The American College of Psychoanalysts has been an important professional organization for many psychoanalysts, including APsaA's president-elect, Harriet Wolfe, and councilors-at-large, Malkah Notman and me. Now the College has opened its membership for its annual meeting on May 13, 2016, in Atlanta. The College meeting this year offers a highly engaging panel of speakers including Robert Michels, Sander Gilman and Paul Ekman.
The American College of Psychoanalysts was founded in 1969 by Henry Laughlin, who also founded the American College of Psychiatrists at the same time. The College was initially chartered as an organization for psychiatric psychoanalysts. The membership consisted of psychiatric psychoanalysts who had made academic contributions in scholarship and education at psychoanalytic institutes or universities. New members were brought in by invitation, based both on their contributions and on their future potential as leaders in psychiatric psychoanalysis. From its inception, the College was apolitical and prided itself on its strong collegial atmosphere in which members from around the country could freely share and discuss psychoanalytic ideas.
Its membership has consistently viewed psychoanalysis as practiced by psychiatrists as having many unique features. Training in medical school, and later psychiatry residency, has always emphasized the importance of maintaining an ongoing focus on diagnosis and the interface between mind and body. The flowering of sophisticated neuroscience, as articulated by Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, who has met with the College, returns to the forefront our appreciation of mind and body. In addition, many members treat some patients in psychoanalysis while simultaneously prescribing psychotropic medications. They balance the benefits and disadvantages that psychotropic medications bring to the psychoanalytic process. College members were also, in view of their training in psychiatry, focused on research studies and how empirical evidence informs daily clinical practice.
The College is encouraged that other psychoanalyst practitioners have their own organizations, such as for psychologists (Division 39) or social workers (American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work), just as the College exists for psychiatrists. Yet, we find a common ground, even comity, just as the early psychoanalysts did in Vienna and Berlin.
The College's annual meeting, usually scheduled in conjunction with either the American Psychiatric Association or the American Psychoanalytic Association, has two plenary speakers in the morning and several colloquia in the afternoon. Luminaries on neuro-psychoanalysis have included Gerald Edelman, Steven Pinker, Jaak Panksepp, David Silberszweig, Alfred Lewy and Joseph LaDoux. Other plenary
speakers have included well-known researchers such as Howard Shevrin, Norman Rosenthal, Charles Nemeroff, Vamik Volkan, Robert Michels, Nancy Andreason, Robert Emde, Mardi Horwitz and Richard C. Friedman. The second plenary speaker would often be an expert in anthropology or literature. The afternoon colloquia focused on a wide range of psychoanalytic topics, including developing psychoanalytic understandings of prominent political figures and of psychoanalytic practice in other countries. Over the past 10 years the College expanded its membership to include international members, discussing clinical work in France, Turkey and Germany.
The College has always invited psychiatrist psychoanalytic candidates in the cities where meetings were held to attend the scientific meeting and annual banquet free of charge. This is designated as Laughlin Fellowships, supported by Henry Laughlin's generosity. The College also established membership opportunities for candidates several years ago. Spouses/partners have always been welcome to attend meetings.
In the past several years, members of the College have become increasingly aware of the decline in psychodynamic teaching for psychiatric trainees and the need for readily available educational opportunities for psychiatrists who wish to expand their understanding of psychodynamics. Members have also become increasingly aware of how the unique professional identity of the psychiatric psychoanalyst might be better presented by other professional organizations committed to training and research, such as residency training programs, medical schools and, of course, neuroscience programs.
To address the paucity of psychodynamic training, the College has initiated a program for early career psychiatrists (ECPs) called “Clinical Enhancement of Psychodynamic Skills: Virtual Psychotherapy Rounds.” ECPs participate in distance learning via video conferencing through twice-monthly group seminars led by a member of the College. Sixteen ECPs applied from 12 states, D.C., and India, forming two groups of eight. These conferences are focused on psychodynamic issues in conducting psychotherapy in the attendees’ actual practice.
This past year the College has opened its membership appeal to all psychiatric psychoanalysts trained to APsaA or IPA standards. Membership is no longer by invitation and all psychiatric psychoanalysts are welcome to become members. This includes psychiatric psychoanalysts from around the world; there are now members from Europe and Japan.
At the College's annual meeting in Atlanta the preliminary program includes Paul Ekman, discussing his work on emotions and his work with the Dali Lama; Robert Michels, speaking on the unique identity of the psychiatric psychoanalyst; Virginia Barry on the sense of smell; and Sander Gilman, discussing his new work on how biases become diagnostic entities.
The American College of Psychoanalysts provides a professional home for psychiatric psychoanalysts where their unique identity can be recognized and nurtured. The College aspires to help remedy the decline in psychodynamic thinking within psychiatry, to keep the psyche alive in psychiatry. And the College, since its inception, has continued a strong commitment to research, which must remain a central tenet for psychoanalysis. The members of the College feel strongly these efforts will strengthen psychoanalysis as a whole and that fostering the unique identities that make up our world of psychoanalysis will strengthen psychoanalysis overall. Each individual discipline within psychoanalysis can make its own valuable contribution to the vitality of our field. Psychiatric psychoanalysts who wish to join the College will find the application form on its website, .