Psychoanalysis has taken root in Birmingham. The city often remembered as the epicenter of the civil rights struggle has sustained dramatic change since the worst of those days. Time, civic introspection, and fundamental shifts in the economy have brought about major transformations. These transformations have in turn created a climate suitable to the growth of a young psychoanalytic community.
The site of the worst of civil rights violence in downtown Birmingham is now the home of the Civil Rights Institute. The “Birmingham Oath” disavowing prejudice and discrimination is a well-recognized credo of local businesses, civic institutes, and schools.
Though Birmingham was once known as the “Pittsburgh of the South,” steel mills no longer dominate the city's economy or landscape. The University of Alabama at Birmingham, with its thriving medical center, has long been the city's main employer. More than 700 physicians are based on its campus. The university sits adjacent to the long-established banking and business community, which has significantly grown and diversified in recent years. Birmingham is now headquarters for a number of national and international banks and companies, including, to the surprise of many, Saks Fifth Avenue. It boasts the largest per capita banking assets of any American city. The dividends of this economic growth are readily seen in the strength of the city's cultural institutions, including a nationally known annual Shakespeare festival.
These economic developments have stimulated an influx of professionals from other regions of the country, leading to the emergence of a local culture receptive to psychoanalysis. During the past decade three members of APsaA, all affiliated with the New Orleans Psychoanalytic Society, have moved to the Birmingham area.
In 1996, the Birmingham Psychoanalytic Study Group was established. The group has met regularly since then and has played host to a steady stream of analysts from around the country. Most of the study group's members teach or supervise psychiatry residents at the university.
In recent years the co-chairs of APsaA's ad hoc Committee on New Psychoanalytic Centers, Alan Sugarman and Richard Ruzumna, have made regular visits to Birmingham to help the study group grow. In December 2001, the Birmingham Psychoanalytic Study Group was approved by the Executive Council as an affiliated study group of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Birmingham is the second study group to attain affiliated status after the study group in Missoula, Mont. This past January, Memphis, Tenn., became the third affiliated study group. Affiliated status offers these study groups a non-voting seat on the Executive Council.
The members of the Birmingham Psychoanalytic Study Group are active representatives of psychoanalytic thought in their community. In addition to their teaching and supervisory roles at the university, several members consult to community mental health agencies and schools. Several years ago the study group and Jewish Family Services of Birmingham collaborated to sponsor a film discussion for health clinicians in the area. Sugarman presented “Annie Hall—Psychodynamics of a Schlemiel.” Several members of the study group have offered psychoanalytic perspectives in a film series sponsored by the Birmingham Museum of Art.
In the autumn of 2002, the Birmingham Psychoanalytic Study Group again sponsored several analytic visitors. In September 2002, Sugarman returned to present his paper “A New Model for Conceptualizing Insightfulness in the Analysis of Young Children.” He also presented at the University of Alabama, in Birmingham's Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry grand rounds, on “Dynamic Underpinnings of Father Hunger in the Treatment of an Adolescent Boy.” In November 2002, Denise Dorsey of New Orleans met with the study group and presented her paper “Having Everything—The Red Shoes Stories.” Study group members continue to meet regularly to discuss writings on topics selected by the members.
The study group anticipates that it will continue to grow and thrive. It includes colleagues who relocate to the area and welcomes trainees into its activities with reduced dues. The group plans to remain an active voice in the Birmingham community for the dissemination of psychoanalytic thought.
Increasing numbers of people relocating to Birmingham from elsewhere are seeking to continue their analytic treatment or obtain treatment for family members. Clinicians already in Birmingham have not always been able to meet all of these needs. More analysts are needed.
[See page 12 for more news of affiliated study groups.]
Lee I. Ascherman, M.D., is director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He also teaches at the New Orleans Psychoanalytic Institute in both the adult and child programs.