The meeting of the Board on Professional Standards in Philadelphia was collegial, rich in information, and productive.
Of course, the headline issue was certification. Robert Galatzer-Levy reported upon his committee's survey of applicants who had experienced the current system. The Ad Hoc Board Committee to Study Certification, chaired by Cal Narcisi and Donald Rosenblitt, presented an extensive, comprehensive, detailed thirteen-point status report. The certification survey had been distributed to all members, but the deadline for responses was after the meeting and the results wouldn't be collated for some months.
We are proceeding with a careful process of data-gathering and thorough and fair deliberations. This process will help us move toward well-conceived recommendations. The Galatzer-Levy committee has agreed to extend its survey to include a matched sample of graduates who have never applied for certification. The ad hoc committee has requested funding for a retreat that they felt would help them produce a final report by January. The funding was not forthcoming; this will delay completion of their task.
The Board and its committees have engaged in several other innovative and important activities, which have not received as much publicity as the work on certification. Some of these items are controversial; others are not. Each of them deserves our awareness and thought.
The Ad Hoc Committee on Education in Research (CRED) gave its first report to the Board. Stuart Hauser is the presiding co-chair and science advisor of BOPS; CRED co-chair Robert Emde will take over these duties in two years. The members of CRED are Sidney Blatt, Wilma Bucci, J. Timothy Davis, Peter Fonagy, Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Linda Mayes, Joy Osofsky, Stephen Roose, Theodore Shapiro, Robert Waldinger, and Robert Wallerstein.
The committee's task is a major opportunity for encouraging research and critical research thinking within our institutes. CRED will encourage institutes to offer more research-oriented presentations in clinical conferences and courses, to add research perspectives to the evaluation of the process of treatment and outcomes, and to include research in their work to understand and integrate knowledge from neighboring fields. CRED is developing liaisons with each institute and with the Committee on Institutes (COI).
I hope that CRED's work will help make research an equal partner with clinical and theoretical interests in the identities of our graduates. I will request that the Board make CRED a standing committee in the near future.
Photo by mervin Stewart
After a thorough presentation by the Committee on Child and Adolescent Analysis (COCAA), the Board gave the green light to a major new experimental initiative designed to promote child and adolescent psychoanalytic training. Four pilot programs for training in child and adolescent analysis — without full training in adult analysis — were approved.
A sub-committee of COCAA will have responsibility for oversight of the pilot programs and will develop an instrument to evaluate their effectiveness. As part of their pilot program application, each institute was required to include a means of self-evaluation.
While developing and recommending this initiative, COCAA was well aware that it was controversial. Not all analysts — and not all child/adolescent analysts — believe it is a desirable plan. COCAA gave a respectful hearing to all points of view and discussed the proposals widely before taking its stance and making a recommendation to BOPS.
COCAA also reported that it had considered the position statement proposed by the Committee on Gay and Lesbian Issues. Between December 2001 and May 2002, COCAA suggested some changes in the statement's text and supported the amended version. BOPS approved that position statement when it was presented for action at the May meeting.
The Berkshire Institute for Psychoanalysis, approved as a new training facility in December, sent its first Fellow to the Board at the Philadelphia meeting. The Committee on New Training Facilities (CNTF) has appointed a sponsoring team to work with the Berkshire facility.
We now have four new training facilities in various stages of development. BOPS and the CNTF are using two models to aid them. The more traditional model involves sponsorship by an existing institute. The newer model calls for direct sponsorship by a team from BOPS. This latter method has many safeguards to keep the evaluative and accrediting functions of the CNTF separate from the sponsoring team's activities. The idea is to ensure the CNTF's objectivity and independence in assessing the sponsoring team's activities and the facility's progress toward full institute status. BOPS and the CNTF will continue to monitor and refine our methods of developing new training facilities.
As part of the deliberations of the Committee on Institutes, the recent activities of the IPA's Committee on Education were reported to the Board. Gunther Perdigao is a North American representative to that committee and a member of the COI.
Among the issues being considered is the IPA standard for the training analyses of candidates. Some component groups within the IPA would like the frequency standard changed. The COI recommended and BOPS approved a statement to be sent to the appropriate agencies within the IPA reflecting the APsaA opinion that the IPA should maintain its current educational standards, which include a minimum of four-times-weekly training analysis. The statement advised that educational standards should not be changed because of unusual (societal) circumstances. If circumstances require a modification of standards,
Ronald M. Benson, M.D., chairs the Board on Professional Standards. He is a training and supervising analyst at the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute.
the COI recommends a system of waivers or exceptions instead of a standards modification. Alain Gibeault, secretary of the IPA, discussed these issues in his address to the Fellows at the May APsaA meeting [see page 23].
An atmosphere of collegial consultation between Board and Council prevailed at the Philadelphia meetings. I believe this allowed BOPS to consider educational matters more thoroughly and with greater innovation and originality than would a less cooperative arrangement. Dick Fox addressed the Board for the last time as president. He certainly was one of those responsible for the current collegial atmosphere. We look forward to further productivity and collaboration with our new president, Newell Fischer.