At the July 2009 meeting of the Board on Professional Standards, we agreed to form a task force with two groups. It is called the Task Force on Educational Standards Revision (TFESR), which has been formed for the purpose of recommending educational standards revisions. The two groups are the Task Force on Educational Standards Major Revision and the Task Force on Educational Standards Minor Revision. The TFESR has two co-chairs, one to chair each group and also to coordinate communication between the two groups.
The Major Revision group was charged with developing a comprehensive educational standards document compatible with the standards of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) for consideration by the Board on Professional Standards (BOPS) at their meeting in January of 2010. The Minor Revision group was charged with reviewing the current educational standards document, which is available on the Association's Web site, and recommending changes where appropriate to BOPS at their January 2010 meeting. These minor revisions of standards must also be compatible with the standards of the IPA.
Both groups will work by phone, conference call, and e-mail. A draft document from each group will be available for distribution with materials for the 2010 National Meeting in January. As a fellow-at-large for BOPS, Eric Nuetzel serves as ombudsman for the two groups. The chairs of these two groups will be sending Nuetzel monthly reports. The two groups are expected to share working drafts of new or revised standards with each other and may at their discretion request feedback through the BOPS listserv. By that means, drafts can be distributed to each society and institute by the BOPS Fellows for discussion among the members of each local psychoanalytic community.
The two working groups, Major Revisions and Minor Revisions, will meet together for a retreat in New York City on Saturday, January 9, 2010, which Nuetzel will chair. The purpose of the retreat will be to compare and contrast their documents and to ascertain whether the two sets of standards can be reconciled in a third document. The recommendations of the TFESR Major Revisions group and the TFESR Minor Revisions group and any reconciliation document resulting from the retreat will be presented to BOPS at its Wednesday meeting, January 13, 2010.
There are four possible outcomes of this process.
Reconciliation. If a reconciliation document outlining new and/or revised educational standards is acceptable to both the Major and Minor Revision groups and to all of BOPS, those standards can be adopted. Any incompatibility with the Association's bylaws will need to be addressed.
Major Revisions. If there is no reconciliation possible, at least one-third of the Board on Professional Standards voting institutes must agree to adopt the recommendations of the Major Revisions group for those new standards to become effective for participating institutes. Any incompatibility with the Association's bylaws will need to be addressed.
Minor Revisions. If no reconciliation is possible, BOPS may adopt the changes recommended by the Minor Revisions group. This could occur in addition to outcome number two and would apply only to those institutes not participating with the standards of the Major Revisions group. Any incompatibility with the Association's bylaws will need to be addressed.
Stalemate. In the event of a stalemate, i.e., no reconciliation document, less than one-third of BOPS's voting institutes support the change of the Major Revisions group, and no majority support for the changes recommended by the Minor Revisions group, BOPS will determine how to proceed from there.
Both groups were comprised entirely of volunteers.
Major Revision group: chair, Erik Gann; members, Ralph Fishkin, Richard Fritsch, Robert Galatzer-Levy, William Glover, Robert Gordon, Michael Kowitt, Jay Kwawer, Barbara Shapiro, David Terman.
Minor Revision group: chair, Allan Compton; members, Lee Ascherman, Stephen Bernstein, Joann Callan, Colleen Carney, Robert Glick, Richard Lightbody, Dwarakanath Rao, Stephanie Smith, Alan Sugarman.
At the October Coordinating Committee meeting, we heard very optimistic reports about the preliminary work of each of these groups. We are hopeful that there will be a creative outcome that will carry the organization beyond the conflicts that have embittered us and drained our needed energies for far too long. As the co-chairs of BOPS, we, along with the co-chairs-elect of BOPS, the president of APsaA, and the president-elect of APsaA, genuinely hope that the retreat of the two groups will bring about a creative and cohesive solution to our divisions over educational standards. If we are not successful, we fear that the conflicts within our national organization and our local institutes will intensify to the detriment of our profession.
Cal Narcisi, M.D., and Myrna Weiss, M.D., are co-chairs of the Board on Professional Standards.