Eric Nuetzel, speaking to the Coordinating Committee, reminded the members that before the January 2007 meeting many members had been under the impression that the Executive Council, in its manner of acting with the Board on Professional Standards was in violation of New York law. After conferring with APsaA's attorney, an expert on New York Not-for-Profit Law, Victoria Bjorklund, Mortiz and Nuetzel were surprised to learn that having the Council receive the BOPS report had, in fact, been legal all along. Bjorklund explained that Council needed only to intervene in the circumstance of egregious malfeasance, such as discrimination based on race, gender, national origin, creed, age, or sexual orientation.
The subsequent ExCouncil meeting was one of collaboration and hope for relative peace in the Association. However, a few weeks later an allegation of discrimination based on sex and professional degree was made on the Members' List and later taken up on the ExCouncil listserv. The Executive Committee consulted with an attorney, an expert in discrimination law in Washington D.C., Art Lerner. Lerner reviewed the outcome of the last four and a half years of certification cycles (since the revision of the certification exam) and found no evidence of systematic discrimination.
Myrna Weiss and Cal Narcisi reported that the Congress of Institutes had been very well attended with about 80 to 90 people present. The congress had been convened in order to discuss the externalization of certifying and accreditation functions of BOPS. Some institutes were against externalization. They wanted at all costs to retain all BOPS functions within the Association. Spokesmen for other institutes said they would consider externalization. There was discussion about the fact that in most professional organizations, certifying and accrediting functions are separate from the membership organization. A coalition of the New York City institute leaders read a letter stating that they wished to be affiliated with an organization that maintains the current education and credentialing standards, either within or external to APsaA. Laura Jensen, president of the Affiliate Council, speaking for herself, said that the value of psychoanalytic education in APsaA accredited institutes is the perception that it provides the highest and most rigorous training.
In discussion of the proposal put forth by Don Rosenblitt, the Exploratory Proposal for Moving Forward, there were two straw votes. While the exact number of votes was not counted, there was strong support for national standards and for the motion. Narcisi said that there was strong support for the proposal because it provided a direction on how to proceed.
Mike Singer reported that almost everyone on the PIPE committee and all those from whom the committee had heard agreed that the training analyst system was vital to the integrity of analytic training. He said that, since candidates are in a most sensitive treatment with their current and future colleagues, they deserve assurance that their analysts have put their work on the line to be judged by their peers.
Candidates in analysis with a non-TA having to switch to a TA has been a vexing problem. While the committee members are respectful of the difficulties involved in having to switch, they have determined that two out of three alternatives seem to offer more problems than solutions. The Personal Analyst Choice (PAC) would put an end to the TA system. Another alternative, a waiver system, is also highly problematic because requests from institutes for a waiver could become unwieldy, misused, and interfering. Rather than making exceptions, a third alternative would be to make it easier to become a TA. Singer said, “We are looking into possible ways to be more flexible, including lowering the number of cases, the number of years post graduation, and including immersion in psychoanalytic psychotherapy as a qualifying prerequisite.”
The proposal was in two parts. Part one restated points of the relationship that already exists between BOPS and Council. Part two proposed that a joint committee be formed to study the advisability and feasibility of a process in which APsaA would evolve in a series of graduated and mutually supportive steps into two independent corporations. The discussion was rich, with some amendments being accepted and some rejected. When the question was called, BOPS voted to endorse the proposal by a vote of 41 in favor, 11 opposed, and one abstention.
After Jill Miller reported on the Committee on Child and Adolescent Analysis (COCAA) research, a proposed change in the current standards document, permitting child and adolescent only training was passed with two votes opposed. Bob Pyles said that the project was being observed around the world and would influence other psychoanalytic organizations.
Rosenblitt reported that the Committee on Research Education's (CORE) research on certification had been discontinued because the researchers had been “hounded,” both publically on the Members' List and privately. He expressed the hope that the Council would find a way to provide a framework in which the study of certification, especially the interview process could be resumed. He also said that the Certification Advisory Research and Development Committee (CARD) would have a role in studying and implementing the advice of the attorneys about risk management.