The new Council Committee on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis (COCAP) is up and running. Dick Fox appointed the new committee, with me as chair, and charged it with raising the profile of child and adolescent analysis within APsaA and throughout the country. COCAP's primary mission is “to revitalize child and adolescent psychoanalysis both within the APsaA and nationally.”
Although the Board has long had a committee focused on child and adolescent issues in education, there has never been a Council committee on child analysis. The Executive Council's COCAP will now permit the organization to focus more energy on practice, outreach, and alliances with other child and adolescent groups.
From COCAP's inception, its leadership recognized that in order to achieve the committee's goals, a collaborative relationship with the BOPS Committee on Child and Adolescent Analysis (COCAA) was essential. Leon Hoffman, vice chair of COCAA, was appointed co-chair of COCAP to facilitate the necessary communication between the two committees. The other members of COCAP are Steve Ablon, Howard Benensohn, Judy Chertoff, Art Farley, Ruth Fischer, Ken King, Kerry Kelly Novick, Rachel Ritvo, Don Rosenblitt, Rachel Seidel, Phyllis Tyson, and Bob Tyson (consultant).
In December 2001, at COCAP's inaugural meeting, the committee further refined its charge to include three interrelated tasks:
To increase child and adolescent psychoanalytic practice and thereby ensure its survival.
To work with and educate other child-oriented groups, both within APsaA and in the larger mental health community, about the contributions of child and adolescent analysis.
To increase the visibility of child analysts within APsaA, and to show the influence of child and adolescent theory and technique on psychoanalysis.
What has been done so far to accomplish these challenging goals?
COCAP's working relationship with the Board's child analysis committee, especially with its chair, Ruth Karush, has been extremely collegial. The new brochure on child and adolescent psychoanalysis, which the Board committee initiated, has been reviewed by COCAP and is moving toward publication. COCAP and COCAA will jointly undertake a child and adolescent outcome study. The two committees co-hosted a reception in Philadelphia for child analysts, child candidates, and all interested in working with children. This will be a regular event at all of the Association's national meetings.
Photo by Mervin Stewart
In keeping with the goal of raising the profile of child analysis within APsaA, there was unanimous support within the committee for the appointment of child/adolescent representatives to key committees (perhaps including the Executive Committee and the Steering Committee). This is conceived along the lines of the Omnibus Science Initiative, which has proven so successful in raising the profile of science within the Association.
Finally, COCAP petitioned the Program Committee and has been granted one designated child and adolescent panel and one two-day child/adolescent clinical workshop, to begin with the January 2004 Winter Meeting. These presentations will continue at each of our national meetings (Winter and Annual) for at least three years while the Program Committee evaluates interest and success.
In the essential work of building alliances with other child and adolescent groups, liaison members from COCAP have been appointed to collaborate with the Association for Child Psychoanalysis, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the IPA, the Anna Freud Centre, Zero to Three, and the newly formed Alliance of Psychoanalytic Schools. [Editor's note: Zero to Three is a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit that promotes programs for children in the first three years of life.] All of these groups share APsaA's tremendous enthusiasm for improving the climate of working with children and adolescents.
Finally, COCAP has established a new award for the best community application of child/adolescent psychoanalytic principles [see sidebar, this page].
I would like to thank all of the extremely enthusiastic and hardworking members of the committee. It has been a wonderful experience to work with such a renowned group of child and adolescent analysts who are so dedicated to the further growth and development of this essential discipline.
Calvern E. Narcisi, M.D., chair of COCAP, is a training analyst in adult, child, and adolescent psychoanalysis at the Denver Institute for Psychoanalysis.