Despite repeated cautions by many leaders, including President Newell Fischer, that we must focus our energies externally towards outreach and inclusiveness, much of the agenda at both the Council and Board meetings was taken up with governance matters.
Harriet Wolfe presented the report from the President's Task Force on Expanding Membership Criteria (TFEMC) appointed at the June 2003 meeting by Newell Fischer to explore means for admitting as members analysts who had trained via pathways other than APsaA or IPA institutes. The task force determined that expansion of membership criteria would be of substantial benefit to APsaA and to psychoanalysis. Wolfe noted that the core theoretical problem discovered by the task force was the conflation of membership standards and training requirements in our policies.
The traditional concept is that APsaA-endorsed training is the sole path to membership. Yet there are many outstanding analysts (including two of our society presidents) who do not meet this background requirement, the TF found. The task force recommended that the basis for membership be shifted to commitment and contributions to psychoanalysis rather than locus of training. This would shift responsibility for membership from BOPS to Council. BOPS represents the need to look inward, towards maintaining the training standards of our institutes, said Wolfe. But the Board of Directors must look to our relationship with the outside world. The task force recommended a professional organization composed of committed analysts, not an interest organization. Specific recommendations for membership criteria were contained in the task force report and addressed such issues as coursework, personal analysis, supervision, ethics, licensure, commitment to psychoanalysis, and recommendation by current APsaA members.
Niko Canner, organizational consultant, exhorted us to reach the 10,000 best minds graduating from college this year with information about psychoanalysis.
Eric Nuetzel, chair-elect of BOPS, said we have an organizational consensus that we have to expand membership, but there is a real concern about this approach. Beth Seelig argued that the task force report essentially endorses a restructuring of our organization. Earlier in the week, at the BOPS Coordinating Committee, the following objections were made by the BOPS Membership Committee that had analyzed the TFEMC report: Adopting the report would change the relationship between BOPS and Council; it would establish two sets of training standards; to do this separate from global reorganization is unwise; we would be using our prestige to capture members, but sacrificing our educational standards, which have given us the prestige we have. Newell Fischer responded that we are in an acute crisis, with aging membership; to wait until the reorganization process is complete would be suicide. Membership should be transferred out of the educational arm.
Arguments were made on both sides of the question of whether this committee should be (or should have been) a joint Council/BOPS committee.
Organizational consultant Niko Canner has become interested in consulting with APsaA on development issues on a volunteer basis, and addressed both the Board and Council about his observations and recommendations. Canner stated that on a personal level, the idea that there was a way of listening that produced meaning and was helpful to people in such abundance was immensely appealing to him as an adolescent, and he finds it satisfying to help a group of people who make that their work.
Among Canner's key observations:
A disproportionate amount of the organization's attention has been focused inward on the Association itself.
The stakes for things that can be formally governed are very small in comparison to the sum of total personal and professional concerns.
The impact of entrenched adversarial positions is strong, leading to a great deal of contest at multiple levels (legal challenges, task forces, special committees, etc.), all on the formal design of the organization that at the end of the day controls very little of the outcome for the profession.
The organization needs to be a point around which informal energies coalesce in order to pursue a few salient challenges.
There is too great a fear of making mistakes.
What if we say: “There are a few things we care about together; we disagree about many; but let's go out in the world making concerted action to advance those few things.”
The issue is not are we functional, but greatness versus obsolescence.
We must invent and articulate kinds of relevance that will bring psychoanalysis into the minds of the 10,000 brightest college graduates each year.
Canner admitted to less interest in addressing specific governance questions, since he
Prudy Gourguechon is editor of TAP.
had clearly articulated his view that specific governance structures are of relatively little importance compared to creative combined efforts. But since he had been asked so many times, he offered the following plan:
The Executive Committee, as a nationally elected group, should appoint a truly representative group to devise a governance plan. The EC should define parameters for the plan.
The representative group must come up with one single sensible “good enough” proposal within a set time frame.
This plan will have to be acceptable to two-thirds of the membership, who must judge it as sufficiently solving the narrow range of problems governance structure actually addresses.
Canner's stimulating discussion elicited a variety of comments, including Ruth Fischer's that “you are stressing something that we need to feel—that the task is more important than the turf.” Susan Furman said, “We must suspend disbelief and move forward. Trust is important, but if we wait for trust to move forward we will wait forever. Shared action over time will establish trust.” Several speakers expressed concern over the method of selection of the “representative” committee. Tom Bartlett stated that the process of selection must feel acceptable to diverse groups and factions.
Canner noted that everyone is going to have to allow himself to be uncomfortable.
Elsewhere on the governance front, the Committee on Council had pre-distributed an excellent analysis of possible options for APsaA reorganization and an assessment of the current Executive Council's functioning as a Board of Directors. Two main options were discussed: (1) keeping the Executive Council as the Board of Directors, abandoning our informal “bicamerality,” but raising the level of functioning of the Council so it could meet its BOD responsibilities properly; (2) constituting a new Board of Directors which would establish a new relationship to BOPS. This smaller and more efficient BOD could be composed of the current Executive Committee plus some regionally or nationally elected members, and could work with a representative assembly (similar to current Council) representing the societies.
The recommendation of this committee was an evolutionary, gradual restructuring growing out of the present governance structure.
In contrast, BOPS leadership strongly endorsed a position against incremental change and in favor of a comprehensive review and reworking of organizational governance. They question the advisability of the Executive Council's remaining the Board of Directors.
In January 2003, BOPS established its own Task Force on Reorganization. Their report to BOPS advocated a unified process for developing a comprehensive plan for reorganization. The process, they felt, must include direct input from all parts of the Association. They recommended that a comprehensive and coherent plan be developed and presented to the membership and that such a plan should safeguard all of the strengths of the Association, including the educational component.
APsaA's legal advisor on non-profit law, bylaws issues, and reorganization, Victoria Bjorklund, Esq., had previously consulted extensively with the president and president-elect, but at the New York meeting addressed the Council, BOPS fellows, and interested members directly for the first time. Bjorklund covered a wide number of questions. Some of her salient points included the following:
There is no legal basis for a members' lawsuit against the organization. Such a lawsuit would grind the work of the organization to a halt.
The Board of Directors (currently the Executive Council) has ultimate fiduciary responsibility for all organizational activities including those of BOPS.
Options for BOPS include continuing as a committee of the corporation (its probable current legal status), or incorporating as a separate corporation with APsaA as its sole corporate member. Assets of APsaA would not transfer to a new corporation, should it be determined that BOPS should have no corporate relationship to APsaA and become its own separate corporation.
Under New York law, there are three types of committees: standing committees of the board (such as executive, finance, audit), which must consist only of directors and must be elected by the board or appointment affirmed by the board; special committees of the board, which have limited duration and powers; and committees of the corporation, whose members need not be directors and which act in an advisory capacity.
The New York attorney general would probably frown upon a non-profit organization that was out of compliance with New York law attempting to dissolve itself and “reincorporate” in Delaware.
A rough time frame for reorganization might be 18 months.
Members' action is limited to voting. They should not get involved in day to day management.
The election of directors by constituent organizations (e.g. societies, as we currently do) rather than directly by members is legally acceptable but might create a problem for BOPS if it incorporated separately.
A motion was passed to encourage societies to allow affiliate members to vote for executive councilor.
Nora Hinojosa, representing the Mexican Psychoanalytic Association and the Monterrey Psychoanalytic Society, mentioned the September FEPAL meeting in Caracas, which is open to those interested.
New IPA Secretary-General Donald Campbell addressed the Council. [See page 21.]
Edward Hicks, chair of the Council of Presidents, informed the Council that the Council of Presidents is taking up the issue of NAAP and licensing.
Lisa Mellman completed four outstanding years as chair of the Fellowship Committee. She has been succeeded by Joan Lang.
Dick Fox reported on the work of the psychotherapy initiative group. [See page 31 in this TAP.]
Jim Pyles, APsaA's legal consultant on lobbying issues, reported on the HIPAA suit, stressing that the judge was impressed with the national range of plaintiffs. More than 100 newspaper articles have covered our position on privacy, including the Philadelphia Enquirer and The Wall Street Journal. In initial court proceedings, the government admitted by stipulation that they intended to deprive citizens of control over use and disclosure of health information. The government's current position allows disclosure of information from the beginning of time, and even if a person pays out of pocket. The RICO suit against managed care providers, with 700,000 physician plaintiffs, is the largest class action suit in the history of the country. Several HMO's have already settled.
The acronym for the Committee on Research and Education was happily changed from CRED to CORE.
Kansas City was promoted to provisional institute status.
Myrna Weiss gave a preliminary report on the work of the Task Force on Training Analyst Standards. The task force had circulated a proposal for “associate analyst status” to institutes in the fall. This proposed category would have allowed potential candidates in analysis with non-training analysts to continue their analyses without switching to an approved TA. The majority of the institutes that reviewed the proposal had a negative response. They agreed that TA status should be based on measures of competence and experience and that quantitative aspects should be de-emphasized in favor of suitability. Weiss concluded for the task force that associate TA status was sincerely proposed, but is not the way to go. A final report will be offered in June.
COCAA endorsed (and BOPS and later Council approved) the policy of accepting for membership graduates of the new child training only pilot programs.
Research is the single largest item in our budget. At a national level, there is extraordinary encouragement for research efforts including the biannual symposia, poster sessions, science advisors, and now a new position of associate editor for research of JAPA. CORE co-chair Stuart Hauser noted that the biggest challenge in the research arena is to reach local institutes and help them integrate research into all teaching.
The Task Force on Recruitment, chaired by Philip Hirschenfeld, offers 11 recommendations about how we are going to “reproduce” ourselves. Two key recommendations are: Each institute needs a committee on recruitment, and there needs to be a standing committee of APsaA where representatives of all institutes can discuss recruitment ideas and share successes and problems. Ron Benson commented that some institutes seem to be doing much better than others in recruitment; some places seem depressed, others enlivened. Institutes need to consider: How do we appear in the community? Happy students recruit other students. Everyone at an institute needs to realize the myriad opportunities they have in daily interaction to present the face of psychoanalysis.
Our assets are doing well, exceeding the levels we had achieved at the time of the stock market downturn. This year we will run a deficit due to the extraordinary onetime expenses of revamping the Web site and hiring a new executive director, whose tenure overlaps with the current administrative director. The committees with the largest budgets are the Fund for Psychoanalytic Research, the Task Force on the Web Site, CGRI, TAP, Fellowship, COI, and Public Information.