A task force was established by the president of APsaA, Newell Fischer, after the June 2003 meeting of the Association. Its purpose was to study two questions: Should membership criteria be expanded so that dedicated career analysts who are graduates of training programs other than those accredited by APsaA and the IPA might become full voting members of APsaA? If so, how might this be accomplished?
The members of this Task Force on Expanded Membership Criteria (TFEMC) jointly authored this article. The task force is chaired by Harriet Wolfe. In addition to its members, the TFEMC has two consultants: Zenobia Grusky (appointed in July 2003), chair of the Executive Council Membership Committee, and Donald Rosenblitt (appointed in January 2004), new chair of the BOPS Membership Committee.
The task force developed a group process of self-education and dialogue in order to identify and understand the issues involved in augmenting access to voting membership in APsaA. However, this process of self-education and dialogue must extend to the entire membership because the issues to be considered are so urgent and complex. Basic facts related to the Association's survival and to its relevance in the modern mental health and scientific worlds require APsaA members' thorough attention and timely action.
There is a real possibility that APsaA may disappear in one generation. APsaA is rapidly aging. Based on the age and retirement status of our members, very soon nearly one-third of our membership will not be paying dues. The Association will need new and younger people to revitalize the active membership and to insure the scientific and clinical future of psychoanalysis. The actual size of the Association may not increase if membership criteria are expanded, but such an initiative may prevent it from getting smaller, older, and poorer.
Historically, the sole path to membership in APsaA has been training at an APsaA-accredited institute. When this configuration was established, we were a very different organization from what we are now. It was a time of extremely rapid growth in the profession. Training was the Association's principal activity, and the Association represented most of the psychoanalysts in the United States. There were twice as many people in training as there were graduated voting members.
Times have changed. The period of rapid growth ended about 20 years ago and current growth in our profession is occurring outside of APsaA. Our membership represents less than half of the entire profession in the United States, rather than the entire profession as it once did. The issues our Association faces have become broader than candidate education. They include postgraduate education; ethics; research; outreach; and governmental relations in regard to privacy, new licensing laws and other matters of grave concern to our patients and to ourselves.
Psychoanalysis has grown because of the quality of APsaA training, but in spite of its restrictive procedures. For example, we have had an elitist image among non-APsaA analytic colleagues. Fortunately, this was partially corrected by BOPS in January 2004 when it set a precedent by accepting 15 IPA graduates, and, with the encouragement of our president, initiated procedures that permit IPA graduates to become voting members without additional vetting. However, there are other career analysts in the nation who are making important contributions to APsaA and to psychoanalysis but who were trained through paths other than APsaA- and IPA-accredited institutes. At present they cannot become full APsaA members. Two of our affiliate society presidents, in the Southwest and in Virginia, have not qualified for membership because of the independent status of the institutions in which they trained. Some career child psychoanalysts, spending lifetimes seeing children and adolescents in psychoanalysis, are excluded by virtue of their “child-only” and “non-APsaA” or “non-IPA” trainings. These are but two examples of colleagues whose contributions we need as an organization.
When we consider such disparities in the context of the historical evolution and current state of psychoanalysis in the United States, it is clear to the TFEMC that APsaA needs to expand its membership criteria. The question becomes how to best do this. Among APsaA's existing members, there is a common misunderstanding that greater inclusiveness will result in vitiated standards. Examining this assumption may help us think through the meaning of membership. If we adapt our views to current professional realities and expand APsaA membership criteria, we can acknowledge that membership requirements need not be tied to the locus of training as our old bylaws now require.
The TFEMC recommends a shift in philosophy that privileges commitment and contribution to psychoanalysis rather than locus of training, a shift that would enable APsaA to become a professional membership organization that represents psychoanalysts who are actively contributing to the growth and vitality of our profession.
It further recommends that the Executive Council, our APsaA Board of Directors, take on the Association's membership function so that membership will no longer be narrowly tied to the educational criteria of APsaA. It recommends that a standing committee of the Executive Council be established to review and act on membership applications.
The authors are members of the Task Force on Expanded Membership Criteria.
The TFEMC is aware that there are APsaA members who have serious reservations about the specific recommendations that were put forward in our report to Executive Council in January 2004, particularly those criteria that specified basic psychoanalytic training requirements. There is now a subcommittee of the BOPS Membership Committee mandated to consider possible new paths to membership and their implications for education in APsaA-accredited institutes.
Whatever specific criteria are adopted, the TFEMC believes it is essential that APsaA establish objective criteria to insure an application process that is fair, efficient, and welcoming. The identification of such criteria should not be seen as a weakening of APsaA's training standards. To ensure that BOPS's authority over APsaA-accredited institutes would not be threatened by expanded membership criteria or by broader representation of analysts trained through alternative paths, the Association would need to find ways to protect and support the training standards of its own approved institutes.
If the membership agrees to shift our philosophy of membership toward psychoanalytic contribution and to differentiate between membership requirements for the overall Association and training standards in our approved institutes, there are two areas that require further work. First, there needs to be a process of collaboration with BOPS to further explore and define the educational implications of such a shift. Second, a bylaw amendment is required to move the membership function of the Association to Executive Council.
The TFEMC wishes to encourage a dialogue among Association members with the goal of expanding our membership criteria in ways that are sturdy and wise. We hope that members will take part in the discussion of membership issues at the June 2004 meeting of the Association.
Those interested in reading the TFEMC report to Executive Council, delivered in January 2004, can find it on the APsaA Web site at .