The ideals of our Association are articulated in our by-laws. Under Article 1, Section 2, “Purpose,” they state:
It shall be the purpose of the Association to study and advance psychoanalysis; to advocate and maintain standards for the training of psychoanalysis and for the practice of psychoanalysis; to foster the integration of psychoanalysis with other branches of science and to encourage research in all fields having to do with the scientific knowledge and welfare of man.
Our Association has a long history of evolving these ideals into processes and organizational structures in order to find practical expression in our polices and activities and the involvement of our entire membership.
Since 1946, when the APsaA changed from a federation of societies to a national membership organization, the responsibility of advocating and maintaining standards of training in psychoanalysis has been vested in the Board on Professional Standards. This change and the assignment of membership and training standards to the Board required that it have relative autonomy. BOPS became a representative organization of institutes, but these institutes did not individually have the right or power to reject the Board's decisions. They were bound by the Board's collective decisions—bound by the decisions of the institutes as a group.
This development of a representative body that had the responsibility and authority to develop policy on behalf of the institutes avoided the cumbersome administrative problem of obtaining the approval of an increasing number of societies and institutes. It also provided a buffer against undue political and professional pressure on the setting and maintaining of standards.
Although they are elected or selected by individual institutes and thus represent local interests, the institutes' representatives on the Board (now called Fellows) primarily serve the larger interests of the national body.
The Association has reaffirmed this basic strategy for institutionalizing our value of educational excellence in a variety of ways. Most recently, the Task Force on Education and Membership examined the inevitable tensions between our ideals of promoting the professional and pragmatic interests of our membership and maintaining high educational standards.
The task force was not a de novo body. It was preceded by several other committees including the Schein Committee of the Council and the Reiser Committee of the Board. In fact, it was also informed by the Kris and Davis and Pyles Committees of Council and Board, which had previously considered our governance, and by several successor committees.
The most recent task force, which was widely representative of all spectra of opinions within APsaA, reached consensus about the relationship of Board and Council and the role of the Board within our Association. It was not a compromise, in the sense of horse trading. It was an opportunity to develop a more comprehensive process in which all members of the task force, through deliberation, found a position upon which they could agree. The members of the task force discussed and deliberated upon the best approach to accomplish our ideals and found positions that most members could agree with enthusiastically.
At our meeting in New Orleans in May 2001, the Task Force on Education and Membership reported in detail to Board and Council. Both bodies strongly endorsed the task force's recommendation to draft certain changes into by-laws amendments for membership vote. The proposed by-law amendments and the entirety of the task force's report were sent to the membership; the amendments passed by substantial margins.
More recently, the membership was polled on aspects of the Board's functioning that were called into question by some of our members on our e-mail lists, particularly in regard to certification. Despite some members' assertion that there was widespread opposition to individual certification, the poll revealed widespread support of the concept of certification and for using certification as a criterion for training analyst appointment. I interpret these results as indicating support for a relatively autonomous Board, with the duty to set standards of education and enforce them with the collaboration of our institutes and the general support of our membership.
This structurization of ideals has several advantages. It provides for national standards rather than balkanized local standards. It ensures that educational standards will be relatively free of local financial, professional, and social pressures that might impede objective educational decisions. At the same time, especially since the chair and secretary of BOPS are members of the Executive Committee, it ensures that every policy decision will contain the educational perspective. Conversely, every educational decision will contain the perspectives of membership and research—ensured through the presence of research advisors on the Executive Committee and advising Board and Council.
Some members continue to chafe under this arrangement. They seem to feel that it is about power, rather than its manifest purpose of advocating high educational standards and producing the best-trained psychoanalysts we can. They feel that since the system has imperfections it is hopelessly flawed.
Power is always a factor in any governance situation, but power is not the essential issue here. Fairness and an educational perspective trump concerns for power in the actions and policy decisions of most Fellows. I believe those principles have directed my service to the Board as a Fellow, a committee chair, and BOPS chair.
Fairness and an educational perspective trump concerns for power in the actions and policy decisions of most Fellows.
Others feel the Board is a monolithic and inherently conservative body that opposes all forms of change. I think a fair assessment of the facts contradicts this view. Fellows, in fact, represent institutes with quite a wide range of philosophies about
Ronald M. Benson, M.D., chairs the Board on Professional Standards.
education and educational policies. The individual Fellows represent a wide range of personal opinions from conservative to liberal. The Board's decisions during the past several years may even be interpreted as being more liberal than the standards of the local institutes. For example, BOPS accepted guidelines for approving training analyses with multiple sessions on a single day, guidelines for telephone training analysis, and a trial of training in child psychoanalysis without adult training. These are hardly status quo positions.
The Ad Hoc Committee on Certification is studying our certification procedures. It plans to find a broad and progressive approach to enhancing a certification process that has already been profoundly improved during the past five years. After discussions within the Coordinating Committee of some possible revisions of the training analyst standards initiated by Board secretary Eric Nuetzel, I announced to BOPS that I would appoint a task force to further consider the matter. The Committee on Psychoanalytic Education has received funding to engage a consultant to study innovative concepts of pedagogy, since the latter is considered by our candidates to be one of the weaker aspects of our training.
These issues are very complex. Someone once said that “for every complex problem there is a simple solution—and it is wrong.” This is especially true of educational decisions. They are in their very nature tradeoffs between desirable goals. Careful, thoughtful evolutionary change, building upon our successes, is the wisest approach.
Our educational system is still envied widely and is, in the main, doing well. We attract a good number of highly motivated and qualified candidates and educate them well. I think the Board serves the Association diligently, honorably, and effectively. We listen to our critics, and they help shape the Board's activities and agenda. We are responsive, and we are responsible to our mandate. The working relationships within the organization and membership spelled out by the report of the Task Force on Education and Membership and the recent by-laws amendments provide a useful and workable framework for the Board to continue its long history of excellence in serving the Association and psychoanalysis.