The State of the Association

(Taken from the address delivered at the Meeting of Members, January 19, 2007, New York City)

When I awoke yesterday morning, I still had no idea what I was going to be able to say to you today. We didn't yet know how today would end—one organization? Two? One organization in fragments? Actually, today we will leave this meeting in fairly good condition—one organization and a moratorium—a time to find clarity about the direction that we should go.

There are very good things to report: Membership has been steady over the last five years. Financially, we are sound and doing very well. We publish the premier psychoanalytic journal in the world. We are half-owners of PEP WEB, a thriving company that is an extraordinary tool for psychoanalysts and researchers, an amazing instrument for access to the psychoanalytic literature. We have ongoing scientific and scholarly research and publications and scientific programs that are unparalleled. And we are bringing psychoanalysis out to the world in many ways—though not enough.

There are also ways in which we are not doing well. Segments of our Association are, and have been, deeply unhappy with us. A fracture line exists in our Association that threatens to divide us: The question is, can an accrediting and certifying body live within a membership organization? This question must be answered. I hope, I dearly hope, that we can remain one organization. I believe that splitting into two will lead to two weaker structures—will destroy an essential dynamism. But the right conditions must be created to remain as one.

As you know, the last several years have been tremendously stressful for our Association. It is our politics that is killing us, not our science. While we fight, too much goes neglected—the convergence of psychoanalysis with cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and research in the social sciences and humanities. The cutting edges of these fields press into our own, while we drain away our energy and resources fighting. The medical-industrial complex turns our world against us; complex public issues, where we have expertise to offer, go minimally addressed; political savvy is turned inward instead of out. Rather, we use our creativity and our resources for the joy of savaging each other. We cannot continue on this path, because our Association will not survive.

We are a small organization—something like a little pipe-fitters union—we sorely need the support of each other and a way to go forward.

I bring you news. Last Wednesday, Eric Nuetzel, Dean Stein, and I conferred with our expert counsel on New York law, Victoria Bjorklund. The issues we wanted to explore grew out of the Compliance Task Force consultation with her. The first was a proposal that Bjorklund called a “charter” for the Board on Professional Standards (BOPS). What is this charter? How would it work? And, second, I wanted to know, what EXACTLY is out of compliance in the way we operate? We've been driven, for years now, by a group that insists we are noncompliant with New York law. The conclusion? It is true, but our noncompliance exists in a state of mind, more than in our operations. We have thought for 60 years, since our 1930s bylaws, that we were a bicameral organization. Without our noticing, the law changed in 1970. Bjorklund says this is not unusual and not an emergency. We are among a large number of membership corporations, all in transition, all working to comply.

Moreover, the Board on Professional Standards is a Committee of the Corporation—IS! The Executive Council is our board of directors—IS! That's it. That's the law. We are one corporation. The Council has final, whole, entire fiduciary responsibility for us all. If we knew this before, we really, really know it now. BOPS reports, and must report, to the board of directors, because the board must ensure, have oversight, and be assured through these reports that BOPS does not bring us into legal liability. What possible liability? Bjorklund described two kinds: discrimination as to race, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc., or failure to apply our criteria in a fair and even way.

Bjorklund reviewed the board's role in assigning responsibilities and empowering committees to work. One such way is developing a charter. (“Charter” is another word for mandate.) All APsaA committees have mandates. In fact, BOPS has a mandate, specifically detailed in the duties and responsibilities assigned in Articles XI and XII of our bylaws.

So what is out of compliance? We've been told that we are noncompliant in that the Council must “approve” and vote on the BOPS report. This is not true. We learned in this consultation that there are multiple legal ways for a board to receive committee reports. Some organizations specify in their bylaws a manner of acting. However, a report can be received (no vote), accepted (with vote), or approved (with vote). All are equally legal.

For our contentious group, this manner of acting has come to embody symbolic importance. There are those who believe that Council must assert its will and primacy over BOPS at every meeting; others, whose hearts and minds have been in education, feel that such

would signify a lack of trust in BOPS to do its job. Bjorklund makes clear that a board of directors can allow a committee to carry out its mandate with relative autonomy, though as always, the board receives reports and retains final control. It is a matter of trust.

Embedded in our problem, Bjorklund believes, is a business decision that the Executive Council could make. As board of directors, the Council could decide that it is in the Association's best interests to accept the mandate for this committee, receive reports from it, comment on those reports with all appropriate feedback, listen for discrimination and fair application of criteria—and this would be enough. This could constitute its lawful oversight. In other words, we could legally proceed doing business in the way it has been conducted all along, if the Council will accept that for now. If necessary, this might be only a short-term solution to allow us time to find our path and direction.

Who knows? Maybe our future should be a corporation of institutes and a separate corporation for membership. Whatever happens, it should happen by consensus. We need the peace and the opportunity and the trust on all sides to think this through.

So the BOPS meeting ended Wednesday with the hope that Council would see the wisdom of Bjorklund's charter. And the Council meeting ended yesterday allowing work to continue for now. How long will this peace last? A week? A month? Could we have a year or more? Maybe we'll find that this is a perfectly good way to go forward. No one knows. Consensus would be best—but we must stop the kind of divisive bloodletting that has so occupied us for these last years.

Really, something extraordinary happened here this week. I think, for now, we can go forward. For now, we are all right. What needs to happen next is calm reflection—less passion, more reason, fewer threats. And we need time to remobilize ourselves. Please God, governance doesn't absorb us the way it has till this day! Let us do what we must in this wide world we live in. Let us turn with energy to the things we sorely need to do to ensure the place of psychoanalysis in the world. We have so much to do and so much to offer. That is my wish and my hope. I will work hard toward this end, and I ask for your help to do it.