Several significant issues were voted on at the recent Board on Professional Standards meeting. Cal Narcisi and Leon Hoffman, co-chairs of the joint Committee on External Credentialing, asked the Board to approve a document produced by the Psychoanalytic Consortium for the establishment of an Accreditation Council of Psychoanalytic Education with specific standards for psychoanalytic education. This was the long-awaited culmination of six years' work by the dedicated Board committee.
The Board debated the issue at length. Some fellows, including Gerry Margolis, Larry Chalfin, and Ed Hartmann, expressed concern that the standards in the Consortium document were too low. Bob Michels proposed a resolution that institutes of APsaA must also conform to the Principles and Standards for Education in Psychoanalysis of the APsaA as approved by BOPS; this was passed unanimously. Jim Gooch was concerned that psychoanalysis be considered a core mental health discipline. He emphasized the importance of doctoral students being offered concomitant analytic training.
The document was ratified by a vote of 50 to 4, with two abstentions. The other three Consortium organizations previously approved the document. The next step will be the creation of a National Accrediting Board.
For the third consecutive meeting, the Board addressed the report of the Joint Task Force on Education and Membership. This time, the three sets of recommendations included in the report were presented, debated, and voted on separately. Discussion of the governance provisions focused on budgetary issues. Many Board members stressed the need to protect the “public interest” functions of the Board: certification and accreditation.
The budget discussion evolved inevitably to one of Board-Council relations. Board members feared that the needs of a Board committee might increase dramatically without adequate protection in an association budget, even with a mandated “floor.” From the point of view of Council, however, a mandated floor for Board funding could, in a worst-case scenario, fund the Board while the rest of the organization sank into a financial crisis. The Budget and Finance Committee has recommended a mandatory review of the arrangements at five-year intervals.
Dick Fox summarized the discussion by pointing out that it demonstrated the value of putting detailed issues into a procedure code, not into by-laws, since circumstances can change rapidly in a year or two. The association plans to write such a comprehensive procedure code.
The governance section of the task force's report passed unanimously.
Granting full voting privileges to affiliate members provoked the most divided debate. Mike Singer said he didn't want to infantalize his colleagues but was still concerned about affiliates voting on educational matters, primarily due to transference issues. Bob Pyles argued that participation in the organizations activities both locally and nationally leads to a stronger consolidation of psychoanalytic identity. Jon Meyer expressed concern about the graying of the organization.
Alan Sugarman, speaking for his institute, worried that once the affiliate vote passed nationally, candidates would soon ask for the same privileges locally. In San Diego, affiliates would then constitute more than 50 percent of the voting membership.
Malkah Notman said these discussions represented a recurrence of the old 'barbarians at the gate“ discussions. Jane Walvoord, president of the Affiliate Council, reminded the group that candidates chose training with APsaA because of its higher standards. Affiliates tend in fact to be conservative voters on educational issues. Lynne Moritz concurred, saying that no one is more interested than candidates in education and standards. For example, when site visits have suggested a re-evaluation of graduation requirements to make them less stringent, candidates pushed to keep them in.
Toward the end of the discussion, Don Rosenblitt said that candidates have a high level of interest and concern about psychoanalysis. Marvin Margolis remarked, “Voting for the motion encourages an earlier identification with the goals and values of the organization.” The measure passed by a vote of 28 to 12.
Last winter's surprise resignation by former BOPS chair Ralph Engle was openly discussed at the beginning of the Annual Meeting's Board session in New Orleans. Acting chair Cal Narcisi gave a careful chronology of the events involving allegations of boundary violations by a patient of Engle and Engle's subsequent voluntary resignation from the Board chair position and from the association.
APsaA President Dick Fox and Narcisi were called by the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and apprised of the plans to handle the situation in Boston. The national organization offered Boston outside consultation, but BPSI declined consultation at the national level as unnecessary. Thus APsaA did not have a role in the handling of the specifics of the case, but only in public information and association morale and procedure.
Photo by Mervin Stewart
The Board Committee on the Impaired Faculty Analyst (CIFA) and the Joint Ethics Committee can only act as advisors and/or an appeals board. Ethical or impairment issues are essentially a local institute's or society's responsibility.
CIFA, chaired by Jerry Winer, has informed local institutes that the Board has mandated standing local Psychoanalyst Assistance Committees. All institutes of the American Psychoanalytic have been assigned a CIFA member as a liaison for support and guidance in their efforts to develop such committees.
Frenkel &. Co. and the American International Group have notified the APsaA that they will cover supervision across state lines. Cal Narcisi explained, “If you are an approved supervisor, and you are supervising a candidate in an approved training program, you are covered [for malpractice liability] unless such coverage is specifically excluded by state law.” This comforting ruling does not apply to those who are not covered by Frenkel Insurance, however.
The newsletter of the Committee on Psychoanalytic Education is now online (). A new BOPS Committee on Research and Education will be chaired by Bob Emde and Stuart Hauser.
Wisconsin was approved as a provisional institute upon the recommendation of the Committee on New Training Facilities.
Peter Loewenberg stepped down as chair of CORST and was applauded enthusiastically for his contributions. Loewenberg said, “Psychoanalysis has to do with everything that has to do with the unconscious.” He accepted his certificate of appreciation from the Board “on behalf of the committee and the entire CORST enterprise, designed to take psychoanalysis out into all aspects of culture.”
Ron Benson, speaking for the Committee on Institutes, congratulated the Topeka Institute on its many years of high-quality education. Benson read this statement:
The Committee on Institutes recognizes the closing of this famous and seminal institute and congratulates it on its many contributions to psychoanalysis in America. We offer our appreciation [for Topeka's] devotion to our association, [its devotion] to high standards, and its training of many excellent analysts during its years of service. We are saddened by the ending of its mission, but we know that its legacy will survive in the continuing contributions made by its faculty and students at other institutes.
The Topeka Institute has ceased operations, along with the Menninger Institute in Topeka with which it was affiliated (see page 9).