In a little over a month as your president, I am inspired to see our members and staff working together and accomplishing so much. From education to public advocacy to science, APsaA is making an impact. In my first communication in TAP, I want to share my growing appreciation of the value of APsaA, and how proud I hope you feel to be part of this community. I encourage all of you to be engaged with our welcoming APsaA community, both for all APsaA does and for yourself.
To begin, consider who we are. We are an organization with 9 departments. Within these 9 departments we have 56 committees. Adding the 11 Council committees, there are a total of 67 committees. Think of it; think of everything APsaA is doing and all the opportunities for you to become involved. You can read about our departments and committees on our website, and you can see all the members who are leading and involved in these efforts.
While I could not possibly describe everything we are accomplishing in this column, here is a small sampling of what our nine departments are doing.
The Department of Academic & Professional Affairs is engaged in outreach across the disciplines, including psychiatry, psychology, social work and academia at all levels from pre-K to PhD, as well as overseeing a number of in-reach programs.
The Communications Department includes Public Information, TAP and JAPA, all serving to educate and inform our members and the public.
Membership Services is leading an organization-wide strategic effort to increase the value, engagement and sense of community for all APsaA members.
The Department of Psychoanalytic Education is busy serving all our institutes’ efforts to advance psychoanalytic training, notably including the recent balanced discussion of the pros and cons of the controversial training analyst system.
The Psychotherapy Department is sponsoring a number of major efforts and events, aiming to develop the role of psychotherapy and psychotherapists in APsaA. Our members are doing more psychotherapy, and our local groups are creating psychotherapy training programs.
Our Public Advocacy and Social Issues Departments have been collaborating and responding urgently to the inhumane government immigrant policies that are traumatically separating children from their parents.
The Science Department is at work on a major outcome study with an fMRI component.
Within the Administrative Governance Department, the Institute Requirements and Review Committee (IRRC) is working to grow APsaA by evaluating training programs that wish to join APsaA. Since I can only mention a few activities here, please know APsaA is doing much, much more.
As you are, hopefully, aware, over the past several years we have undergone a major reorganization, so I want to introduce you to your newly structured Executive Committee (ExCom). We now have a unified ExCom (“One APsaA”) with four nationally elected officers and four executive councilors elected by the Council. Your officers are Bill Glover (president-elect), Ralph Fishkin (secretary), Bill Myerson (treasurer), and me. Your lead councilor on the ExCom is Tim
Rayner, along with David Cooper, Kerry Novick and Jane Yates. This new ExCom organization represents much more than just new members. It represents a sea change in governance, fully integrating the Executive Council into the ExCom for the first time in our history. My initial impression: We have an ExCom that will work well together for APsaA, for psychoanalysis and for you.
On another note, and on behalf of APsaA, I want to thank Bonnie E. Litowitz for her years of service as the editor-in-chief of JAPA, and to congratulate Mitchell Wilson on being selected as the incoming editor-in-chief of JAPA as of this January. When I asked Mitch for a few words to convey to our members, he replied, “JAPA will move into the future looking to expand our reach into new areas of psychoanalytic scholarship to make it even more relevant to our membership.”
I want you to know we have 13 staff members at our APsaA offices in NYC. Our staff is the backbone of APsaA, making it possible for us to be on the move in so many directions at the same time. You can see who they are on our website, and how to contact them if you have any questions. The staff oversees our strategic initiatives and planning, our scientific meetings, our membership services, our computer services, our public affairs and communications, and our accounting. Our executive director (ED) manages the staff, and performs too many other functions to mention here, including making my work possible.
I hope this gives you a better sense of your APsaA, and all we are doing. My wish is for us to be proud members; both for what we contribute and for the many ways APsaA helps our profession to make a difference.