Psychoanalysis is a living being. The best way to keep it evolving, and hence surviving, is to keep our scholars' pens gliding across the page. Analytic scholarship furthers the field by constantly reconsidering core analytic principles and psychoanalytic practices. It is the job of the Scholarship Section of APsaA's Department of Psychoanalytic Education (DPE) to encourage nascent writers to become full-fledged contributors to the psychoanalytic literature.
Helping analysts develop writing skills is our chief charge and our efforts take form through many different ventures. The first is the Idea Incubation Workshop, which was launched at the 2019 APsaA Winter Meeting and recurred a year later. The workshop provides aspiring writers who have yet to muster the gumption to put pen to paper with an opportunity to present ideas that have been batting about in the recesses of their minds. Their nascent drafts are shared with a panel of journal editors and writers who help them develop their ideas into publication-worthy submissions. Presently, we are vetting upcoming presenters for the 2022 APsaA meeting next February in New York City. Those interested in participating should contact me at richardtuch@gmail.com.
For the last few years, the Scholarship Section has been circulating a paper entitled “Distilling the Essence of Treatment: A Beginner's Guide to the Retelling of an Analysis.” It instructs candidates who are writing up their case work for promotion or graduation, or graduated analysts who are approaching the certification process, about how to present their case work efficiently. The paper has been well received, and we frequently get requests from individuals and institutes for access to this material. For those wishing to be sent a copy, please send your request to the above-mentioned email address.
A third project presently underway involves surveying analytic institutes to get a sense of how each approaches the task of instructing candidates on analytic writing. To date, we have received feedback from six institutes, and we encourage those who have not yet responded to be diligent about completing our brief survey. Its aim is to educate all institutes about how the topic is taught nationally. To date, we have collected a list of more than 70 papers that are currently assigned in teaching courses conducted at four institutes, and we very much hope to compile a more complete list for our collective instruction.
A final project—the Journal Profiling Project—surveys journal editors to collect data about each of the 36 presently published analytic journals. The culled information will then be made available to authors and would-be authors via the DPE page on the APsaA website. This project aims to help writers better understand the sometimes mysterious process of getting one's work into print. Our goal is to create a one-stop shop that provides potential submitters with an overview of the requirements and preferences of current journals, so that writers can decide which might be best suited for their submission. This webpage, which will be actualized as part of APsaA's website upgrade later this year, should help authors navigate the writing, submission, and publication process. Stay tuned!
A scholarship is something bestowed on worthy students to help them pay their way through the halls of learning over a set time period. Active, ongoing scholarship into a given discipline is another thing altogether. Psychoanalysis will surely reach a dead end if practitioners fail to make their way from the consulting chair to the writing desk. It is the mission of DPE's Scholarship Section to keep analysis alive by encouraging psychoanalysts to put their thoughts, experiences, and theory into the written word and contribute to the literature.
Richard Tuch, M.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles. He presently heads the Scholarship Section of the DPE. He has written extensively and is interested in helping candidate and early-career analysts hone their writing skills.