Our first column, in the fall issue of TAP, on “Reimagining APsaA” gave a broad vision for the Association's future. This vision builds on multiple efforts—the Strategic Planning Task Force, calls for racial justice, taking positions and organizing programs on social issues, correcting injustices within APsaA, all the work that led to the 6-Point Plan with the restructuring of governance and the creation of the Department of Psychoanalytic Education (DPE), and many more.
The features of Reimagining stem from our evolution in governance, educational standards, social engagement, self-examination on race and gender, while maintaining excellence in psychoanalytic education.
Reimagining is a vision for a plan to be developed in the coming months through dialogue across the Association with all stakeholders in a variety of settings: committee meetings, forums at meetings, local discussions, town halls, board meetings, and online exchanges.
The focus of this column is Reimagining APsaA membership. This initiative comes from the work of the Expanded Membership Task Force (previously the Psychotherapy Membership Task Force). The ideas presented are for discussion and elaboration as we work together to secure APsaA's future.
How will we define the family that lives in the APsaA home? The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested replacing the essence of a category or a concept (to determine what belongs and what does not) with family resemblance, that is, there are similarities and differences, but not one characteristic common to all. Adapting what he says to the concept of psychoanalytic: Our family includes all psychoanalytic thought and practices, their features overlapping and crisscrossing. We extend our concept of psychoanalytic as in spinning a thread we twist fiber on fiber. And the strength of the thread does not reside in the fact that one fiber runs through its whole length but in the overlapping of many fibers.
One decade into its second century, APsaA is poised to become a richer and more welcoming organization through vigorous policies of inclusion and correction of injustices. A better and necessary future for APsaA will consist of a membership more diverse in race, gender, geographic location, cultural heritage, and age. APsaA will be a home for psychoanalytic thought and practices, building on but not limited to education and clinical practice in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, including research, scholarship, and psychoanalysis in the community. These intertwined fibers of the psychoanalytic fabric support and strengthen one another.
In these challenging times, psychoanalysis has a great deal to offer in addressing social as well as individual trauma and suffering. We urgently need a strong national voice to impact interdisciplinary and public conversations and promote our values and thinking, support research, influence public policy, and advocate for psycho-analytically based treatment while listening to and learning from others. APsaA can provide this voice and reaffirm its leading role in mental health by actively including members from the broader psychoanalytic community.
The potential for broadening the scope of APsaA membership has been demonstrated by the enthusiastic response to the spontaneous opening of our institutional borders during the Covid-19 pandemic. We are providing resources to the public, free training and peer consultation to mental health professionals who are adapting their practice during the pandemic and opening our Covid Town Halls to the entire psychoanalytic community. We are perceived as more welcoming and hospitable, and it is a breath of fresh air to see so many new faces joining familiar ones.
The scope of Reimagining APsaA membership follows over 20 years of considering membership for psychoanalytic psychotherapists. Many institutes/centers have developed psychotherapy training programs that enrich and strengthen them. Exposure to psychoanalysis motivates therapists to want more for themselves and for their patients. Some go on to seek analytic training; others practice psychotherapy or use psychoanalysis in other ways.
We now recognize APsaA is strongest if we support the full breadth of psychoanalytic thought and practice and welcome researchers, scholars, and advocates into the community as full members. Synergy among our various constituencies will advance psychoanalytic thinking and promote contemporary psychoanalysis.
Reimagining APsaA membership quickens the pace of change, building on
Bill Glover, PhD, is president of APsaA.
Kerry Sulkowicz, M.D., is president-elect.
years of work nationally and locally, and can make psychoanalysis more vital, accessible, and influential in today's world.
The Task Force on Expanded Membership is developing a proposal to present in 2021. There are myriad details to consider in a reorganization of this scope. The preliminary sections that follow address important concepts and decisions with the understanding that they will evolve and we will go into greater, more nuanced detail as the plan is developed in dialogue across the Association. The culminating step will be a comprehensive bylaw amendment.
To further discussion, here are core assumptions for Reimagining APsaA and suggestions for new membership groups:
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion APsaA strives for a demographically diverse membership with equitable rights/benefits and inclusion throughout the Association.
Pluralism APsaA values diversity in psychoanalytic thought and respects different uses of psychoanalysis. All members are united by shared values and common goals.
Democracy All members are eligible to vote and stand for office, including president. New membership categories will be represented on the Board and other administrative bodies.
Local Option APsaA institutes/centers determine their own membership criteria, choose their own forms of democratic governance, and may exceed APsaA Educational Standards. The APsaA DPE is available for assistance.
Integration New membership constituencies will be integrated into APsaA governance, education, programming, and other activities to the fullest extent possible with meaningful and proportionate representation.
Educational Responsibility Delineation of responsibility for education will be specified where functionally necessary, with communication and collaboration within the organizational structure.
Stepwise Evolution Implementing a Reimagined APsaA requires compromise and flexibility. To achieve the consensus necessary for change to occur, some steps may be incremental and evolve over time.
A key feature of Reimagining APsaA is expanding membership by drawing from a number of constituencies, as listed below. A question for discussion is whether those groups should be identified as belonging to different formal membership categories, or all be characterized simply as APsaA members, with equal benefits, voting rights, and eligibility for all nationally elected offices, with the following criteria and qualifications:
Psychoanalysts Open to all graduates of a program in clinical psychoanalysis at an APsaA or IPA institute, or to those who demonstrate substantially equivalent psychoanalytic training and experience. Psychoanalyst members shall be primarily responsible for education and qualification in psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists Open to all graduates of a program in clinical psychotherapy at an APsaA institute, or to those who demonstrate substantially equivalent training and experience in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Psychotherapist members would be primarily responsible for education and qualification in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
Academics Open to graduates of a didactic program at an APsaA institute, or to educators and scholars who demonstrate interest in psychoanalysis in their work.
Researchers Open to graduates of a didactic program at an APsaA institute, or to scientists who demonstrate interest in psychoanalysis in their work.
Community Advocates Open to community members who are interested in psychoanalysis and support the mission of APsaA.
Each of the first four groups will have a corresponding category of Candidate or Student membership, but with some limitations to voting rights and eligibility to hold office.
As we have pointed out, Reimagining APsaA is an evolving document that will change in dialogue across the APsaA membership. We look forward to lively debate culminating in the adoption and implementation of a comprehensive plan for a sustainable and reinvigorated Association.