Psychologist- Psychoanalyst
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Psychologist- ψ Official Publication of Division 39 Psychoanalyst of the American Psychological Association Volume XXII, No. 1 Winter 2002 FROM THE PRESIDENT JONATHAN H. SLAVIN, PHD Where Have We Been? ourished. Thanks to the commitment of our membership - and readiness to express it by voting - we have one of the en years ago I had the privilege of serving as President of largest Divisional representations in APA Council. Within TDivision 39. I did not imagine that 10 years later I would the Division we established new committees to reach out to serve again in this capacity. So I would like to begin this the diversity of our membership, including the Committee column by thanking the membership for the condence that on Multicultural Issues and the Graduate Student Commit- permits such an unusual, “repeat performance.” I hope to be tee. Our Sections increased from 5 to 9, representing more able to provide the kind of leadership that justies it. fully the broad interests of our members. With the initiative For more than 20 years Division 39 has been my provided by Fellows chair George Stricker we have been professional home. We have faced many challenges and able to establish a Fellows category in our membership, had our share of controversies. But through it all our unity which recognizes outstanding career contributions to psy- as psychologists - psychologists who represent a psychoana- choanalytic psychology. lytic perspective within APA and in the larger psychoana- Our publications are thriving, most recently under lytic world - has been strengthened. And the friendships the leadership of the Publications Committee chair, Nancy garnered and developed during these years have been one of McWilliams. Through the capable efforts of our journal the great rewards of my professional and personal life. editor Joe Reppen, Psychoanalytic Psychology has expanded In preparation for writing this column I found, its offerings and now represents the broad perspectives that buried in the depths of my computer, the president’s col- mark the vitality of psychoanalytic psychology. As you see umns I wrote ten years ago. As psychoanalysts we know that in this and past issues, our newsletter has become extraor- it pays to look back in order to move forward. Much has dinarily meaty, thanks to the work of its editor, Bill Mac- changed in these ten years. Gillivray and his predecessors. Psychoanalytic Abstracts Ten years ago we were just emerging from the suc- continues to offer the membership exceptional access to cessful settlement of the lawsuit, spearheaded by Bryant what is being published in the psychoanalytic world. Our Welch (who joins the Division Board this year as an APA local chapters, now numbering 30 have ourished, providing Council Representative), and we were reaping the benets a professional home both to psychologists around the coun- of it. Independent institutes which had many Division 39 try and to allied mental health professionals in many locali- members successfully joined the International Psychoan- ties. The Division has recognized this valuable contribution alytical Association (IPA); the American Psychoanalytic by adding a category of membership, with voting rights, for Association (APsaA) had abolished the waiver requirement allied professionals. for psychologists; new independent institutes with founders As a result of an enormous amount of dedicated closely afliated with the Division were established; the work by many of my predecessors (Lew Aron, Spyros Psychoanalytic Consortium, representing the three major Orfanos, Laurie Wagner and Maureen Murphy) the Psy- mental heath professions (psychology, social work and psy- choanalytic Consortium has been successful in producing chiatry) was established during my term; and our efforts a standards document on psychoanalytic education upon to develop our own Board certication (ABPP) in psycho- which all four member organizations of the Consortium analysis was successfully revived. (The American Academy of Psychoanalysis, the American In the intervening years Division 39 has grown and Psychoanalytic Association, Division 39, and the National Membership Committee on Psychoanalysis in Clinical is given even greater urgency by the precipitous decline we Social Work) could agree. There is always a danger in have seen in our graduate student membership in the last singling out individuals for recognition, but the risk is worth two years (from nearly 10% of our membership to less than it in noting the extraordinary contribution made by Laurie 5%). The reasons for such a signicant and rapid loss of Wagner, who stayed on top of every detail and found a way graduate student members are not clear and I have asked our through complex political and conceptual thickets, and by Membership Committee to contact graduate students whose Nat Stockhamer, whose steady wisdom, garnered through membership has lapsed try to understand what happened. But years of experience, informed every step of the process. in addition, I believe we must focus our efforts on a more The adoption of this statement of standards by all comprehensive effort to insure the future for our Division four primary psychoanalytic groups in this country is an and for the vitality of psychoanalytic ideas in psychology. accomplishment whose signicance cannot be underesti- To this end, I will be undertaking, as my presidential mated. This document, published in our most recent news- initiative, a series of steps, some of which were begun in the letter (Fall 2001, Vol. XXI, No. 4), represents an articulation term of Past-President Maureen Murphy. The aim of these of the vital elements in high quality psychoanalytic educa- steps will be to renew an interest in the study and teaching tion, while providing exibility for differences in training of contemporary psychoanalytic ideas in undergraduate and traditions and educational methods. It was hammered out graduate psychology courses and programs, assist interested through literally years of discussion and debate both within faculty in acquiring the tools for including psychoanalytic the Division and with our sister groups. The document will ideas in their curricula, and reach out to interested graduate form the foundation of the work of the Accreditation Coun- students for involvement and participation in our Division. cil for Psychoanalytic Education (ACPE), which has already At the same time, we will be trying to increase the diversity been incorporated, and which will function independently of our membership and provide them with the kind of con- of the Psychoanalytic Consortium. It is, as Murray Meisels tact, interaction and services they want and need. asserts in an article published in this issue, a mainstream Here are some of the plans we have developed: document, one that is absolutely in keeping with Division 39 I. Insuring the Future: and APA policy, that psychoanalysis is not another indepen- A. Teaching Psychoanalysis: It is difcult to dent mental health profession - alongside psychology, social expect that there will be another generation of psychologists work and psychiatry - but represents an advanced specializa- with an interest in psychoanalytic psychology if undergradu- tion of recognized, licensable, mental health professions. It ate and graduate students have little or no exposure to a is a document that will allow institutes offering serious train- contemporary view of psychoanalysis, one that is - as we in ing to mental health professionals to receive broad valida- the Division know - vital, controversial and exciting. With a tion of their training practices, while encouraging others to few exceptions, most texts used in both undergraduate and raise their standards. graduate courses (not just clinical ones, but those which deal with development, personality, psychopathology, as well as Where Do We Go From Here? psychotherapy) represent psychoanalysis, if they do so at all, as it was construed 50 and 100 years ago. Even faculty who may wish to include psychoanalytic ideas in their peaking frankly, we are in no position to rest on our teaching often are unaware of current developments across Saccomplishments. Division 39 faces some real challenges the full spectrum of psychoanalytic thinking and/or have for the future, and it is on the future that I would like to focus little access to useful reference material. my efforts in the year ahead of us. One year is not much time. To address this, I have asked the newly recongured Our most recent past presidents established important goals Education and Training Committee (ably led by former for our Division, and rather than reinvent the wheel, or take president Spyros Orfanos) to develop several “model curri- us in yet another direction, I plan to maintain continuity cula” both for “stand-alone” courses in psychoanalysis at the with their initiatives to further strengthen the work of the graduate and undergraduate level, as well as for the inclu- Division. In doing so, I plan to focus on what I believe are sion of psychoanalytic material in graduate and undergradu- limited and attainable goals, rather than grand ideas whose ate courses in psychopathology, psychotherapy, personality, implementation will never actually occur. development and other relevant courses. These “model cur- What are the challenges? For one, our membership ricula” will not be one nal, set-in-stone idea of what psy- is slowly aging and, as a result, declining in numbers. This choanalysis is or how it should be taught. Rather they will attrition is occurring in all of psychology, and in all profes- represent a range of ideas and suggestions, circulated among sions, as the baby boomer generation nears retirement. This our many experienced teachers in the Division; a menu, so fact raises the question of the future of our Division and the to speak, from which faculty can select what they may wish future of a psychoanalytic voice in psychology. This issue Publications Committee to include. These model curricula will provide not only a digest of the diversity of ideas in contemporary psychoanalysis, but perhaps most importantly, access to the materials.