“I would even go so far as to muse that this conference was born partly from a covert agenda to punish the American–not to bring us together really, but rather to stabilize and strengthen the fact of our separateness. Some may even hope to do harm to the American, to weaken its influence.”
This ecumenical conference was my idea, and I would like to assure all of you that punishment and exclusion were not part of my agenda. Quite the opposite. So I would like to set the record straight with a brief history.
Our field has been fractious from the beginning. Those in Freud’s inner circle who dared to disagree were cast out; they formed their own factions and the battles began. While some feel energized by adversity and debate, I prefer to seek the security of unity. My wish is for all of the groups to join together, to derive strength in their combined numbers. We need not agree on everything, but we must respect one another’s positions.
For years I have experienced the competition of institutes and umbrella groups, oft times ignoring each other’s existence. For instance, there has been little, if any, cooperation between the 5 IPA institutes in
Celebrations aside, there are more pressing issues facing us – issues involving psychoanalytic education, credentialing and licensing. We are all seeing a decline in the number of applicants for training, and yet the tension between us continues, particularly in
Most recently, NAAP succeeded in lobbying the NYS legislature and psychoanalysts were required to be licensed by the state. Only Social Workers, Psychologists, and Psychiatrists could practice using their various degrees (scope of practice). People without degrees were required to apply for grandfathering in order to be licensed by a certain date.
The training analyst situation has always been problematic, and in 2007 the NYFS took the lead in making the application process into a civil, fair, and self-selection based one, respectful of the integrity of our members.
In sum, within our field of psychoanalysis there is more red tape and infighting than camaraderie and cooperation.
I believed with all my heart that every psychoanalyst, regardless of institute, persuasion, or degree could and would benefit from meeting each other and beginning to work together. One day I shared my idea of an ecumenical conference about the future of our education with Arnie and Arlene Richards, my friends and neighbors in the country. I realized that I was in no position to organize a conference alone, and Arnie agreed to help. Arnie is an organizer and I did much of the creative work. We produced the conference with the help of an organizing committee that in and of itself was designed to be representative:
Lewis Aron — NYU Post Doc and Div. 39
Kenneth Eisold – WAW
James Fosshage – AIPSP
Jennifer Harper – NAAP
Sam Herschkowitz — NYUPI, an APsaA institute
Doonam Kim — Candidate at NYUPI
Arlene Richards — APsaA, Iptar, NYFS, CIPS
Joann Turo – NYFS
Arnie Richards —
and myself — NYFS, APsaA, CIPS, AAPCSW, Div. 39
The committee worked hard to facilitate full representation across the panels, and Judith Logue presented a roundtable discussion including the Presidents and leaders of umbrella groups. It took much effort to include everyone – but we persisted and ended up with about 40 sponsors and 40 presenters.
This was our first experience as an independent group, representative of all major umbrella organizations and of many individual institutes, and certainly there were details that were overlooked, but we have learned good lessons for the future.
The changes occurring in the education and credentialing of psychoanalysts will have a major impact on our future, and I still believe that thinking and learning together will facilitate and give direction to the ongoing transitions in psychoanalysis and perhaps even mend some of the fragmentation in the field.
This lengthy description of how our conference was born is meant to assure Lynne Moritz that our organizing committee made every effort to be inclusive. I can promise her that absolutely no covert intention to show disrespect to APsaA was operative. I can assure her that the philosophy of the conference was and continues to be based on inclusion and respect. As psychoanalysts we are bound, I believe, to listen to each other as we listen so well to our patients. None of us have all the answers and in fact as we deepen our knowledge we find more questions. Only when we work together do we have the chance to keep this profession alive and vibrant.
I’d like to thank Lynne, the President of a most important association, for participating in this conference, and end with another quote from her, one which echoes my sentiments perfectly:
“Splintering, fractionizing, fractious-izing, to me, is a sure path in the wrong direction.”
I hope this brief yet wordy history convinces her of our true motive.
P.S. This independent yet representative organizing group is now planning for our next conference on The Future of Psychoanalytic Education: Innovation and Preservation (working title). A call for abstracts will be announced as soon as our date is set.