Our profession does not provide many opportunities for collaborative dialogue. Establishing and nurturing the psychoanalytic frame requires hours alone with patients, assisting in private self-exploration. We dedicate ourselves to that task because we have daily evidence of the effectiveness and transformative value of psychoanalytic understanding.
Recently, I met with other analysts about clinical issues, technique, and theory. While we did not always agree on smaller points, there were common threads: respect for human complexity and the mind's capacities, the power of the unconscious, and the uniqueness of the psychoanalytic relationship. Collegial exploration of clinical issues was a reminder of the fullness of psychoanalytic practice. I left this meeting having reaffirmed my belief in the indispensable psychoanalytic understanding of the human condition.
Busy psychoanalytic lives leave us with too little time for the renewal that comes with sharing experiences and values. Furthermore, our professional commitments to personal understanding, privacy, and introspection do not always prepare us to translate from our offices into the forum of public opinion. For that reason, I propose that we dedicate a portion of our Winter Meeting to an open dialogue about the challenges facing our profession. This suggestion is in line with the objective of my presidency to provide APsaA's membership with an opportunity to share an experience of renewal and reaffirmation. I hope to do so by helping us unite in dedication to an empowered organizational mission.
In my first TAP column, I laid out the “facts of life” confronting our profession:
Industrialization of mental health care devalues psychoanalysis and denies psychodynamic treatments.
The educational marketplace is competitive.
The psychoanalytically minded seeking recognition and affiliation have choices.
These facts are our challenges.
We need to do everything in our power to increase access to psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy at all income levels. We need to reach the audiences who will respond positively to the messages of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and APsaA. We must encourage new members through enhanced, attractive membership and association. We need to push for educational standards that recognize, acknowledge, and encourage diversity, creating different entry points and welcoming different pathways to psychoanalysis. We need an articulated message and mission of valued, committed, and effective service that donors can embrace in national fundraising.
…I propose that we dedicate a portion of our Winter Meeting to an open dialogue about the challenges facing our profession.
We are strong financially and blessed in human resources, but in a universe of challenges we must ensure that our actions to realize those objectives are focused, efficient, and effective. Toward that end, we have undertaken a planning process to determine our organizational priorities and develop a strategic plan.
A first step, planning for the polling of all members, affiliates, associates, society and institute administrators, and staff is underway. I hope that by the time you read this article we will have completed and circulated our questionnaires on priorities for psychoanalysis and APsaA. I do realize, however, that to do things right takes thought and time and we want to do it right. I look forward to receiving your ideas, compiling, and collating them. I am sure you will be thoughtful and creative.
I am sure you realize that priority setting and strategic planning is essential for our future. At the January meeting we will have a chance to meet together and explore where we are in the process, and at the Friday morning Meeting of Members, I will deliver a status report. The Meeting of Members is usually thought of as a dull business meeting. Thanks to the richness and variety of the issues we face, this “state of the union” will be anything but bureaucratic and dull.
An open discussion forum will follow (its time and location will be in an invitation included with your registration materials). The open forum will follow up on my state of the union and be a chance for you to join the Executive Committee, Steering Committee, and me in frank, honest dialogue about priorities and planning for organizational objectives. Any comments or questions can be addressed directly to me and to the leadership. I know your schedule is busy, but please drop in for as much or as little time as you can. I am eager to talk with you about the future direction for psychoanalysis.
As ApsaA approaches its second century, now, more than ever, we need to learn to engage a mindful public in an open discourse about who we are and what we do. In order to do that, we need to come out of our offices with its necessary mindset and speak for ourselves. We don't want to forget what we know; we just want to think about it and use it differently. We can't proceed to articulate what we know about psychoanalysis and its importance for the public, purchasers of insurance benefits, academics, or government until we talk through our own ideas. It is essential that we meet and talk about the profession's paramount issues. I believe that conversation will be not only necessary and useful but also renewing.
Jon Meyer, M.D., is president of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
After the polling, my reports, meeting with you, and your feedback, the Executive and Steering Committees will work to refine the priorities and strategic goals. We will also work on an implementation plan to achieve those goals. I am looking forward to reporting that more elaborated and refined plan at the June Annual Meeting in Seattle. Since we all have to put our shoulders into making this plan work once it is considered and, hopefully adopted by Council, and the BOPS has advised, I would favor its ratification by the membership. That is looking far ahead but is what I would hope for.
In the meanwhile, I look forward to seeing you in New York. See you soon.