Ah, the City by the Bay, its charm never dims! Our recently completed San Francisco meeting, part of the ongoing celebratory recognition of APsaA's centenary, was wonderful. For starters, the party hosted by the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society provided a very fitting and unusual start to the meeting, occurring behind the velvet rope of the exclusive nightclub, Infusion. In addition, there were museums, restaurants, including many with Michelin stars, and AT&T Park, all part of the attraction of this beautiful city. Our attendance was the best we have had at a spring meeting since San Francisco in 2004.
An overriding message from this meeting that I wish to emphatically convey is the necessity that APsaA attend to the necessities of the current real world.
There were a number of historic and unique developments that occurred, many of them with just such real world implications. Let's start off first with some of what happened at the Board on Professional Standards (BOPS). The provisions of the Carlson Report, which had become an impediment to bringing new institutes into APsaA, will be discontinued, enhancing hope that we may be able to work more effectively with a number of other organizations that we would like to have as fellow Approved Institutes within APsaA. We saw a major step by BOPS in working collaboratively with the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education (ACPE) towards joint site visits by ACPE and BOPS.
Similarly, there were a number of intriguing and interesting events that occurred in our Executive Council. For example, the council authorized the expenditure of $40,000 which ACPE will use to advance their application for recognition by the Department of Education. This would be a major step for us, having our Approved Institutes accredited by a national credentialing body. Another seminal event was that the Membership Requirement and Review Committee (MRRC) for the first time admitted candidates from non-APsaA/non-IPA institutes under the “substantially equivalent” provision. No applicant was turned down and seven new members will join APsaA. Three individuals had their applications continued, and we are optimistic that all three will eventually be able to gain admission. This represents the culmination of years of difficult struggle by many of our leaders.
Our Strategic Plan moved ahead. The council voted additional funding to begin the implementation of the plan. We had a two-hour meeting with Steve Carey, our coordinator, and with many on the task force with a major, in-depth discussion by the council. The plan currently encompasses six groups of goals and a total of 24 individual priorities. All of these priorities are geared towards very real external challenges that are vexing us and that we simply must face in order to survive. Finally the Task Force on Spring Meetings presented a complex report to the Executive Council and a vote was taken to find a way to continue the spring meeting, albeit in a different format. The 2012 meeting will be held in Chicago within the usual format, and the Program Committee will empower a task force to poll the membership concerning preferences for alternate meeting formats.
We had an exciting presidential symposium on the issue of immigration. There was a panel that included a discussion of the contributions that immigrant analysts have made to American psychoanalysis, the problems faced by undocumented adolescent immigrants, and the presentation of APsaA's position statement on immigration. A particularly novel treat for us was the presence of San Francisco 9th District Supervisor David Campos, who has played a key role in bringing substantial immigration reform to the City of San Francisco. And of course, as always, there were many very stimulating panels, papers, discussion groups, and plenary sessions
An essential message to take from many of these historic developments is that it is essential for us as an organization to recognize a need to deal with the exigencies of the real world. Psychoanalysis traditionally has focused almost exclusively upon the inner world and this served us well for decades. However with the declines in many crucial components of our Association, notably membership, new candidates, and practice, the time has come to realize that in order for us to best serve the needs of the inner world, we must find ways to understand the exigencies of the real world and to meet and master them.
Seeking a Path through Depression's Landscape
The New York Times Sunday Review prints a collection of letters to the editor. On July 16, APsaA president Warren Procci initiates and concludes the thoughtful discourse based on an article written by Peter Kramer, “In Defense of Antidepressants” (7/10/11). To read the letters visit http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/opinion/sunday/l17dialogue.html
Warren R. Procci, M.D., is president of the American Psychoanalytic Association.