As I come to the end of my first term as chair of the Program Committee, I am pleased with the progress we have made in implementing programmatic innovations based on the feedback from the membership. Over the past three years, we have started our committee meetings with a strategic planning session where we consider the written evaluations from those who attend the meeting and from Program Committee members.
Because we heard from many colleagues that child and adolescent analysis tends to be underrepresented on the program, we added a fifth panel at each meeting that is devoted exclusively to child and adolescent work. In addition, we have added a two-day clinical workshop dedicated to issues that are relevant to analysts who work with children and adolescents.
Now that interdisciplinary studies have come into their own in academic settings, we are reflecting that development by planning a university forum for part of each program. The proposal for the university forum, designed to bring prominent academics to our meetings, was put forward by Henry Schwartz and Charles Shephardson and greeted enthusiastically by the Program Committee. I appointed Bonnie Litowitz to chair a subcommittee to develop the format. The guest scholar will provide a “text” that will serve as the focus for discussion by a psychoanalyst and an academic; both points of view will be given equal respect and weight. The text is defined broadly to include a book, research effort, poem, film, or other work of art. The first university forum will take place at the June meeting planned for San Francisco.
The committee also decided to bring back a once popular format known as psychoanalytic dialogue. In this 90-minute exchange, two analysts who have different perspectives on a cutting edge issue in the field present position statements and debate each other with the help of a moderator. The first dialogue since we revived this format was last January, between Otto Kernberg and Ethel Person on the subject of romantic love.
Research has long been ambivalently viewed by members of our organization. There was a time when any proposal that had the word “research” in it would have fewer than 10 people in attendance. Times have changed, as analysts recognize the essential role of psychoanalytic research in preserving our credibility to the world. We now have a regular research symposium on Fridays at the January meeting in New York under the leadership of Stuart Hauser and Bob Waldinger. Literally hundreds of people attended the most recent symposium. In addition, the symposium is followed by a poster session, under the direction of Linda Goodman, Stuart Hauser, and Linda Mayes, where a sampling of psychoanalytic research is available.
We have been experimenting with different ways of conducting our major panels at the meetings…
The sharp demarcation between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy that was once typical of our organization has given way to the recognition that psychoanalysts and psychotherapists have much to gain from working side by side. Moreover, many psychoanalysts spend a great deal of their time conducting psychotherapy in their offices. We have recently been working closely with Dick Fox and his task force on integrating more psychotherapy into the program. In addition to Jane Warren's discussion group sponsored by the psychotherapist associates, we will also include a two-day clinical workshop devoted to psychotherapy, which will feature a detailed discussion of psychotherapy work from a recognized expert.
Along with these new program features, we continue to add many discussion groups and have now instituted a regular Saturday evening symposium at the January meeting that reflects the interface of psychoanalysis with popular culture. Writers from The Sopranos and actress Lorraine Bracco began this tradition two years ago. Harold Ramis, director of Analyze This and Analyze That, was our guest in January 2003, and Andrew Jarecki, director of the Academy Award nominee, Capturing the Friedmans, was our guest this past January. We hope to branch out into other areas of the arts as well.
As always, we welcome submissions from our members. Scientific papers must be submitted by May 1 for the January meeting and by December 1 for the June meeting. They should be no longer than 22 pages so they can be read at the meeting. For longer papers, we have a special pre-circulated format. For panel proposals, the deadline for submission is October 1 for the January meeting and March 1 for the June meeting. The Program Committee votes on these panel proposals, and the top eight are discussed during our all-day meetings
Glen O. Gabbard, M.D., is chair of the Program Committee. He is Brown Foundation Chair of Psychoanalysis and professor of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine; joint editor-in-chief, International Journal of Psychoanalysis; and training and supervising analyst, Houston/Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute.
in January and June. When proposers are not on the committee, we invite them to join us for the discussion of their proposals.
Symposia have been more and more popular in recent years. This format features the application of psychoanalytic thinking to non-analytic settings. The proposers do not read papers, but talk briefly about their ideas, and a good deal of time is allotted for audience interaction. If you have an idea for a symposium, please submit it by May 1 for the January meeting and December 1 for the June meeting.
We have been experimenting with different ways of conducting our major panels at the meetings, trying to get away from a succession of long papers with no time for interaction among the panelists or between the panelists and the audience. As a result, we have received a great deal of positive feedback from our attendees. As we continue to try other formats, we welcome your ideas. Contact any of us on the Program Committee if you have questions about submissions or ideas that you would like to see developed for the program.