Newell Fischer and Jon Meyer presented to the Executive Councilors the results of the consultation with attorney Victoria Bjorklund regarding governance (see page 33). The council ratified Steven Levy as JAPA editor-elect, effective January 1, 2003, Levy will succeed Arnold Richards as JAPA editor effective January 1, 2004.
Secretary Lynne Moritz reported that APsaA currently has 3,345 members. There have been a total of 107 member deaths over tine last two years. Over that same period, our net membership decreased by 56.
A non-voting representative of the new California Psychoanalytic Society was seated as a guest at Council. The society's application for status as an affiliate society will be formally considered at the June 2003 meeting. The Memphis Psychoanalytic Study Group requested status as an affiliated study group of the APsaA and was approved. Memphis joined the other affiliated study groups from Missoula, Mont., and Birmingham, Ala., in seating a non-voting representative at the Council table. Full-fledged study groups already exist in Nashville, Tenn., Columbia, S.C., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Treasurer Warren Procci noted the high legal costs the organization is incurring. Approximately $20,000–30,000 has been spent on legal consultation.
Michael Gundle, chair of the Committee on Council, nominated Harriet Wolfe, who was then elected, to serve the remainder of an open term on the committee. Gundle expressed his hope for increased use of the Council e-mail list to promote discourse and debate.
Governance: Dick Fox, coordinator of the Division on Governance, reported that APsaA's administrative director, Ellen Fertig, has announced her plans to retire in July 2004. The Task Force on Administration has recommended the establishment of the position of Executive Director of APsaA. The aim is to hire someone for this position by November 2003 so that there will be some seven months of overlap with Fertig. The new executive director is expected to be experienced in administration, legal matters, finance, operations, and such special areas as self-publishing. Anyone with a candidate to propose should contact Fox.
The next annual weekend meeting of the Committee on Foundations will be in Pittsburgh in April 2003. Information can be obtained from committee co-chairs Mark Smaller and Selma Duckler.
Professional Outreach: Division coordinator Marvin Margolis voiced his concern that the committees that reach out to potential candidates (psychotherapists, educators, academics, fellows, and students) are finding that few local societies or institutes have analogous targeted outreach committees of their own. At most, one society might have one such component, for example an affiliated psychotherapist group. Margolis said that eighty people attended a recent recruitment meeting sponsored by the one local society/institute that has six outreach groups. He urged councilors to carry the message of the need for these local affiliate components back to their local organizations. Margolis promoted the cause of the development of new psychoanalytic centers. He reminded the Council that one APsaA analyst can organize a study group that may eventually grow into a new society. “The interest is there,” said Margolis.
Psychoanalytic Science: Linda Mayes, chair of the Fund for Psychoanalytic Research, reported that the fund receives around twenty-three applications and funds about five to eight grant requests per year. The approval rate is 20–25 percent, which is high for funding agencies. The fund offers consultation and multiple opportunities to resubmit applications to the 75 percent of applicants who are turned down initially. The fund offers three kinds of support: support for standard research studies, start-up grants for a young investigator seeking consultation or help beginning a project, and career awards that will support a young investigator's spending an extended period of time with an established investigative group. Robert Galatzer-Levy noted that in its thirty years of activity, the fund has a great track record in figuring out how to identify key researchers. The list of past grantees is a “Who's Who” of psychoanalytic research.
Division coordinator Beth Seelig reported on the success of the first poster session in 2001. She emphasized how important it is that young investigators be able to say they had a poster presented at a major national meeting. New subcommittees of the Joint Committee on Scientific Activities, chaired by Seelig, include the Subcommittee on Scientific Activities Prizes, chaired by Robert Michels; the Subcommittee on Scientific Surveys, chaired by Lee Brauer, designed to offer consultation about surveys; and the Subcommittee on Privacy and Ethical Issues in Psychoanalytic Research, chaired by Galatzer-Levy.
Psychoanalytic Practice: Division coordinator Robert Pyles underscored the success of our ongoing legislative efforts. When he goes to the American Psychiatric Association, or the American Medical Association, he said, he hears “The analysts are ahead of us on this” and “If the analysts can do it, why can't we?” Pyles cited Barry Landau's recent persistent efforts to protect an excellent existing privacy law in Washington D.C. that is currently under attack by insurance interests. The D.C. statute as well as one in New Jersey have been used by us and other lobbyists as models for an excellent privacy law.
The fight for privacy has become more difficult since 9/11 due to the public's increased concern for protection from terrorism. There has been an overall shift in the government's stance on privacy. Instead of information being revealed only with consent, it will be released unless release is specifically blocked on an individual basis. Lobbyist Jim Pyles, also attending the meeting, said we face tremendous challenges ahead, but we're perceived in D.C. as leaders in this area. “Someday someone will ask us what we did in 2002 when the right to consent was repealed,” said Jim Pyles.
Societal Issues: The Committee on Corporate and Organizational Consultation sponsored a public forum on “Integrity in Leadership” (see page 22) at the 2003 Winter Meeting. A follow-up event is planned for the June meeting in Boston. The Committee on Psychoanalysis in the Community, chaired by Stuart Twemlow, reported a successful joint meeting with the committees on Social Issues and Schools. These three committees plan to invite
Prudy Gourguechon is editor of TAP.
the Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity to join them and continue their collaborative effort regarding psychoanalysis and society at subsequent meetings.
Twemlow's committee has articulated a new mission statement, which delineates an “in-reach” mission to help the profession and Association expand the concept of psychoanalytic identity to include community psychoanalysis on an equal footing with clinical psychoanalysis.
Communications: Following up on last year's strategic marketing report, coordinator Prudy Gourguechon urged all committee chairs to take a look at the communications materials they produce with an eye toward finding and removing any language that might be perceived as arrogant or elitist She also mentioned that the division will try to take on the task of coordinating, with the National Office, the Association's growing number of awards and honors.
Reporting on the newsletter committee, Gourguechon described several new features in TAP. Leon Hoffman, chair of the membership committee, is writing a regular column for members on “What have we done for you lately?” He will be succeeded by the new chair of the membership committee, Zoe Grusky. TAP board member Sheri Hunt is editing a new poetry column. Occasional pictures of sculpture with some psychological content will be featured, for aesthetic relief. Another new feature, “Shrink Watch,” will showcase depictions of psychoanalysis or psychoanalysts in popular culture (suggestions are welcome).
The Strategic Marketing Committee, chaired by Glenn Good, has completed its tremendous market research project culminating in last year's report from consultant Lee Zacharias' agency. The now widely known results—that we tend to be perceived by our mental health colleagues and the general public as arrogant, exclusionary, uninviting, and uninterested in others—now have to lead to action by the organization and local affiliates. Fischer's “town meeting” tour of the country is one part of the response to the report.
IPA President Daniel Widlöcher addressed the Council. Among the issues he discussed was the need for the IPA to be able to move swiftly to respond to newly emerging interest in psychoanalysis in various parts of the world. If there are too many procedures in place, slowing down a response to local interest, we may find that other groups, like the Lacanians, are well-entrenched by the time we are able to act.
Widlöcher outlined a new type of associate organization, IPA Associate Center, which can be formed from a group of clinicians working in health centers and interested in psychoanalytic work, education, and research. The founding of these centers must be flexible; the IPA is currently working on procedures. Areas that might have some interest include Paraguay, Panama, Cuba, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and China.