What is CNTF? It always surprises me to hear that question from my colleagues in the American Psychoanalytic Association, because CNTF, the Committee on New Training Facilities, is a long-established, hard working, committee of the Board on Professional Standards. Its mandate is to shepherd new psychoanalytic institutes through their developmental process, from the time of their founding, through their recognition as independent fully APsaA accredited institutes. In recognition of the importance of the work of CNTF and the relative anonymity of the committee, Cal Narcisi and Myrna Weiss have asked me, as chair of CNTF, to write this article.
In the midst of chronic and acute worries about the future of psychoanalysis in the United States and, indeed, throughout the entire world, we psychoanalysts have tended to look inward to find the source of our problems, rather than outward. In the consulting room introspection is essential to the practice of our profession. We listen. We wait patiently. However, this is not a good way to approach the task of insuring the long-term viability of our profession. To thrive and grow, we need to be active. We must demonstrate that our form of treatment works. We must educate the public about psychoanalysis through a variety of outreach programs. We must perform “inreach” to educate ourselves and develop our institutes so that they (and we) can be effective in attracting and educating the next generation of APsaA psychoanalysts. We also need to foster new APsaA institutes. The fostering of these new institutes is CNTF's task.
The work of CNTF is briefly outlined on the APsaA Web site, which explains that new training facilities (NTFs) are new institutes, usually within a geographic area not currently represented among APsaA's existing accredited training institutes. An NTF can be sponsored directly by the Association or by an accredited institute. There is a liaison subcommittee from CNTF with which the NTF works until it has developed sufficiently to function independently. In addition, in the case of direct sponsorship by the Association, the NTF has a sponsoring team. The sponsoring team is a relatively new CNTF innovation, consisting of several experienced psychoanalytic educators from different institutes whose sole task it is to nurture the NTF. In contrast to the CNTF Subcommittee, which consults with and advises the NTF and also performs periodic site visits, the sponsoring team has an entirely supportive role and no evaluative function. This clear separation of the roles of subcommittee and sponsoring team has proved to be extremely useful in the process of fostering the ability of the NTF to achieve independent accredited institute status.
For an NTF to function independently requires the development of a large enough faculty to carry out institute activities, a well-thought out curriculum, as well as functional admission, selection, and progression procedures, and the development of training and supervisory analyses for candidates. When it can demonstrate the ability to carry out all activities of an institute and to conduct a psychoanalytic training program consistent with the standards of the Board on Professional Standards, the NTF may be considered for the status of provisional institute (PI). A PI is ready to become an accredited institute once it has demonstrated its ability to function independently over time. Obviously, all this takes a great deal of time and effort on the part of the dedicated psychoanalyst-educators comprising the faculty of the NTF and also those comprising the CNTF Subcommittees and sponsoring teams.
This is a good time to write about CNTF. In 2009, the Greater Kansas City Psychoanalytic Institute (GKCPI) became APsaA's first new fully accredited institute since the Florida Psychoanalytic Institute achieved its full accreditation in 1993. In addition, by the time this article is published, the CNTF-Committee on Institutes (COI) site visit to the Oregon Provisional Institute (OPI) will have been completed. It is almost certain that CNTF will have completed its task with respect to the OPI. This will leave only the Minnesota and Wisconsin Provisional Institutes and the Berkshires New Training Facility under the CNTF umbrella.
In our last CNTF meeting, members of our committee joked that we are in danger of working ourselves out of a job. However; we on CNTF are intimately aware of the challenges facing psychoanalysis today. Therefore, rather than resigning ourselves to having progressively less to do, we have decided to form two new subcommittees. One subcommittee will work on writing a manual for future CNTF site visits and collaborate with COI on a manual for joint CNTF-COI site visits. The second subcommittee will be working on an outreach project. This outreach subcommittee will do research to find psychoanalysts located in areas lacking an APsaA accredited institute. Their next steps will to be to learn from them what their professional needs and aspirations are and to see if there might be a way in which input from our national organization could be helpful to them. This subcommittee hopes to be able to identify and encourage interested groups of psychoanalysts to embark on the lengthy, difficult but tremendously rewarding process of institute development. In this way, we hope that CNTF will be able to continue to contribute to the growth and development of psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts in the United States.
Beth J. Seelig is substituting for Myrna Weiss and Cal Narcisi.
Beth J. Seelig, M.D., is chair of CNTF, TA/SA and clinical professor of psychiatry, Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training & Research, professor emerita of psychiatry and past director, Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute. She's served as councilor-at-large, BOPS Fellow, and secretary.