What a pleasure to begin to turn the energies of this vast APsaA ship toward the work that psychoanalysis must do in our changing world! Our members clearly informed us in the bylaws election that reorganization is not to take place at this time. This and the moratorium on governance wars, negotiated at the January meetings, give us all a sorely needed respite; we can turn now to the work that our Association exists to perform—work that benefits our patients, our profession, and the world.
Our job, irrespective of our governance structure, is to promote, protect, and preserve psychoanalysis, train psychoanalysts, serve our members, and deliver up the best of our collective wisdom. For decades, we have felt helpless to affect massive economic and political forces mounted against our worldview in the world beyond our halls. We must accept a new imperative. Our voice must change the world. Impossible? Not at all. (More below.) This is a mission that matters. Even this moment in history invites us: The excesses and limitations of technology are beginning to be felt in neglect of the human spirit. Everywhere people struggle toward meaning in their lives. Shall we take advantage of these deep currents? And can psychoanalysis once again reclaim its place? In my view, we have much to say and much to offer. Psychoanalysis is a voice for humanity, a voice for ethical behavior, a meaning-making enterprise. We have enormous potential to do good.
Our job, irrespective of our governance structure, is to promote, protect, and preserve psychoanalysis, train psychoanalysts, serve our members, and deliver up the best of our collective wisdom. For decades, we have felt helpless to affect massive economic and political forces mounted against our worldview in the world beyond our halls. We must accept a new imperative. Our voice must change the world.
This is our moment. Science and research are now validating and helping us sort through our guiding tenets and techniques. Outcome studies are under way. We need these underpinnings, and we must do all we can to promote and facilitate the science that will both improve our efforts and increase our integration into the scientific world. At the same time, we need ever greater evidence of the usefulness of our work in the world of ideas and the world of action. We must be promoters of psychoanalytic understanding, contributing what we can contribute everywhere.
Our members, as always, are our greatest asset. This Association must facilitate the thousand-thousand ways that our multitude of members contribute to the world at large. Every outreach, every creative lectureship, every participation in a public place, every supervision, every group discussion, every compassionate act—all the unique and idiosyncratic opportunities that present themselves add to our living presence and visibility in the world. We must live both in and beyond the consulting room. Only through these multitudes can psychoanalysis achieve what lies now as potential only.
Our governance does not bring greatness. We must get our house in order, sweep up the detritus of neglect and take up external challenges that have gone inadequately answered in this last decade of internecine wars. We must find ways to smooth the paths for members' actions, and bring to bear our resources to truly make a difference in the world. This is the best service we can do. This is the path to greatness.
The following are only selected highlights.
A task force of scientists and researchers will be appointed from both members and non-members to rethink science and research within the Association, to re-address the efforts of the Omnibus Science Initiative (the first task force to take on this task a decade ago), and to recommend ways to improve the functioning of, and support for, science and research throughout the organization. We want the meetings of the Association to be the must-not-miss meetings of the year for all who labor in our and related fields.
There is no more foundational issue than the access each new generation has to information about psychoanalysis. Prudy Gourguechon has spearheaded a task force to brainstorm issues concerning access to psychoanalytic ideas in collegiate education. However, it is now time to coordinate these efforts with the other committees that deal with our border with education—kindergarten through high school, college, medical, and graduate education. We have overlapping committees and duplication of efforts.
The Division of Societal Issues has been like a stepchild to us, despite the fact that analysts throughout the country are involved in an amazing array of real world activities. Indeed, some bring their analytic skills to bear on very disparate subjects—the homeless, torture victims, city planning, family businesses, prison populations, and more. We need to
Lynne Moritz, M.D., is president of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
shift our energies. No organization currently embraces the role of understanding and interpreting the extraordinary events transpiring in our world. This should become a moral imperative for us.
Recently, we have approved a position paper on torture; we regularly provide amicus assistance on societal issues. Further, a Presidential Symposium on war and trauma is planned for the Denver meetings in June. Psychoanalysts know about traumatic devastation to both victims and perpetrators, families, communities, and unborn generations. But our efforts to date are not enough. New awareness, new focus, and new resources should be invested here.
Psychoanalysis is becoming a tentative new darling in the media and press. Respect seems to be growing in the attitudes of reporters, writers, and especially the man on the street. We are blessed with the talents of Kerry Sulkowicz, Dottie Jeffries, and the entire Public Information Committee and others. Media stories this year have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, The New Yorker, and the Chicago Sun-Times, to name a few. This year we will fund a trial campaign of advertisements in The New Yorker. Every mention is good for our cause.
The most widely practiced derivative of psychoanalysis is psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and, thanks to the dogged efforts of Dick Fox and the Task Force on Psychotherapy, a new Joint Committee on Psychotherapy was created at the January meetings. The Association is the first real home for those who practice psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Our challenge is to strengthen this part of ourselves, the bread and butter of most practices.
The time is ripe for closer alliances with all groups that share our values and beliefs. At this writing, the Association is exploring collaboration with Division 39 on research meetings, our alliance with the William Alanson White Institute is stronger, and, as one of the four associations of the Psychoanalytic Consortium, we cooperated with the Austrian embassy in celebrating the 150th anniversary of Freud's birth.
I have saved for last the efforts of this strong division. Eighteen months ago, our voice concerning the need for privacy in medical records was ignored in the nation's capital. Despite opposition from most within the legislature and the medical-industrial complex, we pressed the importance of privacy as essential to health care (especially psychoanalysis)—just as a sterile field is essential to surgery. We are now regularly asked to participate and advise on issues of privacy on Capitol Hill, and privacy has become an essential part of every EMR bill. Legislators and the general public are now clearly aware and clearly care.
This initiative succeeded because it retained its focus—a harbinger, perhaps, of what might become for psychoanalysis if we can shift our course. We must be guided by a fierce intention. But a small, persistent voice can change the world.