Many psychoanalysts already work with undergraduates—we teach them in psychology courses, we teach them in interdisciplinary courses such as psychohistory or philosophy and psychoanalysis, we provide direct clinical service or supervision at student mental health centers. Many other analysts live with undergraduates, or at least pay their tuition bills. In one guise or another, we share their dreams and watch their extraordinary combination of wisdom and immaturity, kindness and self-centeredness, intellectual aliveness and curiosity.
A number of us have become convinced that the undergraduate population is one of the central groups we must reach out to if we want psychoanalysis to survive. Niko Canner, who is providing consultation to APsaA on strategic planning, suggested that we need to reach out to the 10,000 brightest minds graduating from the nation's colleges. Canner, like many others, cites exposure to psychoanalysis during his undergraduate years as sparking a life-long appreciation for this “way of listening that provided meaning and was helpful to people in such abundance” [see “Membership Gateway, Governance, Psychotherapy Initiative Top Council and Board Agendas,” TAP 38:1].
Consider the following observations about undergraduates:
Undergraduates are ripe for exposure to explanatory theories of the mind. They want to understand themselves, their friends, and their families in deep ways.
Undergraduates are very interested in mental health issues, especially those they see affecting their friends, such as anorexia, depression, and suicide. They want to understand and to know how to help.
Undergraduates seek information, and they have access to endless sources in the information age. They are comfortable with databases, spreadsheets, and search engines. They do not suffer boredom well.
Looking at the current academic scene, some of our colleagues have suggested that psychology departments may be a lost cause in terms of interest in psychoanalysis. Others are less pessimistic. Interest in psychoanalysis is high in other academic departments. In the art history department at a prominent Chicago university, I was told, psychoanalysis is taught as one of five key approaches to understanding art. On the other hand, the professor who last taught the course on psychoanalytic approaches to art had never spoken with an actual psychoanalyst, and the graduate student teaching assistants were exposed to psychoanalysis only through art history texts and a smattering of readings from Jung and Lacan.
The 10,000 Minds Project was born out of these various threads. The idea is to organize a broad initiative within APsaA, along the lines of the global science initiative, conducted by Alan Compton several years ago, and the psychotherapy initiative, ongoing under Dick Fox, to expand our outreach efforts to the undergraduate population. The goal is modest—to simply increase the chance of graduating college students having heard about psychoanalysis as an explanatory theory of the human mind and as a method of treatment and understanding for human problems.
I presented the project to the Executive Committee and Coordinating Committee in April of 2004 and met with an enthusiastic response. We began to set up a task force to accomplish the actual work of the project. The end product of the task force's work was envisioned as a set of recommended actions to bring to the Association.
The next step was to define as comprehensively as we could the possible points of contact between psychoanalysis and undergraduates.
Psychology—courses, teachers, texts, organizations, journals, meetings, Web sites
Humanities and social sciences—courses, teachers, texts, journals, organizations, meetings, Web sites in fields, such as philosophy, literature, art history, film studies, political science, history
Student mental health and counseling services
Student health services
Student life services—resident advisor system, orientation programs, dormitory bulletin boards
Administration
Internet—research resources, e-learning courses
Summer and term-time internships
Student activities—psychology clubs and psychology honor society
A stellar task force was assembled with representatives corresponding to most of the identified gateways. We strove for geographical diversity, and representation of small and less well-known colleges as well as large prominent universities. The task force includes the authors of the only modern abnormal psychology textbook with a psychoanalytic foundation (Jim Hansell and Lisa Damour), the director of a large college health service (Nell Davidson), luminaries in interdisciplinary studies (Peter Loewenberg in history,
Jonathan Lear in philosophy), and numerous other talented people with a variety of experiences regarding the connection between undergraduates and the field of psychoanalysis. We have representatives from the Committee on Research and Special Training (CORST) and child analysis, and liaisons to the Psychotherapy Committee and the Committee on the Arts.
With all of this talent, what are we actually going to do? Again, the task is difficult, but the plan relatively straightforward. We hope to elaborate a goal of reaching undergraduates via each gateway. Under each goal, there will be specific recommendations. Then the whole list of recommendations will be examined and hierarchically organized, with priority based on issues of feasibility, cost, and impact.
One thing we know we would like to do is collect as much information as possible about psychoanalysis and undergraduate education in one place, and then make this accessible on our revamped Web site. Syllabi, conference reports, programs, lists of individuals with various interests and expertise, Web sites, books, and journals should all be included. Much has already been done in this area. But it appears that, for the most part, the information is scattered here and there and often lost to posterity. Putting the information together is a daunting task. Keeping it up to date will require a creative search for additional resources.
Another idea in the works is to prepare a resource packet for local societies and institutes, with material on possible approaches to local college communities. We are also thinking about internship possibilities for graduate and undergraduate students involving exposure to psychoanalytic ideas.
One ambitious dream, first expressed by Dottie Jeffries, APsaA public affairs director, is to have a staff person dedicated to education at the national office. While not feasible yet, nothing happens if you don't have a dream. We can at least say, already, that we are responding to Niko Canner's challenge to reach the 10,000 brightest young minds and introduce them to psychoanalysis.