On the eve of taking office as president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, a colleague of Lynne Moritz quoted to her a line from Hamlet: “The time is out of joint. O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right.” Three hours after taking office, Moritz sits before me recalling this quote as she thinks about the future of the Association at this critical juncture of its history. But, unlike Hamlet who delays action until it is of no use, Moritz is a woman of action. To put it more precisely, Moritz is a mental health and psychoanalyst activist with a long history of getting things done.
After raising her two boys as a single mother, Moritz had a reserve of energy and agreed to serve as the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) delegate to the American Medical Association (AMA). She discovered that “a person who has some experience and good will and is trying to do right can make a difference.” Not only was she the first psychoanalyst in Missouri to fight alongside psychiatrists and physicians, and thereby “disabuse them of their preconceptions about analysts,” she also became a guide to state legislators advising them on bills that came across their desks, and testifying in hearings of the state legislature.
Moritz realized she had a talent for leadership and was excited to be able to have such a direct impact: “To be in the middle of the fray, and to be able to testify to things that are in alignment with your heart and your passions is really moving and a thrilling experience.”
As delegate to the AMA and district branch president of the APA, Moritz was influential. She painstakingly marshaled the forces that defeated False Memory Syndrome legislation that would have outlawed all psychotherapy right across Missouri. She also spearheaded support for a Missouri law regulating managed care. It was a comprehensive law that brought state oversight to the regulation of insurance companies, prohibited certain managed care practices, provided for complaint processes, and for the inclusion of practicing physicians on insurance panels. Passage of this law took many years and was related to legislation “which had some teeth,” requiring insurance companies to cover mental health at parity with physical illness. The parity law demanded that Moritz spend countless hours preparing for court case after court case to defend the law against insurance company interpretations.
A large portion of Moritz's practice is psychoanalysis, which she says comes from her “conviction about the treatment and its efficacy.” Her belief in the usefulness of psychoanalysis is also reflected in her present reading interests: “I am very engrossed at the moment in the neuropsychoanalytic literature—Solms, Fonagy, Panksepp. Schore, and so many others. We have a wonderful story to tell, and in many ways, I think this supports a turning point in awareness of psychoanalysis in the scientific world and the world of ideas.”
Because psychoanalysis is closest to her heart, Moritz felt getting involved administratively with APsaA was the next logical step. She had been director of her institute in St. Louis and had helped it “turn to the outer world with open doors” through a very successful outreach program. Moritz believed she could do the same with APsaA.
Christine Ury, D.Ps., is associate editor and international editor of TAP.
Looking at the job at hand with the Association, Moritz laments: “The Association is the most functional psychoanalytic organization in the world, and we have been completely stymied by our own politics…. Governance should be invisible and the Association should be dealing with the problems of psychoanalysis in the world.” Not letting herself get paralyzed by the difficulties of the Association, Moritz says: “I've seen the good things that can happen if you state what you believe and carry on with it in an active way to go forward…Maybe that will be helpful.”
She is an activist with experience who believes in fostering practical, common-sense action. Thus, rather than Hamlet, when thinking of Moritz, Gramsci comes more to mind: “I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”