On the occasion of our name change, we have been invited by TAP to introduce ourselves to the broader psychoanalytic community. And speaking for all our past-presidents, this is a long-awaited pleasure. Who are we? Prior to March 2007, we were known as the National Membership Committee for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work—the NMCOP. Although this name was historically accurate, it was confusing and, even for us, difficult to remember. Happily, the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work (AAPCSW) was selected for its accuracy and clarity.
We are an autonomous national association of clinical social workers who are either psychoanalysts or who apply psychoanalytic theory and its derivatives to our clinical practice. We have an elected board of national officers and 15 chapters across the United States, primarily in large metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, Raleigh/Durham, Washington, Atlanta, and Denver. Our membership, somewhere north of 750, is growing.
Our primary mission is to preserve and protect the knowledge base of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy through educational programs on the chapter level and through our acclaimed national conferences, usually held biennially. Our most recent conference, “The Examined Life,” was held in Chicago in March 2007.
In support of our mission statement, our Legislative Committee monitors federal and state legislative activities to safeguard minimum standards for psychoanalytic training and to ensure that clinical social workers who are qualified to practice psychoanalysis are protected from any restrictive new regulatory laws. For example, when New Jersey passed legislation establishing certification for psychoanalysts, two issues of immediate concern arose for social work. The first concerned the inadequate standards for psychoanalytic training, particularly in the areas of supervision and personal analysis. The AAPCSW supports the training standards developed by the Psychoanalytic Consortium and the New Jersey draft regulations failed to meet the minimum criteria. The initial version of these standards for psychoanalytic training was discarded following professional community criticism; we are awaiting a revised version.
The second issue required clarification for licensed clinical social workers who had successfully completed psychoanalytic institute training. Did New Jersey's scope of practice for licensed clinical social workers which specified psychotherapy include the practice of psychoanalysis or would L.C.S.W.s be required to be certified to practice as psychoanalysts?
For those of you who may not be aware of the Psychoanalytic Consortium, this essential alliance comprises four national membership organizations representing the traditional mental health practitioners who are trained in the subspecialty of psychoanalysis. It includes the American Psychoanalytic Association, Division 39 of the American Psychological Association, the American Academy for Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, and the AAPCSW. Among its important accomplishments have been agreement on minimum standards for psychoanalytic training and support for the creation of an independent accrediting body for training institutes, the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education (ACPE). In addition, representatives from all four groups participated for the first time in a symposium honoring Freud's 150th birthday. This event has led to the publication of a book that will be available later in the year: Freud at 150: 21st Century Essays on a Man of Genius.
The AAPCSW's commitment to education is furthered by the Study Group, a committee that publishes psychoanalytic social work writings and contributes to the development of educational programs. Among the Study Group's past accomplishments are two books: Fostering Healing and Growth: A Psychoanalytic Social Work Approach and The Social Work Psychoanalyst's Casebook: Clinical Voices in Honor of Jean Sanville. This committee is also active in promoting psychoanalytic content in social work education. These highlights are only a few of our organization's current activities.
As with many professional organizations, we were born out of necessity. In the early 1970s a bill was making its way through the New York State Legislature which subsumed all social work practice under the supervision of psychologists. In addition, clinical social workers, unlike psychologists and psychiatrists, were not afforded equal opportunities to teach and supervise once they completed analytic training. (New York has been a mecca of advanced training opportunities in psychoanalysis since World War II with more than 70 postgraduate institutes inviting candidates to join their training programs.)
Under the leadership of Crayton Rowe, the Committee on Psychoanalysis was formed to address these issues in New York State as part of the New York State Society for Clinical Social Work. Soon after, the need for a national committee led to the formation of a Committee on Psychoanalysis as part of the National Federation of Societies of Clinical Social Work. Within 10 years, we became an independent national organization, the National Membership Committee for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, incorporating in 1993 just in time to oppose the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis's (NAAP) attempt to obtain federal recognition as the sole accrediting body for psychoanalytic training.
Marsha Wineburgh, D.S.W., is president of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work. She is faculty, supervisor and training analyst for the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health and in private practice in New York City.
(This group represents psychoanalysts with no mental health credentials.) Through the work of the Psychoanalytic Consortium, we were able to defeat this attempt.
It was this cooperative experience in the consortium with APsaA, Division 39, and Dynamic Psychiatry, which made clear the necessity for ongoing collaborative efforts to protect and preserve psychoanalytic training and its knowledge base. The AAPCSW looks forward to working with APsaA as equal partners on behalf of psychoanalysis.