An Invitation from Alice Maher:
Please come to our symposium on Saturday, January 19th, at 12:00 PM at the American Winter Meetings at the Waldorf Astoria to hear Prudy Gorguechon, Mark Smaller and Jeff Taxman discuss the topic, “Is Community Psychoanalysis ‘Real’ Enough to Be Made Part of the Core Curriculum?” I’m excited to catalyze a discussion that will address the vitally important intersection of the theoretical and applied aspects of our work.
Until recently, when APsaA members referred to analytic work in the community, most of you would think of the word “analytic” with quotation marks around it. It was the copper, not the “pure gold” of classical analysis. Those who worked outside the consulting room were considered to be the ones who couldn’t tolerate the intensity of individual work and needed to dilute it.
But times have changed, and it’s clear that some of us have interests and talents in one area and are less invested in others. We’ve also come to the hard-won realization that work outside the consulting room is essential if our field is going to survive.
But if this is true, then it presents a new problem. Analytic theory/methodology has a century-long history. We’ve developed a body of knowledge and experience that we teach, share, research, supervise, and continually work to develop.
But those of us who work in the community work alone. Education, confrontation, interpretation, relationship-building, and transference/countertransference phenomena are equally complex and potent, but they emerge differently and are understood and utilized differently from the way they are on the couch. But because community psychoanalysts work alone or in very small groups, there’s no shared language, theory and methodology, just isolated reports of individual projects. We have no IRB oversight, no place to come together to share our techniques, hypotheses and results in ways that can be supported, challenged and replicated.
On the other hand, one could make an equally strong argument that our candidates are already overloaded, and it’s not appropriate to add a course in astronomy to those who are struggling so hard to learn to use a microscope. But meanwhile, what happens to the individual people who dare to look up at the stars alone?
I’ve asked the panelists to speak for no more than 15 minutes so we can have plenty of time for audience participation. Please think about some creative new ways of solving a seemingly-unsolvable problem, and join us on Saturday at noon.
Alice Maher