The Committee on Societies surveyed all societies of the American for demographic data, details about outreach activities, and communications capabilities. The societies were asked if they wanted help from committee chairs to initiate various outreach activities or increase their communications capabilities.
With the assistance of council and joint committee chairs, a large questionnaire was prepared and sent to society presidents and local contacts of the Committee on Societies. All were called or e-mailed to check that data was complete and correct. The final report went to society presidents, committee chairs, councilors, members of the Steering Committee and the Executive Committee, and other interested people. Some societies distributed the report to their members and arranged meetings to discuss it. Others posted the report on their Web sites. The final report on the survey is available to APsaA members in the closed section of the Association's website.
Here are some highlights of the report.
More than 130 membership categories exist in our societies. Sometimes one name (e.g., associate member) is used for very different membership categories; some categories (e.g., candidate member) have many different names. Some societies have candidate, psychotherapist, or community members, etc., while others do not. A number of societies have members in categories not listed in their by-laws (which the Committee on Societies reviewed). Thus, even determining the size (small, medium-sized, or large) of a society was difficult. A number of societies that considered themselves small were surprised to discover that they were indeed medium-sized or even large.
Life members constitute at least one-fourth of all society members. Twelve societies, including some of the largest, consist of more than 30 percent life members.
Seven societies do not have candidate members, and others place restrictions on their joining. More than half the large societies admit candidates. For the large group of societies with candidate members, candidates represent a quarter of their membership. In many societies, the number of candidates (members or not) is much smaller than the number of life members.
At this time, fifteen societies have psychotherapist members. Others are considering admitting them. Psychotherapists represent 9 percent of the membership in societies that admit them.
Child analysts represent 12 percent of society members.
There is a growing trend toward fewer M.D. and Ph.D. candidates and more Psy.D. and social worker candidates. (In Charts 1 and 2 below, Psy.D.s are grouped with Ph.D.s.) The number of academics and other mental health professionals (“Other”) is increasing slightly. Each society sets its own criteria for membership. They are not bound by the membership requirements of the American. Based on the survey, the committee believes that if current trends continue, in twenty years or sooner, as life members (almost all M.D.s) leave and candidates become active members, our societies may become predominantly non-medical.
Thirty-nine outreach activities were surveyed. Detailed information (individual societies, national trends and rankings, comparisons among societies of different size for all these activities) is available in the complete survey. Members, as individuals, engage in many of these activities. The survey focused on organized programs of societies (or in some cases of institutes or foundations).
Two-thirds of societies have extension divisions. Smaller societies more frequently lack them. Six extension divisions grant academic credit, which increases the attractiveness of their programs to teachers, academics, and graduate students.
One- and two-year psychotherapy training programs exist at all but nine societies. Half the small societies have one.
Elise W. Snyder, M.D., APsaA councilor-at-large, former managing editor of TAP and former chair of the Membership Committee, now chairs the Committee on Societies.
Only eleven societies lack foundations, and only five foundations do not have lay members on their boards.
Two-thirds of societies routinely send applicants to the Fellowship Program. Of these, less than half have organized programs for their applicants. On the other hand, at least five societies have local fellowship programs, most of which are thriving.
More than half the societies have some form of outreach to children (schools, nurseries, infant care facilities, daycare facilities, in-house nurseries, and lectures to parents). The number of child analysts correlates with the existence of these programs. Society size plays a role in outreach to schools. Forty percent of societies have outreach programs to nursery, grade, and/or high school teachers.
About one-third of the societies have Association for Psychoanalytic Thought groups.
Many societies have regular film programs and lecture series. Outreach to athletic organizations, police, probation officers and the clergy are much less common. Individual analysts serve as consultants to sports groups and the arts or do forensic work and psychological testing.
Only seven societies have community clinics (clinics whose primary function is service to the community). Medical, psychology, social work, and other (academic) graduate students represent groups from which both future candidates and patients will come. Twenty societies have no outreach programs to any of these groups.
Psychoanalytic studies programs (organized programs of study at universities directed toward non-professional graduate and/or undergraduate students) exist in at least five places. Many analysts, as individuals, teach in non–mental health venues. Twenty-four societies reported that members teach regular academic courses in departments of English, Comparative Literature, History, Anthropology, Social Science, Religion, and Philosophy.
Only six societies have ongoing racial and ethnic outreach programs, and only eight have ongoing gay and lesbian outreach programs or have had major conferences on the theme. Seven societies have study groups, lectures, and other activities that both educate their members and serve as outreach to corporations and organizations. There are neuroscience study groups, some quite elaborate, in eleven places.
Rapid and accurate communications are a necessity of modern life. Twenty-three societies can contact their members via e-mail and twenty-seven by fax. The savings in time and postage are immense. Two-thirds of societies have newsletters, some frequent and elaborate. Twenty-one have Web sites. Only eleven societies (mainly large ones) have regular contact with the media, but increasing numbers of members write letters to the editor, appear on radio and TV, and write newspaper columns.
As a result of various factors, including the decline in candidate applications to institutes, the falling number of patients, and the new openness of members and societies, some (not many) societies have hired public relations and/or marketing consultants. Others, with or without outside help, have developed marketing strategies.
Obviously, larger societies can sustain more outreach functions than smaller ones, but some very small societies have many such functions, and some large ones have very few. Twenty-three of the thirty-seven societies surveyed granted the Committee on Societies permission to view their 1996 practice surveys. There was a strong correlation between the number of outreach activities in which a society engaged and the average number of analytic cases its members had. There was a smaller correlation between the number of outreach functions and members' satisfaction with their societies.
The Committee on Societies concluded that the by-laws of many societies are outdated. A revision of by-laws would also have the salutary effect of encouraging societies to reformulate their goals and priorities in these rapidly changing times. The change in societies from predominantly medical to predominantly nonmedical organizations concerns a number of societies and, on the basis of their philosophies, they might not give high priority to some of the outreach activities. At the very least, societies without psychotherapist members might consider the possibility of admitting them.
Among the conclusions the Committee on Societies drew from this survey:
Many societies are on the verge of losing analyst members as the number of entering candidates fails to replace the number of life members.
Many societies will soon be changing from predominantly medical psychoanalytic organizations to non-medical organizations whose members are both psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.
Outreach of all kinds is a good thing. It improves the position and reputation of psychoanalysis; it attracts patients; it attracts psychoanalytic candidates; it attracts new members. Size of society makes no major difference in the kinds of outreach they can do. What counts is the awareness of the necessity for outreach.