The mentoring component has frequently been described as the heart of the American Psychoanalytic Association's Fellowship Program. In 1992–1993, the second year of Fellowship awards, under the leadership of then committee chair Elise Snyder, the winners were each assigned a senior psychoanalyst whose job it was to talk to them, read papers with them, suggest research projects, offer clinical consultation from an educational perspective, introduce them to other psychoanalysts and to candidates, invite them to society meetings, assist with navigating the meetings of the APsaA and generally do whatever was needed to make psychoanalysis user-friendly. So successful was this part of the program, the Fellowship Committee decided in 1994–1995, that all applicants would benefit from having a mentor.
The job description remains essentially the same today. Now in its eleventh year, it continues to be the core of the Fellowship Program The personal contact of the mentorship component has served as a model for all other outreach efforts within the APsaA.
A recent Fellowship winner wrote, “I want to bring to your attention the wonderful mentoring experience I had over the past year. My mentor generously met with me throughout the fellowship year, including on weekends, to accommodate our packed schedules. We had a wide range of interesting discussions about analysis, technique, and various articles we read together. He even took an interest in reading my Ph.D. dissertation!” Nor has such positive feedback been limited to winners. A 2001–2002, non-winner wrote, “The fact that I lost the competition for the Fellowship this year is less important in the perspective of the major gain of being part of the Mentorship. The program has been a step with particular significance to my career. I came closer to understand, and especially to feel, how exciting the journey [to] becoming a psychoanalyst could be.”
Although many who have been mentored have gone on to pursue psychoanalytic training, it has not been the goal of the fellowship to recruit future psychoanalysts but rather to encourage in winners and non-winners an appreciation for and commitment to psychoanalytic ideas and practice with which they will continue to exert influence on a great number of others throughout their professional lives. To date, over 188 future leaders in education, research, policy, and organizational work (see TAP 33/4, 1999, “Where are They Now?”) have received fellowships and more than 900 applicants have been supported through the assignment of local mentors.
“The fact that I lost the competition for the Fellowship this year is less important in the perspective of the major gain of being part of the Mentorship. The program has been a step with particular significance to my career. I came closer to understand, and especially to feel, how exciting the journey [to] becoming a psychoanalyst could be.”
Despite informal positive feedback from both winners and non-winners, the Fellowship Committee recently began to wonder about the overall experiences of the mentees and mentors. The Committee considered whether the anecdotal feedback they received was skewed towards successes. Is the exposure of early career trainees to the world of psychoanalysis through personal contact having the impact across the board that the Fellowship Committee hopes? Organizationally, the APsaA invests a significant portion of its resources to the Fellowship Program. Demonstrating a unique degree of membership involvement, hundreds of members of the APsaA have donated thousands of hours serving as mentors since it's the program's inception. The Fellowship Committee recently decided it was time to take an in depth look at the health of its heart.
We were interested in answers to the following questions:
Is the impact of the mentorship experience as expressed in anecdotal feedback supported by a survey of all of the participants?
Are the guidelines given to mentors and mentees regarding the arrangements, expectations and goals useful?
What are the optimal and actual frequencies of mentor/mentee meetings?
How successful are the matches from the perspective of mentees and mentors?
Does the reported quality of the mentoring experience differ between winners and non-winners?
Is there a mechanism to quickly identify and intervene when a mentor/mentee match fails so that negative feelings between the two individuals are mitigated and applicants stay connected to psychoanalysis and the APsaA?
Can the Fellowship Committee assist mentors in the development of mentoring skills?
A confidential survey was sent to the participants, mentors and mentees, winners and non winners, of the 2001–2002 Fellowship program. Each respondent was asked to rate their experiences on a five point Likert scale in four areas: Arrangements, Mentorship Activities, Mentorship Relationship and Mentorship Experience. The survey, developed by Katherine Fraser, Elizabeth Simpson and Craig Katz of the Fellowship Committee, posed questions about the frequency of meetings, nature and content of discussions, contact with the local society, quality of the working relationship and influence on professional development and career goals.
The return rate of well over 50% for both mentees and mentors was impressive, Fifty mentees and 64 mentors of the 97 matches surveyed responded. Of total respondents, 78% of mentees rated their experiences as “Excellent”. Of the eleven respondents who rated their experience as “Less than Satisfactory” or “Poor”, six had fewer than five meetings with their mentors while four had two or fewer, including two who were never contacted by the mentor. Eighty seven percent of mentor respondents rated their experiences as “More
Katherine Fraser D.M.H. is a member of the Fellowship Committee. She practices in San Francisco and is a member of the San Francisco Institute and Society.
than Satisfactory“ or ”Excellent“. Of eight respondents who endorsed ”Poor“, four mentors had no response from their mentee when contact was attempted. Clearly, frequent and regular contact is essential for the working relationship to be rated as beneficial.
Among the most striking features of the data is the frequency that mentor/mentee matches are meeting. The minimum commitment requested by the Committee of once a month is being met and in many cases exceeded with numerous pairs meeting weekly and a few continuing to meet in some manner long past the end of the mentorship year. In several instances, unusual arrangements have been made to support specialized interests or to cope with unusual circumstances. Modern telecommunications allowed a mentee/mentor match between New Mexico and Denver, and Hawaii and San Diego. A mentee from Nebraska with special interest in Lacan was matched with a Lacanian expert in Boston who commented, “I learned as much from him as he did from me.” For many mentees, the time spent with an experienced psychoanalyst is their first exposure and introduction to analytic ideas.
The survey did identify several areas in need of attention. Several mentee respondents noted that some mentors tend to organize the mentoring relationship as a supervisory one, thus narrowing the discourse between the pair. These trainees and young professionals are hungry for information about psychoanalytic concepts and expressed a desire for discussions of different theoretical orientations. Mentors need to continue to introduce mentees to the larger world of psychoanalysis by accompanying them to meetings of their local societies and informing them about professional meetings, conferences, courses, speakers, etc. in their local geographic areas. It is important for mentors to remember that winners and non-winners of the Fellowship Program are neither candidates nor supervisees and therefore may feel uncomfortable attending local society events on their own. The survey identified the occasional mentor/mentee pair that, unbeknownst to the Committee, had gone astray. The Committee also continues to wonder about those who did not respond.
This first survey of the mentoring component of the Fellowship program confirms the success of its aims to expose early-career professionals to the APsaA and to psychoanalytic thinking. The successful mentoring highlighted in the survey depends on the continued dedication, commitment, good will and generosity of members who have been donating thousands of hours, embodying the spirit of outreach at its most powerful level. The heart of the program is healthy.