After our winter meetings in New York, I heard from a friend and colleague. Although he found the Joint Meeting of the Executive Council and BOPS productive, he worried we were not addressing the “real issues.” “I mean the decline in analytic candidates, analytic patients, and the general public profile of psychoanalysis,” he wrote.
Was I not focused on these critical issues? Had I, too, fallen into the grips of our political discord at the expense of addressing the real challenges to APsaA and psychoanalysis? Past APsaA presidents had warned me this could happen.
To evaluate this concern, and preoccupation, I decided to keep track of one week's activities related to APsaA responsibilities. I would let you, the membership, be the judge.
On Monday, March 9, in between patients, I responded to some emails regarding an upcoming conference call with the Association's attorney and the American Board of Psychoanalysis (ABP) attorney regarding whether a bylaw change would be needed to externalize certification.
Wylie Tene, our public affairs director, emailed a reporter's request to respond to the reporter's upcoming article about “Internet trolling,” and why people become more aggressive and abusive on the Internet. I emailed answers to the reporter's questions.
Later in the day I had to turn down a friend's request to be on his southwest Michigan radio show the following Saturday. I would be in Durham, North Carolina, for the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work (AAPCSW) Conference. As a regular guest on this radio show, we address everyday topics (education, parenting, families, social issues and others) from a psychoanalytic perspective. It broadcasts to about 30,000 listeners in southwest Michigan.
Steve Wein, our colleague at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute (NYPSI), sent me a question regarding his prospective letter to the New York Times about an article dismissive of psychoanalysis. He asked if the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuropsychoanalysis (NPSA) of NYPSI was the only such center at an APsaA affiliated institute. As former executive director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation, I wrote that it was. Steve's letter was published later that week.
Had I, too, fallen into the grips of our political discord at the expense of addressing the real challenges to APsaA and psychoanalysis? Past APsaA presidents had warned me this could happen.
I was in touch with Diversity Awareness Partnership, the consulting firm working with APsaA's Task Force on Diversity. I then fielded email questions regarding changes in our Science Department. That evening I finished the case presentation for the Durham conference.
Tuesday morning I read that the meeting with the lawyers was now set. I sent information to Ruth Fischer, chair of the Committee on the Status of Women and Girls, regarding my participation for the upcoming Sexual Trafficking webinar, APsaA's first webinar and conference, on April 10.
During our weekly telephone meeting, Dean Stein, APsaA executive director, reviewed the agenda for the upcoming weekly Executive Committee conference call. We discussed members' dues to both APsaA and the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). Our aging membership is my ongoing concern. We discussed dues to the North American Psychoanalytic Confederation (NAPsaC) and administrative questions regarding the externalizing of certification.
Later in the day I had my weekly call with President-elect Harriet Wolfe. We reviewed Thursday's Executive Committee conference call agenda and the summary from the past Executive Committee retreat. She shared information from a conversation with Jeffrey Kerr, the consultant who has facilitated the two Joint Meetings and one of the Executive Committee retreats. We discussed the Program Committee and the Science and Research Department.
Wednesday I awoke to an email from HEAL Trafficking, which had seen the flyer from the upcoming Human Trafficking webinar, inviting me to join their group. HEAL Trafficking is a group that connects health care professionals with education, advocacy, and linking to address human trafficking. I responded to an invitation to a meeting during the upcoming European Psychoanalytic Federation annual conference in Stockholm. This is the annual meeting of the leadership of the three IPA regions: North America, Latin America and Europe.
Mark D. Smaller, Ph.D., is president of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Responding to a request from the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society, I posted information regarding Mark Solm's online course, “What is a Mind?”
During a phone call, the diversity consultant and I finalized details of the contract. A data questionnaire to local groups would be reviewed as well as an attitudinal survey for the membership. I confirmed a time to speak with IPA President Stefano Bolognini on Thursday afternoon once I arrived in Durham.
That evening I had an hour-long conference call with Harriet Wolfe and Andrew Gerber, chair of APsaA's Science and Research Department. We have been reorganizing this department and our research efforts.
During Thursday's weekly Executive Committee call, we approved co-sponsorship of a 2016 meeting of the Music Teachers National Association, a 22,000 membership organization. Member Julie Nagel had been nurturing this relationship and we will have a psychoanalytic presence at their conference.
We reviewed retreat issues regarding governance, standards and regulation, and agreed on an email posting to the membership about externalizing certification. We discussed Dean Stein's findings about APsaA and IPA membership dues. We also discussed the upcoming phone conversation with Stefano later that day.
That afternoon while waiting for my flight to Durham (and keeping track of the Michigan-Illinois basketball score), I confirmed I would be on the NAPsaC call Sunday evening, wrote a draft of a posting to members regarding certification and sent it to the BOPS Task Force on Externalizing Certification.
I reviewed a letter Jim Pyles, our D.C. lobbyist, had written to the staff of Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), urging him to support our position on patients' rights to medical privacy.
On the plane I completed my presentation for the AAPCSW conference the next day in Durham. As my flight was late (shocking), I worried whether Stefano would still be awake in Italy to take my call. He fortunately was and during our Skype call we discussed membership dues, the aging of membership, and length of time for training, finding analytic patients for candidates, and IPA standards and regulations.
I then returned Ralph Fishkin's call about the Executive Committee meeting earlier in the day.
Close to 400 people attend the biannual AAPCSW conference. I accepted an invitation a year before for two reasons. First, it is an opportunity to represent APsaA in this vibrant psychoanalytic group, and, also, the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education (ACPE) meets during this meeting. I wanted to attend that meeting and be familiar with this accreditation board. APsaA member Sheila Hafter Gray, president of ACPE, enthusiastically invited me to come.
I was told that Joe Palombo's and my presentation, “Psychoanalytic Transformations: How Neuroscience Enriches Clinical Practice,” was completely full. Two people approached me and said they found the recent APsaA National Meeting the best ever. One participant approached me to say she was joining APsaA through the Expanded Membership Pathway. (During my presentation, I received an MGoBlue alert that Michigan had lost to Wisconsin during the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament).
On Saturday, the ACPE meeting proved extremely informative to address governance and standards issues. The ACPE Board was welcoming, and interested in current issues regarding APsaA standards.
On the plane home, I worked on this TAP article, now two weeks overdue. I reviewed minutes from the January NAPsaC meeting, and the agenda for the call the next evening.
In reviewing one week's activities, I was relieved to see that my time appears spread over various critical issues: practice, research, clinical work, diversity, liaison with other groups (including the IPA, NAPsaC, AAPCSW), membership, our D.C. lobbying efforts, and governance, standards (ACPE). I remain committed to doing more regarding practice, recruitment and membership. I believe that issues related to governance and standards, once more resolved, will facilitate our efforts in practice, recruitment and research. But you be the judge.