Have you ever wondered how to join an APsaA committee? Are you curious about what happens on our committees, how they work, and what they do? Do you have a half-dozen ideas for a paper that you want to write or a few semi-written papers that you can't find the time to finish? Come to a meeting of the Program for Mid-Career Analysts and find out if there is a committee that you might be interested in joining or a work in progress that you'd like to present. This is a place to try out creative and innovative ideas.
You might be surprised to learn that you can offer to serve on a committee that intrigues you by talking to your society president, the APsaA president-elect, or the chair of that committee. By talking to people you will find out more about what your interests are, and you will probably discover that you have many ideas and it's a lot of fun to voice them.
Many people are closet writers, wondering if they have anything valuable to say or if what they do have to say will be readily accepted. The Program for Mid-Career Analysts is a place to try out your ideas and your writing while it's still in a somewhat unfinished state. Sometimes taking the risk to present a work in progress can lead to a more experimental writing style or a more creative and integrative use of psychoanalytic ideas. Since contemporary psychoanalytic writing is becoming more creative, now is a good time to experiment. For those who are interested we can also talk about the procedures involved in submitting papers to the Program Committee.
The Program for Mid-Career Analysts will be meeting regularly at the spring and winter meetings. We want to talk about the nuts and bolts of getting involved in APsaA. If you are a recent graduate, roughly five so years postgraduate, or a member at large with an interest in finding out more about the inner workings of APsaA, we would welcome your attendance at this meeting. See your meeting program for dates and times.
Zoe Grusky chairs APsaA's Membership Committee. This column, describing the benefits of membership in APsaA, will appear from time to time. For a full list of benefits, see apsa.org and click on “Member Benefits.”