and four chairs of BOPS covering several decades of experience with the issues. A Board committee, chaired by Mort Reiser, had been given a mandate to consider the future education mission of the Board, and a Council committee had been given a mandate to reconsider voting rights for all members. The chairs and additional members of each committee also joined the new Task Force on Education and Membership.
Experience from previous governance committees proved important to the successful outcome. The Joint Task Force on Education and Membership was absolutely certain throughout that many things had to be done to increase both autonomy and cooperation between Board and Council for both membership issues and educational issues.
What are the actual tensions? Who is in charge? Until recently, education and the development of educational standards for training were the major work and preoccupation of the Board and the membership. However, the ultimate power over the Board rested with the Executive Council, which represented the membership. As the Executive Council's power grew with burgeoning interest in the membership's welfare, political action increased. De-linkage of membership and certification lessened the tension somewhat between membership and education, but the issues remained blurred.
The membership needed to finish the delinkage so that every member could vote and run for national office in the membership organization. The Board, recognizing the political power of the Executive Council, needed to protect its educational mandate from political processes. Maintaining its focus on education while listening to the advice of the membership proved a difficult tightrope for the Board to walk. The crucial decision the task force made was to build “firewalls” that protect the primary educational function from interference by the other group and “bridges” that let Board and Council work together to aid the development of growth and understanding.
The firewalls are necessary to bring about complete de-linkage and to protect the educational autonomy of the Board. Hence, the elected leadership of the membership has an advisory but non-voting presence on the Board and the Board leadership has an advisory non-voting place on the Executive Council. Bridging was brought about by increasing the Board's voting presence on the Executive Committee and the Budget and Finance Committee. The Board's financial activity was increased; a Board Budget Committee was created with the appointment of a financial officer. The Board's budget, level for many years, was the focus of prolonged discussion. It was decided that the budget would reflect the Board's mandate to fulfill its educational responsibility — a firewall function.
Another bridging change calls for the recognition that candidates have a valuable, unique, and essential voice in both education and membership arenas. Larry Chalfin initiated candidate participation on Board committees. Following the custom of the Board, the idea builds on the experience of many institutes that having candidates on working and study committees is helpful to the educational process. This was tried as an experiment.
We learned from the experience over a number of years that candidates added an essential and new perspective to a committee's work, and we came increasingly to value the candidate's voice. As we have welcomed candidates to our educational work and the work of the membership, the Affiliate Council has grown to be an active organizational group within the American. For several years, the Affiliate Council has asked the Association to consider extending full voting rights to all candidate members.
Ralph P. Engle, M.D., chair of BOPS, is a training and supervising analyst for the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, of which he is a past president and past chair of its Education Committee. He chaired the Committee on Ethics and the Minnesota Psychoanalytic Institute's Sponsoring Committee. Calvern Narcisi, M.D., secretary of BOPS, is a training and supervising analyst and the director of the Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis. He co-chairs the American's Committee on Extermal Credentialing and was chair of COPAP and a member of COCAA.
Having extensive experience with candidates on committees, the Task Force on Education and Membership welcomed the initiative as another part of the package of fundamental change. This is not an add-on or a bolt from the blue for those of us who have worked with candidates in our institutes and on committees of the American; it is a well-deserved recognition of their essential proven value to the American.
More committees will become joint. The Board Committee on the Impaired Faculty Analyst will become the Joint Committee on the Impaired Analyst, with a mandate similar to its closely allied committee, the Joint Committee on Ethics. As you know, through the efforts of the Committee on Ethics, courses, programs, and ethics committees have been created over the last five years in most of our institutes and societies. A similar effort will be made with impairment. Psychotherapy programs exist in both institutes and societies and are important to both Board and Council committees. COPAP, for instance, must understand and review these programs to effectively carry out its mission of granting waivers based on requisite didactic and clinical preparation for psychoanalytic training. We are exploring ways to pull together our thoughts, experience, and committees so that there is some better integration of our efforts. The Scientific Affairs Committee was newly created as a Joint Committee at the May meeting in Chicago and is beginning to function. Science advisors will be appointed to both Board and Council, with the expectation that they will contribute to the educational and research efforts of our committees.
The Joint Task Force on Education and Membership has been a powerful experience for all of us on the task force. Our enthusiasm is matched by the feeling that this was a unifying and clarifying process that occurred at a crucial time. As at the end of a good analysis, there is a feeling of satisfaction with what has been done, matched by eager anticipation of what is to come.