The theory, practice, and institutions of psychoanalysis began with Sigmund Freud. This issue is a beautiful marker of his effort—of where he began, the impact he made, and some of the challenges facing psychoanalysis in the year 2006. A serious challenge and threat face our Association, as we work to reorganize. That work is critical; and I must turn our attention to it on this, the 150th anniversary of Freud's birth.
No one could have witnessed the rancorous proceedings in Council or paid even the slightest attention to the listservs without realizing that our governance is in crisis. As the E-news bulletins show, the Association is doing well yet governance has been unable to put a framework around our most contentious issues. In the absence of that framework, the voices of division have become more strident and self-congratulatory and statesmanship has been all but silenced. The report of the Task Force on Reorganization (TFoR) promised to provide a framework for change, but, as almost everyone knows, the reorganization process was derailed in Council and the task force was left wrecked and demoralized. Instead of a deliberative process, we have threats of externalization, splitting, and lawsuits. Anyone who loves this organization cannot help but be dismayed.
As in the American Civil War, there is more history behind our problems than is easily summarized. In brief, we were once a federation of local programs and that mentality persists in some quarters. Furthermore, there can be tension between societies and institutes locally and, regardless of some of the progress of our component societies and institutes toward resolving that issue, the tension is memorialized in our Association's governance. In that governance, beyond standing as a monument to our federation period and ancient tensions, it is as though we never became a membership organization and as though no one ever questioned why there should be any substitute for the direct vote of members in electing their representatives. Nothing is more democratic than the vote.
Our members invest in the Association through many wellsprings of affiliation: interests in clinical work, activism, friendships, continuing education, science, psychoanalytic and psychotherapy education, and standards. Most members are not ideologues, could not care less about slogans, and do not employ one-issue litmus tests. Unfortunately, in politics we have slogans (democracy, standards), enemies (“BOPSists,” training analysts, the “Wednesday Group”), litmus tests (firewalls, New York law), threats of legal schism (compliance, externalization), and, ultimately, a shortage of statesmanship.
There have been efforts before to deal with these chronic tensions through reorganization. The last one, about 10 years ago, crashed and burned in the Council for two reasons: It was a flawed plan and many councilors voted their self-interest. I know because I was one who led the charge against what I viewed as a cumbersome plan and, besides, I was not going to let anyone take away my newly acquired Council seat. What we got as a result was another decade of increasing rancor.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Now at the end of that decade, we need reorganization more than ever and the legal reasons are the least of it. The real reason, as Niko Canner astutely observed, is a severely contracting market—not only for our practice but also for our ideas and values. We must become more effective. To do so, we must resolve these age-old tensions and allow ourselves to think more creatively. Impaneling the TFoR was an attempt to do that, with the way for it carefully prepared through a series of communications from Newell Fischer and me, a presentation by Victoria Bjorklund, a mandate from the Council to start the process, and membership ratification of the TFoR. Following on that painstaking effort at communication and structure, the task force labored for a year and a half.
Given the care and the hard work, why is it that the process lies in shambles and the politics of polarization are in full sway? The reasons are similar to those 10 years ago: This plan was innovative and complex, requiring thought, and self-interest held sway. To simplify the objectives behind the reorganization effort, there were only two major goals. The first was to invest members with directly elected representation on the board of directors, to streamline the board of directors to a functional size, and to make provision for needed extra-analytic talents in fundraising, public relations, law, finance, governmental relations, and corporate relations. A modern board has to raise money, not just oversee its expenditure, and it has to provide needed expertise and access to accomplish the Association's missions of protecting psychoanalysis and seeing it thrive. The second task was to secure and stabilize the major asset of our educational programs in a time of transition. Education is our number one priority, but if our fiduciaries choose to overlook that, then there should at least be concern about those functions as our major source of new members, now and for the future. One way to stabilize that asset was through the mechanism of a subsidiary corporation—one of the three possibilities outlined by Bjorklund—which would keep BOPS within the Association yet allow some insulation for the accreditation and certifying functions. There was not even a serious discussion of these major goals and those options.
Building up to the American Civil War, there was a great divide in values. That divide was not addressed through statesmanship but rather through secession and conflict. In our organization, there is serious talk of externalizing accreditation and certification and of institutes going their own way. The problem with those approaches—as appealing as they may be to some on the right and the left—is the likelihood that moving institutes and functions outside the Association will take members with them and we will split.
I want to do all I can to get the reorganization process—and I emphasize process—back on track. Discussions are going on with leaders of Council and BOPS to find a way to get representatives of the two bodies together, meeting and talking. While for all of
Jon Meyer, M.D., is president of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
us I hoped for a positive response, my efforts were rejected the first time I tried. It is so important that I will try again. Refusal to talk with others who disagree may be politics as usual but is neither responsible nor statesmanlike.
Springfield, Illinois, was Abraham Lincoln's home for most of his adult life before he became president As a kid growing up in Springfield, I was steeped in Lincoln's life and his quotes. On June 16, 1858, in Springfield, Lincoln delivered a speech attempting to address the growing divide in our country. In its most memorable line, he said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Unfortunately, that forethought has never seemed more to the point and the warning has never seemed more urgent. Lincoln's concern rings as true now as it did then and, if we have trouble listening to each other, we should at least listen to the lessons of history.