9. The Settlement Negotiations that Failed April to October 1986

The second year of the litigation began in this reasonably optimistic climate; a settlement of this lawsuit, so contentious and divisive for both the American and the IPA, seemed within reach. On April 16, 1986,1 Lewis Kaplan wrote a formal letter to Clifford Stromberg offering, confidentially, the terms of a proposed settlement: (1) that the American would not oppose an IPA bylaw change relinquishing its “exclusive franchise” in the United States, thus allowing individuals trained outside the American an avenue of access to IPA affiliation provided they met the usual IPA standards; (2) the American would declare affirmatively that its members should feel free to teach in psychoanalytic training programs outside the auspices of the American, without conceding that the American ever interdicted such “unauthorized training”; and (3) the American would actively promote training of nonmedical psychoanalysts in an institute under the authority of the American Psychological Association through an Advisory Committee of five training analysts (one of them a child analyst and one a nonmedical member of the American) which would function for five years by way of full site visits at least once a year and periodic meetings and contacts in the interim between visits as mutually determined. In return, the American asked that settlement “be conditioned upon certification of a class for settlement purposes, including all non-medical mental health professionals who have sought or might seek psychoanalytic training at American-affiliated institutes,” that the entire lawsuit be dismissed on the merits and with