The New York State Education Department (SED) has withdrawn the proposed implementing regulations for the licensing of psychoanalysts in New York State as a result of the overwhelming response of the psychoanalytic community. Article 163 of the education law, enacted in the summer of 2003 and scheduled to go into effect in January 2005, licenses four new professions: mental health counseling, creative arts therapy, marriage and family therapy, and psychoanalysis.
In a move that will delay implementation of the license for psychoanalysis, the SED has determined that it will take additional time to study the critical comments and extensive recommendations made by APsaA, the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies (CIPS), the Psychoanalytic Consortium, and other national and local psychoanalytic groups. David Hamilton, executive director of the NY State Board of Mental Health Practitioners, the board within the SED authorized by Article 163 to regulate the four newly created professions, announced that the regulations for licensing in psychoanalysis would probably be revised before being republished for public comment in December. The revised regulations would then be subject to an additional 30-day “comment” period before being sent to the NY State Board of Regents, which has final approval authority.
The decision to withdraw the regulations was made by the SED and may not have reflected the wishes of the three practitioners who represent the new profession of psychoanalysis on the state board. All three representatives are members of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP), the organization of psychoanalytic practitioners that lobbied for enactment of the law.
APsaA and CIPS submitted a comprehensive position paper, including recommendations for specific regulations, and mobilized a growing coalition of cooperating groups to join our effort.
The enactment of Article 163 has been the impetus for vigorous efforts by APsaA, CIPS, and a growing coalition of psychoanalytic groups pressing the SED to promulgate implementing regulations with stringent licensing criteria. The law creates a license in “psychoanalysis” for practitioners not otherwise licensed in “exempt” professions (social work, psychology, medicine, and nursing). The licensing criteria spelled out in the law are minimal: a master's degree in any field, completion of a program of study at a psychoanalytic institute, coursework “equivalent to a master's degree in a health or mental health field,” 150 hours of supervision, 1,500 hours of “supervised clinical experience,” and an examination in psychoanalysis. Moreover, the licensing criteria include no frequency requirements for training analysis or control work, no qualifications for training and supervising analysts, and no specific requirements for clinical experience in the conduct of psychoanalysis.
Working together, APsaA and CIPS launched a vigorous joint effort to urge the State Education Department, the agency charged with administering the law, to correct these deficiencies by promulgating stringent training criteria in the implementing regulations. Although the SED cannot rewrite the law, it can institute regulations that shape the implementation of law.
APsaA and CIPS submitted a comprehensive position paper, including recommendations for specific regulations, and mobilized a growing coalition of cooperating groups to join our effort. In August 2004 the SED published proposed regulations that reflected some of our recommendations, but did not include a frequency rule for training and control analysis. APsaA and CIPS then submitted a second position paper to address this issue, which was jointly signed by the leadership of virtually every psychoanalytic group in the country (APsaA, CIPS, the North American Psychoanalytic Confederation [NAPsaC], Division of Psychoanalysis [39] of the American Psychological Association, American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, and the National Membership Committee
Fredric T. Perlman, Ph.D., is on the faculty of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research; board member, Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies (CIPS); co-chair, APsaA-CIPS Joint Committee on Licensing and Credentialing; chair, CIPS Public Policy Committee; member, APsaA Task Force on Access to Care.
on Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work. It was also signed by many institutes and societies in New York—the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, the New York Freudian Society, the William Alanson White Institute, the NYU Postdoctoral Program, the American Institute for Psychoanalysis, and others. The signatories to this letter represent approximately 10,000 mental health professionals in the U.S., about a third of whom live and work in New York State.
The withdrawal of the proposed regulations clearly demonstrates the impact of our efforts, as well as the important efforts of the New York State Psychological Association and the New York State Psychiatric Association, upon the SED. All call for more stringent training criteria in the licensing regulations.
In a private comment to this author during a recess in the meeting of the State Board of Mental Health Practitioners on October 29, Hamilton acknowledged that APsaA and allied groups represent a vastly larger population of practitioners than NAAP, and that our comments were “definitely” being heard at the SED. He also expressed openness to meeting with our representatives to further discuss our recommendations.
However, this matter is far from settled. The three practitioners representing psychoanalysis on the state board can be expected to oppose any regulations that exceed NAAP training criteria which, like the law, include no frequency standards for training analysis or control work. If the new set of proposed regulations to be published in December is unsatisfactory, we will have to act energetically and efficiently. We will have only 30 days to mount a meaningful opposition before the proposed regulations are sent to the Board of Regents for final approval and implementation.
Readers who wish to read Article 163 and the proposed regulations published on August 25 can refer to the Web site of the New York State Education Department, Office of the Professions: .