Warren Procci - Candidate for President of APsaA

Dear Fellow Members of APsaA,

The American Psychoanalytic Association is a remarkable institution, with a rich, complex history and a powerful presence in contemporary psychoanalysis. It also has the potential for a very positive and creative future. Yet many of you are put-off or even fed-up with our organization's divisiveness, politics as usual, incessant navel-gazing, and at times its unwitting elitism. We are, indeed, a pre-eminent organization, but we are in real need of both the strong leadership and thoughtful humility, that will continue to make our pre-eminence deserved.

We need leaders not just familiar with our organizational and governance structures, or even just dedicated to our unique and important educational agendas, but leaders who are and can be attentive to the diverse needs of our membership, who have the vision for a productively democratic future, and who are not caught up in grinding the same old axes that have hindered our growth and creativity for too long.

Many of our leaders, and those who aspire to leadership, are thoughtful, skilled, and very well-intentioned folks, some with long resumes and stellar credentials. But while governance experience and educational dedication are essential, they are not sufficient to the tasks ahead. Our future leaders also need to be able to generate ideas and proposals with the best interests of all our membership in mind, and similarly must have the capacity to listen, evolve, and create so that not only will our membership feel enfranchised in its own organization but so that our connections with the outside world becomes increasingly generous and robust. This has not happened with the sufficient speed or sensitivity that our fine organization deserves.

I am very earnest in telling you that my candidacy offers us all a chance to build on what we all know is great and generative about our organization. At the same time my candidacy is not subordinate to the old energy-depleting battles, the old unreasoned hierarchies, or the ways in which politics as usual has so often handcuffed our organization and its members.

Mine is not a radical campaign or agenda, nor certainly not a reactionary one. You'll have to look elsewhere for that. My long history of governance experience within our organization and my lifetime of dedication to educational values, gives me all the necessary bona fides for assuming a presidential role. But it is in my capacity to move towards the future with reasonable ideas, with attendance to the important concerns of all our members, and with a real interest in a dynamic future for our organization, that makes my candidacy so important at this stage in our history.

Please take a moment to click onto any of the links above. There you will find more specifics about my qualifications, interests, ideas, as well as opportunities to let me know about your interests and concerns. I will read and respond to every communication, as I am proposing that we all join in partnership for the best future of our organization.

Warm regards, Warren Procci (candidate for Presidency of the American Psychoanalytic Association)