The Committee on Societies and Centers (CoSC) made its inaugural site visit in February 2004 to New Orleans. This was our first opportunity to travel, though we had envisioned such missions and already had funds budgeted. Our site visits differ entirely from those of our colleagues on APsaA's Committee on Institutes (COI), in that we do not provide accreditation. CoSC works by invitation; its calendar is dictated not by the internal demands of APsaA but by local situations and leaders.
After thorough preparation, two members of CoSC made a weekend consultation trip to address a significant organizational challenge: How to help the New Orleans group become a “Psychoanalytic Center.” There was already a strong preliminary consensus and a precisely identified problem: a failure to get past the sticking point in restructuring. This article will describe how we helped New Orleans reorganize.
New Orleans Psychoanalytic Institute president Ted Reveley extended the initial invitation in December 2003, having heard that Richard Lightbody (Cleveland) in particular and CoSC in general had experience with the center concept. The New Orleans Psychoanalytic Institute (N.O.P.I.) had undertaken a careful strategic planning process, and was on the verge of enacting new bylaws. Then they stopped: As long as we are reorganizing, they thought, why not include all segments of the community, not just the institute? The vision of a new organization—with transparency, inclusiveness, efficiency, and community members—seemed better served by a comprehensive makeover. Consultation from CoSC was requested to help get the process moving again.
We prepared in two ways.
First, CoSC convened a panel discussion on the subject of “Psychoanalytic Centers” at our regular Friday committee meeting at ApsaA's 2004 Winter Meeting. Guests from places with varieties of structure were invited: New Orleans, Portland, the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute (LAPSI), and New York. We also had some information from Philadelphia. A summary of the panel was prepared and distributed to New Orleans as well as our own committee and participants.
Second, the New Orleans psychoanalysts sent background papers: membership lists, the 2001 COI Site Visit Report, 2003 strategic planning documents, and bylaws of current and proposed analytic organizations. It made solid reading for the visiting team, who, by the time they landed in New Orleans, had a working sense of the community, its history, its resources, and some of its immediate problems.
The New Orleans community responded beautifully to the visit. Led by John Stocks (society president) and Reveley, about 25 members of the community attended a workshop on Friday evening, and a follow-up Saturday morning.
CoSC chair Lightbody began by reporting in detail on Cleveland's experience in renewal and reorganization. Like New Orleans, the Cleveland Psychoanalytic Institute had provided the original structure since the 60s, with society and foundation as later developments, whose workloads dramatically increased in the 90s. Like New Orleans, there had been reluctance to change and a sense of being stuck. This was reversed in a thorough strategic planning process and reorganization as a center.
The second CoSC team member, Sydney Arkowitz (Tucson), contributed a broad summation of the New York panel, emphasizing the unique aspects of each community. Portland's center started as a community-led foundation; Philadelphia carefully reversed an old split in combining two entire psychoanalytic organizations; New York had a bifurcation between society and institute but a centralized and unified board. Arkowitz concluded with insightful reference to APsaA's parallel effort to re-define itself.
The Saturday morning program got down to details. It was striking that individuals of all levels of membership actively participated. Among those present were a few senior analysts, candidates who felt under-appreciated, and central figures who felt stymied in previous efforts to change. We noted that several important leaders had absented themselves, apparently because of illness or a diplomatic sense that younger analysts needed to create an analytic world in their own vision. Understanding of both the problems and the capacities of all involved was enhanced and harnessed for action in a short period of time. At Reveley's suggestion, the last hour focused on what New Orleans could do in the immediate future. A newly appointed faculty member helped us along by asking concretely, “Exactly what specific action steps would CoSC recommend in their case?”
Richard Lightbody, M.D., was recently elected councilor-at-large for 2004-2008. He is chair of the Committee on Societies and Centers.
Sydney Arkowitz, Ph.D., is associate director of the Southwest Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, director of education there, and a member of APsaA's Task Force on Psychotherapy and of the Committee on Societies and Centers.
That final hour was a condensed discussion of how a center might be formed. By the time the meeting adjourned, specific time frames were established, analysts were assigned to teams, leaders were identified. There was a sense of movement, of rapport, of pleasure, even of exhilaration.
The visiting team wrote a detailed summary of the on-site consultation, which remains available for review by others.
CoSC followed-up four months later, at its regular June 2004 meeting. A senior analyst and a CoSC representative from New Orleans responded to our invitation for an hour on the agenda. This was partly to see if further problems had arisen in New Orleans that we could help with, and partly to further our own learning about the vicissitudes of transition to a different organizational model. As we heard, the group seems to have risen to its challenges. The New Orleans psychoanalytic community has successfully moved its preliminary work through subcommittees; it is trying to set a date of incorporation for their New Orleans Psychoanalytic Center. We will follow-up again in January 2005 to see if late snags develop.
Several other groups nationally have asked for discussion of the center model, and about the strategic planning process.
CoSC is ready to help local organizations in any way. We can consult at APsaA national meetings or in visits to different locales. We can adapt our agenda to suit any local question you want to bring to our committee meeting. We are budgeted in advance for consultation trips. We welcome your interest and invite you to talk with us. CoSC chair Lightbody invites calls at 216-371-1268.