At our Annual Meeting's Friday night celebration in Philadelphia in May, we all noted the excitement, the prevalent warm feeling for Dick Fox, and the large crowd. The toasts and reminiscences were heartwarming.
Ellen Fertig told me how the National Office staffers worked hard on the party because of their deep feelings for Dick. That respect and admiration is clearly reciprocated by Dick, who had told me earlier to write about his appreciation for the staffs assistance, “without which this would have been a much less successful and extraordinarily more difficult two years.”
Those qualities — mutual respect and admiration, trying to solve conflict, seeing what diverse parties can contribute toward the solution of a problem — are emblematic of Dick and his presidency. It is striking, in the face of all of his accomplishments, that Dick feels his major accomplishment during his tenure as president was “first and foremost the way in which I was able to get our various groups to work well together, especially in the Executive Committee, the Council, and the Steering Committee.”
It is indicative of Dick's modesty as well as his love of people that he considers an interpersonal event the most significant accomplishment of his tenure. He sought (and was successful to a great extent) to diminish the power struggles and bickering that have always interfered with the serious work of the Association. Before he became president he worked closely with his two predecessors, Marvin Margolis and Bob Pyles. These collaborations were formative in his program for the presidency.
Dick wanted to elevate the status of research and science in APsaA. He was very successful, and he accomplished the same for child and adolescent psychoanalysis. These ideas came to fruition with the creation of a Science Division and the establishment of a science advisor for
Photo by Mervin Stewart
the Executive Committee. When he established the Committee on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis, it was the first Council committee to serve child and adolescent psychoanalysis, and it raised the profile of child and adolescent psychoanalysis in the Association. [See page 29 for more on COCAP's work.]
Dick restructured the Steering Committee into an effective working body with a distinct chain of command and new avenues for collecting reports. He developed a more effective Council agenda by having the division coordinators report for their group of committees, rather than trying to have all chairs report individually, an impossible task. He worked closely and collaboratively with the Committee on Council to make Council meetings more productive.
All of these tasks made use of his unique consensus-building skills. He was particularly successful within the Executive Committee, working with three different BOPS chairs during the stressful time of Ralph Engle's resignation.
Dick effectively shepherded the report of the Task Force on Education and Membership, including the controversial by-laws amendment, which granted full voting privileges to affiliate members. He worked effectively with the IPA. During the last year of his presidency, Dick was chair of the North American Psychoanalytic Confederation, comprising the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, APsaA, and IPS groups. He was instrumental in insuring that CORST graduates would be included in Consortium standards and tried very hard (although unsuccessfully) to mobilize our Consortium partners to fight the proposed legislation in New York state for the institutionalization of very minimal standards for the training of psychoanalysts. Dick has been an active writer of letters to the editors of various media. He also created the Task Force on Administration, which will study how to improve the infrastructure of the organization as it faces the challenges of the new century.
Dick has been very supportive of the organization's efforts in political action, public information, and marketing. If he were to continue as APsaA president, he told me, he would want to focus new attention on “inreach,” making more effort to involve and empower our members. He feels that the gains we have achieved up to now have to be consolidated as the organization “re-examines so many of our basic assumptions: certification, the training analyst convention, our relationship with other organizations and the public — in a sense, the face we will be presenting to ourselves and others.” He also feels that “one piece of unfinished business is the establishment of the place of psychotherapy in our profession. Half a century ago, we defined ourselves and psychoanalysis in contrast to psychotherapy.” That definition is an anachronism.
Can one anticipate the challenges of the presidency of our Association? According to Dick, one cannot. “You come into the position with plans and visions but soon are caught up in the swirl of events. I found it helpful to focus on an approach rather than an outcome. This often yields interesting results.”
So what would he recommend to his successors?
“Not to take things too personally, and pause before you react. Try to listen to what colleagues are saying, even when you disagree or when they are attacking. I have found that extending others your respect and attention often proves mutually beneficial. Keep in good health, and treat yourself well by not trying to do too much. Remember you never are going to make everyone happy.”
Dick's many cross-country journeys, from California to the New York meetings, reflect his personal travels across the country. He was born in Cincinnati, lived in Boston, and then moved to California. His wife, Ruth, is a child psychiatrist who works at the U.Cal.–Irvine Student Health Center. Their son Rich has just completed his Ph.D. in religious studies and anthropology at the School for Oriental and African Studies in London. Their daughter Megan is doing post-graduate work at the Fashion Institute for Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. With some of his time freed up from work with APsaA, Dick plans a partial sabbatical year before setting out again at full speed.
As Dick was leaving the Members Meeting, he showed me the beautiful and fitting gift he received from the Association: a torque, a bronze neck ring from the eighth or ninth century B.C., worn by warriors and in use as late as the tenth century A.D. by the Vikings. It is a symbol of strength and power.
As Dick completed his term of office for APsaA, he asked me to sign his petition to run as a North American regional representative to the IPA Board of Representatives. The good work continues. We wish him continued strength and power.
Leon Hoffman, M.D., is vice chair of COCAA, co-chair of COCAP, and past chair of the Committee on Public Information.