Since June, when my term as APsaA president began, in addition to feeling honored being your president, I have repeatedly found myself feeling trapped between groups of members passionately opposing each other over a wide range of issues: the proper definition of psychoanalysis; the correct method of psychoanalytic treatment; an acceptable definition of collegial behavior; the proper role for APsaA in the profession, in public advocacy, in science, and in education.
While I appreciate that many of these disagreements are not new, and while I certainly have my personal opinions, in my role as your president I strive to create a functional space where all respectfully offered views can be heard. Needless to say, however, the range of different opinions is great, so we are challenged to embrace our diversity with a spirit of inclusion, and, at the same time, be careful not to succumb to the hazards of prejudicial thinking.
The concept of diversity is central to my views on APsaA’s organizational health. The dictionary (Merriam-Webster) offers a definition of diversity as follows: “Diversity means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies.” We must not deny our diversity in APsaA and psychoanalysis, but just recognizing our diversity is not enough.
It is critical that diversity is combined with inclusion. The dictionary defines inclusion as follows: “Inclusion means that all people, regardless of their abilities, disabilities, or health care needs, have the right to be respected and appreciated as valuable members of their communities.” In other words, we have to embrace both diversity and inclusion or our differences will continue to divide us. As the fictional character Harry Bosch proclaimed, “Everyone counts or no one counts.” In my view, psychoanalysis has been encumbered by over 100 years of divisions that have weakened the impact and the vital potential of our profession. More inclusion is likely to promote more growth and success.
Promoting inclusion requires being mindful that one of its leading enemies is prejudice. The dictionary defines prejudice as follows: “Prejudice means injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of their rights. It is a preconceived judgment or opinion. An adverse opinion formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge, or an instance of such a judgment or opinion. An irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics.” I believe we must overcome the tendency to be prejudiced against views that clash with and are seen as a threat to our own views. Living with diversity means living with “otherness,” which when combined with prejudice is radioactive.
Consider the idea that in the midst of all our diversity there is a need to foster an organizational container, an organizational identity that can hold all the “otherness” among us. When we fail to do this we will have the all too familiar splits into silos that fragment and weaken our profession. The old saying “united we stand, divided we fall” comes to mind. But, how can we cultivate this important container of our diversities. One way is to emphasize our common ground and to ask ourselves what entices us to overemphasize our differences. Why not, for example, have more panels at our meetings where analysts with very different views are challenged to explore where they agree with each other? Another way is to see the potential for creativity in our diversity. Variety may not only be the “spice of life,” it may be the meat and potatoes.
Although I do not claim to know all the reasons we psychoanalysts are divided, I do want to mention a few ideas, and my impression that our divisions are rooted in fears. Freud, for example, created the IPA in part to protect the “inconvenient truths” of psychoanalysis. He feared the profession would succumb to the very forces of repression he sought to expose, and that the centrality of the drives would be lost. It was many years before the basic human need (drive) for dedicated attachments would gain recognition. Do we continue to fear that new ideas are a threat to existing ideas? Where do these fears divide us?
Consider another source of fearing our diversity; our attachment to analytic traditions. Tevye says: “Tradition, tradition … without our traditions our lives would be as shaky as … as a fiddler on the roof!” Do we fear that without obedience to our traditions our identities as psychoanalysts would be shaky? Do we fear the unfamiliarity of change? Freud changed his mind several times, so he was not bound by his own thinking (viz., his own traditions). Clearly, he teaches us being open to change is good for psychoanalysis, but do we dare be as innovative as he was?
When colleagues bring new ideas like distance analysis over the Internet, treatment face-to-face rather than using the couch, an analytic frequency of three times a week, or training non-physicians to become analysts, do we circle the wagons or welcome them and study the new ideas? When we fear and do not permit new ideas, how can we study them? Is it not anti-scientific to insist on our traditions? Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions described the regular work of scientists theorizing, observing, and experimenting within a settled paradigm or explanatory framework as a “normal science” that resists change. Consider that there are still societies based on the belief the world is flat!
So what is the “take home” message here? We need to appreciate our diversity and to promote inclusion, while remaining alert to our prejudices. I began with the words, “I have repeatedly found myself feeling trapped between groups of members.” In fact, the experience of being your president has been very humbling, as I have come to see it is grandiose to think I can promote any spirit of inclusion without your help. It will take all of us working together to be both diverse and under one big tent … to grow APsaA and psychoanalysis. I am not asking you to cut me any slack, as I ran to be your president, but I am asking for your help to value our differences; to promote a spirit of inclusion; to advocate for a scientific attitude of studying innovations; and to be mindful of the ongoing struggle to overcome our prejudices. We do not have to agree in order to work together, nor do I expect you will necessarily agree with all I have said here, but in the end we will all share the same future.