The Candidate, a free online journal, now in its fourth year, has stimulated lively, thoughtful scientific exchanges generated by its first three volumes, and recently announced its call for papers for Volume IV, on Power (see box below). Conceived by 15 New York University Psychoanalytic Institute (NYUPI) candidates to provide a context for candidates to think, read, critique, and write about issues germane to their candidacy and psychoanalytic education, the journal is guided by faculty members Rachel Blakeman and Hilary Rubenstein Hatch (both inaugural editors of Volumes 1 and 2 while candidates), Donald Moss, Steven Reisner, Joseph Reppen, Arden Rothstein, Jennifer Stuart, and Lynne Zeavin. The Advisory Board consists of analysts experienced in publishing from many institutes around the country.
The journal has always reached out to all psychoanalytic institutes, regardless of affiliation or theoretical orientation. One goal of this endeavor is to deepen and enrich the training experience by encouraging such diversity. Although The Candidate directs its call for papers to candidates, it also welcomes submissions from faculty, graduates, and non-candidates that address issues relevant to candidates, such as psychoanalytic education and the institutional milieu. Additionally, the journal occasionally invites specific authors to write on a particular subject, and frequently to prepare a presentation that pertains to a specific volume.
It is remarkable that at a time when many journals, and even magazines and newspapers, are folding, The Candidate has seen record numbers of unique visitors visit its Web site. In 2008 alone, over 4,000 unique visitors logged on to the Web site, rivaling the circulation of many major journals. Could it be that high demand for The Candidate indicates not only significant candidate interest but also greater than anticipated general interest in psychoanalysis?
The Candidate has spawned other ventures, such as the Inter-institute Candidate Alliance, a group of candidates from several New York City psychoanalytic institutes, APsaA institutes, and independent institutes, which organizes free programs aimed at candidates from the many psychoanalytic institutes. Last September, for example, this group organized a panel titled, “Orthodoxy Is Unconsciousness: Examining Gatekeeping Practices at Our Institutes. A Dialogue across Institutes Initiated by Candidates.” The panel included seven analysts, representing seven different New York institutes. Candidates served as moderators.
Photo: Susan Fine
The journal, initially funded by the Foundation for the Support of Psychoanalytic Education and Research (FOSPER), has grown to become a self-funding venture, in that it organizes an annual fundraiser to maintain its Web site (), to host panels and roundtables, to document its activities and archive them via videotape and audiotape, and to announce and promote each volume.
Fundraisers are held on Friday evening during the January meeting in New York. Past fundraisers have been held at the Tina Kim Fine
Brenda Bauer, Psy.D., is a first-year candidate at New York University Psychoanalytic Institute, chair of APsaA's Committee on Students and Residents, and on the editorial boards of TAP and The Candidate. She is in private practice in New York.
Art Gallery, Park Avenue Bank, and this year, at the Plaza Hotel (Warren-Tricomi Salon), all of which were generously made available by supporters of the journal. Ticket sales and donations from supporters have funded recent volumes. The Candidate is investigating the possibility of introducing a silent auction at the 2010 fundraiser to enhance its ability to expand its reach by offering an even richer slate of events (roundtables, panels, the media resources to document these events, and related publicity).
The Candidate also maintains an exciting video and audio archive on the “Screening Room” section of its Web site. Here, Hilary Rubenstein Hatch, a candidate then, interviews Roy Shafer about his psychoanalytic candidacy from 1954-1959, Shelley Orgel interviews Dale Boesky, Donald Moss interviews Nancy Chodorow, and candidate David Cole interviews The New Yorker art critic and bestselling author Adam Gopnik, to name a few original video highlights. There are also videos of Jacob Arlow, Ernest Jones, reminiscences of Freud, and an online photographic tour of Freud's consulting room in Vienna to round out these offerings.
The “Culture Desk” offers book and film reviews and cultural commentary. Panels and roundtable discussions (events that are free and open to the public) are also documented and catalogued—most recently, the “Money, Gender, and Psychoanalysis Roundtable”—making for a rich multifaceted Web site.
In short, The Candidate is not simply an online journal, but a unique repository of original writings and recordings, as well as a growing media collection of seminal psychoanalytic thinkers. Envisioned by candidates for candidates, it appeals to even the most experienced students of psychoanalysis.