In October 2010, a small BOPS Strategic Planning Committee met in New York to begin to identify the challenges and priorities facing BOPS over the next three years. To our surprise, this group identified one factor as the single most important determinant of BOPS's success. This factor was greater communication with and utilization of our BOPS Fellows. Since October, we have learned that the role of a BOPS Fellow is not well defined and many fellows themselves do not clearly know what their job is. We were equally surprised to learn that many of our members do not know who their fellows are, and when they should direct their questions to one of their two BOPS Fellows who represent their institute on the Board on Professional Standards. We hope that the following will rectify this problem.
In 1946 the American Psychoanalytic Association made an historic organizational change in its structure, shifting APsaA from a federation of constituent institutes to a membership organization made up of a group of affiliated institutes and individual psychoanalyst members. The new bylaws at that time delegated matters of training standards and membership to a new Board on Professional Standards. This change, according to a document written by Homer Curtis in 1984, “not only avoided the cumbersome administrative problems of obtaining the approval of an increasing number of societies and institutes, it also acted as a buffer against undue political and professional pressures on the setting and maintaining of standards.” We all know that this change did not exactly protect us from political and professional pressures, but it did, more importantly, put in place an essential component of our organizational structure; the Fellows of BOPS.
The Fellows of the Board on Professional Standards, while sent to national meetings by individual institutes and certainly with their own local interests to represent, are primarily brought together to serve the larger educational and professional interests of the national body. This critical function within APsaA is no less important today than it was in 1946. BOPS Fellows are the communicative link between local institutes and the national organization. Collectively they bear the responsibility of overseeing the quality of psychoanalytic education and training in our 31 affiliate institutes and of ensuring the availability of qualified psychoanalysts to the public.
At the most recent APsaA meeting in New York, the BOPS Fellows were reminded of their very important role and were informed of our hope to maximize their communicative function, among themselves, with their institute members, and with the BOPS leadership. As most institutes are now grappling with the difficult decisions and challenges posed by the implementation of the new Standards for Education and Training in Psychoanalysis, it is your BOPS Fellows who are the most immediately available to answer your questions, and if they cannot, they will know whom to contact. A BOPS listserv has been established for the purpose of the BOPS Fellows, as well as institute directors and Education Committee chairs, to communicate with one another in order to facilitate a collaborative and relatively smooth transition into our recently refurbished system of psychoanalytic education.
In addition, BOPS Fellows will be encouraged to become active in one of several focus groups designed to study some of the most pressing issues facing psychoanalytic education today. The first to be formed is a Task Force on University and Medical Center Initiatives which will be chaired by Robert Paul. This task force will be charged with the challenge of exploring the many opportunities that academic communities offer us in recruitment, research, case finding, and collaboration with colleagues in related fields. BOPS Fellows, especially those from institutes connected to university and medical centers, will be invited to participate in this task force and its mission to tap the many resources found in the academic communities. Other focus groups will be developed in the future, each directed to study a particular challenge facing contemporary psychoanalytic education, such as curriculum development, faculty development, and child/adolescent psychoanalysis, to name a few.
In the coming months, our BOPS Fellows will also be asked to familiarize themselves with, and begin to discuss with you, another opportunity and decision facing our institutes. This is the opportunity to apply for accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education (ACPE), a topic which consumed considerable time at our January 2011 meeting. The ACPE is an independent accrediting body which was formed by a group of psychoanalysts about 10 years ago for the purpose of establishing a set of core training standards for the psychoanalytic profession, irrespective of an institute's membership affiliation, APsaA, IPA, for example. Many believe that accreditation by a body outside of one's membership organization, not only lends legitimacy to our own training programs, but also protects the psychoanalytic profession by defining the minimum training criteria required to qualify as a psychoanalyst. The collective wisdom is that such external regulation could provide a safeguard to the public as well as to our profession.
These are just some of the important matters which the BOPS Fellows have to discuss with you. Please get to know them, the Fellows of BOPS.
Editor's Note: In the next issue of TAP, an article by Ronald M. Benson will cover the current status of ACPE.
Colleen L. Carney, Ph.D., is chair of the Board on Professional Standards, and Lee I. Ascherman, M.D., is Secretary.