Beginning with Freud, psychoanalysts have created organizations in order to teach, regulate, and promote our profession. Without the constructive efforts of local institutes, local societies, and national and international associations, psychoanalysis could not survive as a profession. But psychoanalysts are human, so we must contend with our own potential for destructive disagreements within and between our various organizations. Such disagreements cause us to waste potentially creative energies.
To minimize the impact of destructive conflicts within our organization, the APsaA turns to parliamentary procedures, a series of rules of organizational conduct. These rules of order facilitate the transaction of business and promote organizational cooperation and harmony. If you have had the chance to see these rules in action, you know how important they can be. Parliamentary rules define the process of reaching majority vote decisions, demand equal rights and obligations for all members, protect minority rights, protect the rights of members absent from meetings, promote free and full discussion, define order for meetings, help to delegate duties, and require impartiality on the part of officers.
While parliamentary procedures are indispensable to organizational harmony, they are not simple. For this reason, organizations often employ a parliamentarian, someone skilled in the rules of order. The American Psychoanalytic Association has engaged a parliamentarian since the late 1980s, and George Roark has been our parliamentarian since 1994. With his expertise, we have the disciplined benefit of these rules of order during our difficult moments.
A parliamentarian is skilled in parliamentary law, able to locate the rules of order promptly as needed. Parliamentarians also act as consultants who advise the presiding officer, other officers, and committees on matters of procedure. The parliamentarian must be familiar with the organization's rules and must be objective, tactful, impartial and able to keep confidences. At times the parliamentarian may be called upon to explain the rules of order to an assembly of the organization. An impressive list of job requirements!
Photo by George Feder
When George Roark was asked how he would summarize the need for parliamentary procedures and a parliamentarian, he quoted U.S. Army Gen. Henry M. Robert, who wrote a pocket manual on rules of order in 1876: “Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty.”
Roark went on to say,
I can think of no better basis for the role of Parliamentarian than is implied in this quote. In a mature organization whose meetings are thoughtfully chaired, the Parliamentarian may be “seen but not heard.” In the American, the longer my presence on the podium has been noticed the less frequently I have been asked to provide rulings on the parliamentary process. The Zeitgeist embracing the utility of a Parliamentarian is that of a participatory democracy in which three principles reign: one person, one vote; debate on all issues open to all members who wish to speak; and a majority of voters decide the issue.
George Roark was trained as an analyst at the Baltimore Institute for Psychoanalysis and graduated in 1965. He was certified by BOPS and became an active APsaA member in 1970. Currently, he enjoys emeritus status on the faculty of the Baltimore-Washington Society and Institute. He was a member and chair of Baltimore-Washington's Committee on Revision of By-Laws from 1974 to 1978. He no sooner ended that commitment than he became the institute's parliamentarian for a decade, ending in 1988.
After finishing his duties as a local parliamentarian, he began them anew on a national level. In Roark's own words, during Homer Curtis's presidency of the association (1988–90), Curtis
had reason to seek the advice of a colleague knowledgeable of bylaws interpretation and parliamentary procedures. At that time I was serving as Parliamentarian of the Baltimore-Washington society. A colleague gave Homer my name and he spoke with me about the matter. Years later with Judy Schacter's election as President, she sought Homer's advice on the selection of a member with parliamentary knowledge and experience to succeed Oscar Legault, who was retiring. … She [and BOPS chair] Larry Chalfin appointed me to the position in June, 1994.
When asked about memorable experiences that involved his parliamentary functions, Roark said that they were infrequent but offered the following:
One I recall is watching the “Great Persuader,” Marvin Margolis, momentarily at a loss for words as Chair, during a meeting of the Executive Council at which the controversial consortium issue was under active debate. Larry Chalfin, then Board Chair and representative to the Executive Council, questioned the implications of a pending motion, which he felt would be unacceptable to the Board. [Chalfin] implied that he and the Secretary of the
Lee S. Jaffe, Ph.D., is on the faculty of the San Diego Psychoanalytic Institute. He is president of the International Psychoanalytic Studies Organization, a member of the Project 2000 team, an incoming JAPA editorial associate, and a member of the TAP editorial board.
Page 30Board, Don Rosenblitt, would walk out if the motion were adopted. Marvin rose to the occasion, however, and the “crisis” was averted. Another was the surprising ease with which the report of the Task Force on Education and Membership eventually sailed through both Board and Council, as a result of the effective leadership of Dick Fox and Cal Narcisi.
Note that in describing these two memorable experiences, Roark only implied his role, a fact that exemplifies his effectiveness as a Parliamentarian.
I got to know George Roark personally in 1996, before I took on the duties of president of the Affiliate Council. His expertise and impartial bearing helped the Affiliate Council maintain a democratic process and work through some highly controversial by-laws changes. Later, when I assumed official leadership responsibilities, he was always available with indispensable advice.
For some seven years George Roark has been providing this kind of even-handed, essential guidance to our organization. As APsaA parliamentarian, he continues to keep watch over the democratic spirit embraced by the parliamentary rules of order.