Consider the following imaginary scenarios:
A State Department delegation is going to the Middle East to participate in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. A psychoanalyst has been appointed to this delegation in hopes that a psychoanalytic perspective might contribute to a resolution of the bitter conflict.
A special bipartisan White House task force has been created to study the origins, impact, and prevention of violence in schools. A psychoanalyst has been invited to join the leadership of this task force that will convene and create material for distribution to local communities to use in their efforts to prevent violence in schools.
The Council of Economc Advisers has appointed a psychoanalyst to serve as a consultant to study corruption at the highest levels of corporate management, following the collapse of companies like Enron and WorldCom.
The Children's Defense Fund has approached the American Psychoanalytic Association to request the most recent research on the effectiveness of “talking therapy” with troubled children. CDF has expressed concern about the frequent medicating of children as young as two and a half years in disadvantaged communities, with no other form of treatment made available.
The Archdiocese of Chicago has sought psychoanalytic consultation in its efforts to address the problem of sexual abuse by priests.
As chair of the Committee on Social Issues, I have shared these hypothetical scenarios with members of the committee as a way to organize and stimulate our discussions about applying psychoanalytic concepts in the world beyond our consulting rooms. I am pleased to report that my wish for the far-reaching impact of psychoanalytic ideas has sometimes become reality. However, this reality remains one of the best-kept secrets in APsaA and in our local communities.
Here are some examples. Steven Marans, an APsaA member, directs the Community Policing Program at the Yale Child Study Center that trains police through courses in child development. The program provides immediate psychoanalytic intervention when violence involving families and children occurs in the New Haven community. The program includes research on the program's effectiveness and the impact of violence on children and on their psychological, social, and educational development.
Stuart Twemlow, chair of our Committee on Psychoanalysis in the Community, and Peter Fonagy of the Anna Freud Centre in London have recently completed the Peaceful School Project, a three-year, $750,000 research project designed to test a psychoanalytically oriented intervention to reduce school violence. They are now in the data analysis stage, having studied 3,000 children. Twemlow remarks, “Who said psychoanalysis can only study one case at a time?” He knows; he also co-edits the four-year-old Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, which has included psychoanalytic articles about education, serial and mass murder, the Holocaust, first impressions in dispute negotiations, and spirituality.
Harvey Rich, founding president of the American Psychoanalytic Foundation, during the last few years has consulted on World Bank missions to Angola, Croatia, and Peru to offer a psychoanalytic view on the impact of trauma on a culture and economy. He writes (with not one word of jargon) of this and other “psychoanalytic experiences of everyday life” in his new book, In the Moment Celebrating the Everyday. Phyllis Cath in San Francisco directs a consultation-to-schools program working with preschoolers. Bruce Sklarew continues in his Mourning and the Inner City Violence Project in Washington, D.C. Joy Osofsky has devoted much of her professional life as a psychoanalyst to working collaboratively with the New Orleans police to improve police treatment of children and preventative therapeutic services for children. Alan Felix has studied attachment patterns and services to improve the plight of homeless men in New York. Bob Pynoos in Los Angeles continues to be a leader in the assessment and treatment of children exposed to violence around the world and consults regularly with governments about these issues.
Our 2003 public forum at the Winter Meeting addressed the topic of “Integrity and Self-Deception in Corporate America.” Ken Suttel and Kerry Sulkowicz, who organized the panel, have made consultation to corporations a major part of their psychoanalytic work.
Our recent Strategic Marketing Study reveals, not surprisingly, that psychoanalysts are perceived as isolated, arrogant, and disconnected from their communities and the rest of the world, with ideas of questionable relevance. These perceptions are held not only by other mental health professionals but also by consumers of psychotherapeutic services, potential contributors to our funded work, and experts in other fields (social work, sociology, anthropology, etc.) with whom we have rarely allowed ourselves to collaborate and learn.
Last spring in Philadelphia, members from the Committee on Social Issues, the Committee on Psychoanalysis in the Community, the Committee on Foundations, and the Liaison to Schools Committee met to discuss common interests and goals. A consensus emerged that APsaA needed to do what many local psychoanalytic communities do not: fully recognize and acknowledge members who are working in the larger world. If the Strategic Marketing Study is correct, such work is essential if we are to survive as a profession.
How many institutes offer courses on consulting with schools, conducting psychoanalytic research, applying psychoanalytic ideas to solve the plague of violence in the large urban communities (where many of our institutes are), or exploring the roots of and solutions to terrorism? Are analysts who do this work—and there are many—appropriately acknowledged by their colleagues?
The mission of our Board of Professional Standards is to create and protect the standards of our profession. Shouldn't our institutes be offering courses about these issues? Would that not significantly raise our standards? At one of the oldest, most reputable institutes in the country, no faculty member even mentioned the events of September 11, 2001 in classes held three days later. Two weeks went by before the faculty met to discuss 9/11 and its impact. What does that tell us about the state of our connection to the rest of the world? At APsaA's
Mark D. Smaller, Ph.D., chairs the Committee on Social Issues and co-chairs the Committee on Foundations. Stuart Twemlow also contributed to this article.
Philadelphia meeting, a participant whose research has earned a national reputation complained, “I get more support on Capitol Hill about applying psychoanalytic ideas out in the world than I do through the APsaA or my local institute.” This psychoanalyst should be recognized and praised for his work by all his colleagues. Psychoanalytic perspectives on social issues appear in increasing number at our annual meetings, but we have not seen one major panel addressing these topics. Psychoanalytic programs being conducted by our members in troubled communities where they live and work deserve broad emphasis and attention at our meetings on panels and not only in discussion groups.
The Chicago Institute is one of the oldest institutes in the country, created in 1932. Chicago has one of the largest Latino populations in the country. Last spring, a national conference in Chicago, sponsored by the Latino Family Institute (LFI), was held during International Hispanic-Latino Mental Health Week Chicago's recently formed committee on multicultural issues met a few times with the LFI, and three analysts were invited to give presentations. Two of the presenters, Ruth Yanagi, a faculty member, and Phyllis Shepard, a candidate, gave a paper on the impact of culture on the treatment process. I gave the third paper, describing the long-term effects of brief treatment from a psychoanalytic perspective.
Being psychoanalysts in the year 2003 demands not only that we reflect upon social issues but also that we put our knowledge and skill into action and contribute. People are in great need of what we have to offer, but more importantly, we very much need what they offer us. Applying our ideas out in the community, conducting research, and evaluating our impact will expand psychoanalytic theory, principles, and technique.
It's not about bettering ourselves as a profession and creating a bright future for the field, though that is important. It's more about doing the right thing.