Psychoanalytic societies have historically been professional membership organizations, operating usually in conjunction with institutes. Their mission was relatively simple, namely, to provide continuing education and fellowship. This has changed substantially in recent years, as reflected in the modification to the very name of APsaA's Committee on Societies and Centers (CoSC) by act of Executive Council in 2000. CoSC has provided numerous consultations and two site visits since then, giving us considerable depth of information about evolutionary change in our local groups. To understand better what makes a “center,” the committee decided in 2005 to systematically survey the governance structure of the 40 local societies and centers represented on Executive Council. This article summarizes some of our findings.
As we have come to understand it, the center model represents a contemporary integration of the foundation movement into psychoanalytic organizations. In approximately half of our local societies/centers, there is a strong level of participation by non-analysts as both directors/trustees and as members. Specialists, such as lawyers, stock brokers, public relations consultants, and chairs of academic departments, not only bring direct skills, they also bring enthusiasm and a common-sense ability to get an organization to run effectively. On the membership side, many therapists and knowledgeable academics have joined in center activities with vigor and new ways of formulating ideas; their investment is strengthened in a number of places by being able to vote and hold office. Both kinds of involvement seem to have an enhancing effect.
Nine local groups at this moment call themselves “centers”—Cleveland, Dallas, Greater Kansas City and Topeka, New Center (Los Angeles), New Orleans, New York, Oregon, Philadelphia, and Washington. Of these, Oregon is the longest standing, and unique in being an offshoot of a foundation largely peopled by non-analysts, with leadership positions occupied intentionally by psychotherapists. Other centers have developed since 2000 through mergers of an extant society, institute, and sometimes foundation. Philadelphia and New Center, of course, also represent the more complex merger of two entire psychoanalytic institute/society pairs.
Generalizing from data about these nine places, we found that a typical psychoanalytic center has the following four features:
A unified organization serving membership and educational purposes;
A single board of directors (BOD) or trustees including community members;
Broad membership categories with few limits to rights to vote and hold office;
Highly trained non-profit executive or development directors.
There are eight local groups that function like centers, but go by a different name, most often “psychoanalytic society and institute.” These include Boston, Cincinnati, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Seattle, and Tampa. Most of these groups are similar to centers in that they have a central BOD overseeing membership and educational functions; they differ in details. Many, especially the older ones, have a large number of membership categories with limited voting and office rights. Others do not include community people on their BOD. Tampa has a tiny board (six) with non-analysts outnumbering analysts, with a new and separate Institute.
Five other groups are at various stages in thinking about becoming centers.
San Francisco has a proposal currently before its members to redefine itself as the San Francisco Bay Area Psychoanalytic Center.
The Berkshires and Wisconsin are reportedly thinking about becoming centers; both are new groups under the auspices of BOPS's Committee on New Training Facilities (CNTF).
Baltimore Washington and Michigan had developed proposals for centers which were defeated in the final vote of members. Interestingly, despite a negative vote, Baltimore Washington refers to itself as a “center,” illustrating a compelling incentive to present itself as a unified organization to the public.
There are important reasons for ultimate “no” votes on centers, as in Michigan and Baltimore Washington. We found that these are the same reasons that stop local groups from even beginning to contemplate organizational change: (1) fear of liability exposure from actions of non-analyst members; (2) perceived threat to Education Committee control over training; (3) lack of confidence in new or community people to understand and represent the interests of psychoanalysis. Actually, we have learned in our consultations over recent years that ambivalence is entirely expected in any organizational change, and that the process of overcoming resistance can be lengthy. Our current belief is that change process is facilitated by crisis which allows or forces individuals to subordinate differences to shared goals.
Richard Lightbody, M.D., has been chair of the Committee on Societies and Centers since 2000. He is a councilor-at-large and training and supervising analyst in Cleveland.
There are seven societies which have such simple missions that re-organization as centers seems unlikely. These include the newly created California Psychoanalytic Society, Long Island, New Jersey, Southwest, Upstate New York, Virginia, and Westchester. Because of their geographical location, development of an institute may not be necessary, and membership purposes are well served by a relatively informal society structure. Virginia is distinguished in this group by having an active role for non-analyst therapists who have achieved a specified immersion in analytic supervision and courses.
The remaining 11 local societies—Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine (N.Y.), Atlanta, Austin/San Antonio, Chicago, Denver, Florida, Houston-Galveston, Psychoanalytic Association (N.Y.), New England East, St. Louis, Western New England—seem to be functioning in the traditional way, with a separate institute, leadership and membership restricted to analysts, and non-voting membership categories for associated professionals. In some places, a psychoanalytic foundation exists as a separate part of the larger analytic community.
As noted at the outset, centers seem to represent a final integration of the “foundation movement” into more purely psychoanalytic organizations. Inspired by Marvin Margolis and Harvey Rich in the 1990s, foundations have demonstrated the leveraging impact of non-analyst collaborators and non-profit management methods. In some of the places that reorganized as centers, the local foundations are fully incorporated; in others (e.g., Cleveland) the foundations remain as separate entities. In either case, accumulated experience confirms the added value of non-analysts and businesslike practices, both of which are being used as pillars of new structures.
In summary, the CoSC study of governance highlights a strong contemporary trend towards local psychoanalytic centers. Centers develop as non-profit corporations with vigorous community involvement both in leadership and membership, streamlined, demystified, and democratized.
It is not a stretch to see exactly the same developmental process occurring at the level of APsaA nationally. Nearly a century of tradition is encountering the novelty of non-profit management techniques and leadership, producing tension that is no greater (albeit more visible) than it is in every locale.
The Committee on Societies and Centers is available at any time for consultation by contacting me, the committee chair, at lbody@adelphia.net. We have learned much from site visits and shared agenda time at our twice-yearly meetings, and look forward to more. At the moment, we are developing a digest of organizational charts of all centers which will provide a selection of models for groups considering re-organization. It will be available upon request.