Occasionally, one has a moment, an experience that for various reasons evokes the thought, “I don't think I will forget this moment.” Certain personal events—celebrations, losses, good times, hard times—make one pause and reflect. I am, however, speaking here of a small, completely unexpected experience you know will be with you forever. I had two such moments during our recent meeting in San Francisco.
The first was during a 15-minute break during the Board on Professional Standards (BOPS) meeting on Wednesday, June 3. This BOPS meeting immediately followed the first of two joint meetings of BOPS and the Executive Council. During that joint meeting, the Executive Committee's recommendations for change had been strongly endorsed by participants from both the Executive Council and BOPS. After the proposed bylaw amendment put forward by 50 members had been discussed during the BOPS meeting, another discussion ensued about whether to issue a positive or negative advisory, or possibly no advisory at all.
During the break, I sat down by myself at one of the round tables. I was a bit spent, a feeling usually reserved for Thursday afternoons or Fridays after a busy schedule for our annual meetings. The Executive Committee had been working on these recommendations for almost a year. Anticipating how they would be received proved exhausting during many weeks before our arrival in San Francisco. We had already fielded many questions earlier in the week during the Coordinating Committee meeting and earlier that day. Though tired, I began to feel slightly optimistic.
Sitting down, I noticed many BOPS fellows huddled around one of the podiums, a couple of them writing and rewriting the draft of a possible advisory. Those representing different points of view were part of that huddle. Right before the break the proposed bylaw amendment discussion moved to crafting a statement that would consider how the members of the Executive Council, meeting the next day, might experience an advisory. Could something be worded in a cooperative way?
What struck me was how hard people were working to get this right, while considering the impact on the Executive Council. I do not think I had witnessed before such a scene in APsaA. Leaders were functioning beyond political camps. Leaders were considering what was in the best interests of the membership, even with competing points of view.
Richard Weiss, co-chair of the BOPS Committee on Externalizing Certification and a colleague from New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute who I have come to know the past few years, walked over and sat down. He noticed where I was looking. He wondered if I worried things were falling apart. I said I saw the opposite. People were working hard together. That was essential if we were to succeed. I knew then I would not forget this moment sitting with Richard and watching our colleagues huddled around that podium.
By the time we arrived the next day to the final Joint Meeting, after the Executive Council meeting, we asked for a show of hands regarding support for the recommendations and for the Executive Committee to create working groups to discuss implementation. Every hand went up.
The second moment was Friday morning of the meeting during the first plenary, “Black Psychoanalysts Speak.” I was to give brief welcoming remarks and introduce the distinguished panel that would discuss the Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing (PEP) funded video, produced by Richard Reichbart and the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR). The film features interviews with colleagues about psychoanalysis and race. Many are APsaA members. Two days before, I had also received preliminary data from our Diversity Survey sent out to APsaA members that I could use in my remarks.
Although we had addressed issues of race in previous plenaries, none seemed as highlighted as this one. I glanced at the diverse panel and then at the audience. The vast majority of the audience was white and older, and our lack of diversity was now smacking me in the face. I remember that moment thinking how this would have to change if psychoanalysis hoped to survive. Governance, education, and standards were critical, but psychoanalysts addressing race in our offices, in our institutes and centers, and in our communities was just as critical if not more.
Please note that while writing this column, I received an alert that nine people had been killed by a gunman at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. I put this column aside for few days, feeling helpless, angry and sad. Our efforts at diversity seemed futile and unimportant. Racial violence on our streets, in our schools, in our churches and in our communities seemed worse. I kept thinking, “What's wrong with us?”
Colleagues, if we continue to marginalize this challenge to end segregation in psychoanalysis, we are lost. If we do not reach out into communities of color and cultures different from our own, if we do not adapt psychoanalysis (frequency of visits, fees, technique), we are lost.
Mark D. Smaller, Ph.D., is president of the American Psychoanalytic Association.
Consider that in Chicago 27 percent of the population is Hispanic and 33 percent is African American; 60 percent of Chicagoans are people of color. However, at my institute, the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, the second oldest institute in the country, I have known maybe five colleagues of color. I never was offered a course on the impact of culture in analysis, yet one of my supervised cases was African American. In a city plagued by murder, especially through gang activity, no courses are offered about our violent urban communities. Children, to whom child analysts in particular are especially committed, are gunned down daily only a few minutes away from the Chicago Institute.
Other cities, where most of our institutes reside, are similar. In Los Angeles, almost 48 percent of the population is Hispanic, and in New York the population is 27 percent Hispanic and 25 percent African American. In Baltimore, 63 percent of the population is African American; in St. Louis, 49 percent African American, 44 percent Caucasian, 3 percent Asian; Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 4 percent of the population. In Washington DC, 51 percent of the city is African American. The South Asian American community is one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in a number of states including Florida, Massachusetts, California and Michigan, as well as Washington, DC.
From previous surveys we learned that less than one percent of our members are African American. Of those filling out the recent survey, 8 percent are people of color. Please note: 8 percent.
In our survey, 13 percent of respondents reported they felt treated differently because of race. That was about 55 members. That should be unacceptable to us. Few members are aware or even consider experiences like this. Do you remember ever addressing issues of race in your classes as candidates or faculty? In a conversation with a student of color last year, she told me when she brought up the issue of race in a case conference, the response was, “Oh, that's your issue because you are black,” with no interest in pursuing the discussion.
We are going to change this. With our data and task force consultants, we will come up with a strategy for APsaA and its local groups to begin to integrate psychoanalysis.
In my one year left as president, I am determined we will meet this challenge. These two moments in San Francisco are not disconnected. By replacing two historically adversarial bodies that have fought more than 50 years with one APsaA Board of Directors and an invigorated Department of Psychoanalytic Education, we will successfully address problems of diversity. Diversity in APsaA can only enrich the education of our candidates, our clinical work, our scientific programs and research. Genuinely learning from the communities where our institutes and centers reside will make us better at what we do, and will better psychoanalysis.
Those two moments I will not forget. We can do this.