Educator/analyst symposia focusing on today's challenging issues of K-12 education have become a regular feature at recent meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association. The semiannual symposia, held under the auspices of APsaA's Liaison to Schools Committee, have been well attended with a high degree of audience participation.
The Liaison to Schools Committee was launched in 1997, as an ad hoc body, in response to a perceived national need to improve social, emotional, and cognitive interventions for children and adolescents in schools via applied psychoanalytic interventions. The committee, which attained full status in 2002, spearheaded a new category of APsaA associate membership, the educator associate, to meet the needs of educators who are interested in the application of psychoanalytic principles in the classroom. Jonathan Cohen and I currently co-chair the committee.
The second Semiannual Educator/Analyst Symposium, “Coping with Disruptive Aggression in Schools: Educators and Analysts Learn from Each Other,” was held at the 92nd Annual Meeting last year in Boston. The panel, composed for the first time of both educators and analysts, considered some of the major stressors facing school communities, including violence, intolerance, and bullying, and discussed how educators and analysts can enhance the learning environment in schools. This symposium honored the contributions of one of the panelists, Maurice Vanderpol, a psychoanalyst who pioneered psychoanalytic school consultation to K-12 schools in the Boston area since the 1970's.
Dr. Vanderpol led off the panel with an overview of his psychoanalytically-informed approach. He compared the process of school consultation to working with a person in analysis, first establishing positive relationships with school personnel, and then working with them to understand the nature of the school's organization and culture. Once the systemic conflicts and stresses in the school are clarified, change is possible.
The first educator panelist was Liz Arney, a former classroom teacher and program associate at Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO), a national organization based in Boston that works with teachers in school systems around the country to promote active classroom discussion about personal and social issues relating to tolerance and conflict resolution. She called upon psychoanalysts to reach out to teachers who often work in isolation and without support. She recounted an FHAO intervention in an inner-city school classroom after one of the students in the class was killed intervening in a bullying incident, traumatizing the other students. Arney helped the teacher develop a practical model to restore the students' sense of safety and to teach civil responsibility.
Matthew King, superintendent of the Wellesley (Mass.) public schools, observed that the national discussion about change in schools over the past 10 years has focused on pedagogy and content. Achievement has been emphasized at the expense of the emotional life of schools. In King's opinion, the fear of conflict and aggression and the “siege mentality” of teachers and administrators have led to a lack of emotional responsiveness and communication failures that have torn schools apart. He advocated training educators to respond to aggression and conflict in proactive ways.
Stuart Twemlow, who served as the discussant, has been an advocate of applied analytic interventions in K-12 schools as well as in the community at large and has done significant psychoanalytically-informed research on bullying in schools. Twemlow agreed with the other panelists about the need to identify the qualities of a school environment that promote a culture of safety and mutual respect. He cited his research on bullying that demonstrated the effectiveness of a cognitive intervention with teachers and students to enhance mentalization and empathy.
The third Semiannual Educator/Analyst Symposium, “Promoting Emotional Competence and Academic Achievement: Psychoanalysts and Educators Working Together,” was held at the Winter 2004 Meeting in New York. This symposium was organized by co-chair Jonathan Cohen, president of the Center for Social and Emotional Education (CSEE). Cohen reviewed the concept of “emotional intelligence,” noting how current social and emotional educational efforts in K-12 schools have built on the child analytic tradition pioneered by Anna Freud. This tradition promoted children's ego capacities both in clinical work as well as in analytic-educational collaborations. He cited extensive research that confirms how academic achievement goes up as social and emotional capacities expand.
Margaret Jo Shepherd, emeritus professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a member of the CSEE faculty, addressed the role of anxiety and motivation in learning. She attributed the failure of certain children to achieve reading fluency, in spite of appropriate cognitive/biologic interventions, to emotional issues that interfere with working memory. Shepherd called for more attention to students' emotional lives.
Jennifer Allen, a former teacher and middle school principal and current director of education at CSEE, discussed the culture of schools and the need for schools to promote safety through collaboration, communication, and tolerance. She presented the ASSESS Survey (Assessing Social Emotional School Safety) developed at CSEE to measure the emotional climate of schools and the quality of social, emotional, and academic teaching and learning.
Stephen D. Kerzner, M.D., is a graduate of the Psychoanalytic Institute of New England, East, in adult analysis and of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in child analysis; clinical instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; and has a private practice in Brookline and Duxbury, Massachusetts.
The ASSESS Survey can be used both as a springboard for schools to think reflectively about current teaching and school climate and as a pre/post test measure.
As the discussant, Leon Hoffman, a psychoanalyst and co-director, Pacella Parent Child Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, emphasized the value of collaboration as a unifying concept not only within school systems, but also between parents, students, and teachers.
The Liaison to Schools Committee urges all APsaA members to spread the word to educators about the category of educator associate. Teachers, school counselors, and administrators at all levels of education, preschool through college, are eligible to join. Members are encouraged to nominate and/or mentor educator associates. Prospective educator associates must be sponsored by an active member of APsaA.
Please feel free to contact Jonathan Cohen or me for further information about the program. Educators interested in applying should contact Debra Steinke, APsaA membership services manager, for details at 212-752-0450 X26 or .