The BOPS meeting in New York opened with a discussion of the future of the board. Eric Nuetzel, BOPS chair, opened the discussion with what was then surprising news. In a consultation with Victoria Bjorklund, APsaA's expert attorney on New York not-for-profit corporate law, Nuetzel and Lynne Moritz, president, had learned that, contrary to our previous understanding of Bjorklund's opinion, the Board on Professional Standards was not out of compliance with New York State law. With the sanction of the Executive Council (Council) as board of directors (BoD), the officers of BOPS could continue to do business with the Council as they had for the past 61 years [see Council Report, page 21].
Moritz said that if the Council agreed to continue in their customary manner of acting, there possibly could be a “period of peace.” Initially relieved by the news and this statement of support, the fellows spoke of ways to restore the collaborative spirit embodied in the proposal of the Task Force on Education and Membership. In this regard, they considered a process of reconciliation of “appropriate conflicts” between the BoD (Council) and its BOPS committee. This process might take place within a standing committee composed of representatives of both Council and BOPS.
Some said that, because of the past practice of bicameral governance, there has been a tendency to dichotomize, identifying with either membership or educational issues. This has been the case in spite of the fact that there have always been councilors and educators with a combined interest. Some fellows were hopeful that now, since the Council is recognized as the sovereign BoD, more members with educational interests would seek a seat on Council, more actively introducing educational concerns in their local society meetings.
There were also words of caution. Jonathan House, the APsaA secretary, said that, while he hated to “rain on the parade of good sunshine,” he believed the task of dealing with “substantive issues” such as local option would not be accomplished by good will and trust alone. He said, “The source of the conflict will not be, in the first instance, from Council, … members, the Wednesday Group, or the Alliance. It will be in the institutes where the conflict will arise directly.” He predicted that one of the institutes would soon appoint an uncertified training analyst.
Saying that House had told them “something important,” some fellows spoke of a sense of assault in which they felt that “honest debate over educational standards” had been increasingly replaced by “well timed, frequent challenges to our existing bylaws.” They expressed concern that the discussion so far might have been “based on a fantasy,” recognizing that, while some members may hear the news as an opportunity for peace and collegiality, others may not. Discussion turned to the possible need for two separate corporations, one a membership organization, the other an accrediting and certifying body. Several fellows pointed out that this was the dominant model in professional organizations.
A motion was proposed with two parts. The first dealt with formalizing the relationship between BOPS and Council through the creation of a charter for BOPS as a committee of the corporation. Council, as the BoD, would receive BOPS reports with feedback encouraged. Hopefully, this would allow BOPS to convey to Council the “substance and breadth” of the activities of BOPS, establishing a truly collaborative structure. The second part provided for a task force composed of representatives from both BOPS and Council to explore the possibility of two separate corporations going forward in the future.
Many fellows were concerned that the motion would be taken by Council as a vote of no confidence. Moritz pointed out that Council had not yet been informed about the new understanding of the legal status of BOPS. She strongly encouraged the fellows to give the councilors a chance to digest the news before being presented with a motion.
A motion to postpone the motion until a time certain at the June meeting was proposed and after some debate was easily passed.
Stuart Hauser reported that in the Committee on Research Education's project on certification, they now have a high level of inter-rater reliability (between .65 and .75) at the committee level around the hierarchy of competencies as well as the markers of that hierarchy. Agreement has been demonstrated on the components of each of the competencies. Since it could be argued that the Certification Examination Committee (CEC) is a hothouse culture, 12 analysts who had written, and were senior, highly regarded clinicians were screened for being open-minded and non-dogmatic about certification. They were recruited throughout the country. This group reached reliability almost as high as the CEC itself.
In phase 3, this will move beyond the belief system level of what people believe are the high competencies and how they are composed to be applied to a real stream of data, namely the case report. The report was chosen because the interviews are largely constructed on the examiner's reading of the case report. All members of the CEC will rate two randomly selected case reports, a male and a female.
But the case report is only one stream of data. Since the CEC makes major decisions based on the interviews, the researchers know, in the interest of transparency and fairness, they have to find some way to rate the interviews. This includes audio recording since interviews cannot be rated on the basis of notes. This step is difficult because of the issue of confidentiality. However, Hauser believes they will find a way.