Dear Colleagues,
Well, the home stretch is beckoning so I’d like to return to focus on the crucial issues of this election. To me the future of our venerable organization is priority number one.
Here in Pasadena the presence of prestigious Cal Tech has helped spawn an entire industry of biotechnology “incubators”, small companies/labs working on state of the art ideas and then contributing the results of these ideas to the academic, intellectual, health care and yes, even the business world(s). While the analogy is far from perfect I envision an APsaA of the future where our national and local organizations are similarly fertile.
Here are two ideas which I think can help us accomplish this, perhaps even more quickly than at our historic geological pace.
First: After five year’s experience as your Treasurer, combined with a prior four years as an elected Councilor-at–Large, I can tell you that while our resources are sufficient for our basic functioning, they are insufficient to carry out the innovative and forward-looking initiatives which our role and responsibility as a pre-eminent psychoanalytic organization require.
We need to involve ourselves in contemporary processes of resource development. In my nine years of service (and counting) as Trustee of a small liberal arts college, we have undertaken a major capital campaign that has added $50 million dollars to an endowment which had been almost non-existent. I have also had the experience of overseeing the growth of our own reserves over the past five years, through some difficult market periods. In short, capital development and appropriate investment are essential for our successful future.
Second: We must give high priority to our public information efforts. In my tenure on the Executive Committee, we have gotten invaluable help through the addition of a full-time staff member. However, we need to do more. I would make the Committee on Public Information a major player in our organization and support them in developing new ideas to raise our profile further. The use of public relations resources has been controversial to some members, but the time has come to put such efforts front and center, in creative, nuanced, and effective ways.
I am excited about the opportunity to undertake these new steps, and hope we can all engage in a process that can further the development of our organization as a place of creativity, depth, and resourcefulness.
Warren R. Procci, Candidate for President-Elect, APsaA
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Yes, the Politics of Old Are Inadequate
Dear Colleagues,
I am reluctant to respond directly to Drew’s recent posting to this list, but it astonished and puzzled me in ways that can’t simply be ignored. I think the last time someone referred to me as “the other” anything was when I was on the wrong side of a romantic triangle in college. Here’s the section of his post that I’d like to respond to:
“The other candidate has staked his campaign on the certification issue. While I think that issue is important, I firmly believe that there are more serious challenges to psychoanalysis today than certification and TA appointments. I believe you need a president who has the larger view and is not beholden to a vocal group that has fastened on the certification issue.”
While I consider the certification/TA link one of the prominent causes of our organization’s long-standing divisiveness, and it must be solved, I have addressed a broad range of issues affecting APsaA both on this list and my website (www.wrprocci.org or http://warrenprocci.blogspot.com). Indeed, I have staked my campaign and my differences with Drew on such significant issues as our need for diversity, for transparency, and for appropriate succession, all ways of ensuring that we hand off a robust organization to the current and subsequent generations of analysts. That is what matters most.
Yes, I am in favor of a certification process that is national and independently administered, and I believe that institutes should have autonomy in determining who will best supervise and analyze candidates. All indications are that this is a majority view (a substantial majority of 57% voted in this direction a mere two years ago), as well as a sensible, pragmatic, and progressive one. On my website, I have a section entitled ‘Goals’ in which I enumerate five overriding priorities of my presidency, if elected. Four have nothing to do with certification. In fact, even if you disagree with me about the problems of our current certification/TA link, you should consider the real significance of these other goals, before casting your vote.
In any event, the idea that I am “beholden” to a “vocal group” is not only untrue, it is way off the mark. Such stereotyped campaigning makes no sense. There are differences between the candidates for presidency, and I believe it is up to our members to decide who may or may not be “beholden” to whom.
For those of you who continue to be put off by politics as usual, I suggest that we candidates all stick to facts and issues, in this way we can all best determine the kind of leadership we need for our future.
Warren R. Procci, Candidate for President-Elect, APsaA
I am reluctant to respond directly to Drew’s recent posting to this list, but it astonished and puzzled me in ways that can’t simply be ignored. I think the last time someone referred to me as “the other” anything was when I was on the wrong side of a romantic triangle in college. Here’s the section of his post that I’d like to respond to:
“The other candidate has staked his campaign on the certification issue. While I think that issue is important, I firmly believe that there are more serious challenges to psychoanalysis today than certification and TA appointments. I believe you need a president who has the larger view and is not beholden to a vocal group that has fastened on the certification issue.”
While I consider the certification/TA link one of the prominent causes of our organization’s long-standing divisiveness, and it must be solved, I have addressed a broad range of issues affecting APsaA both on this list and my website (www.wrprocci.org or http://warrenprocci.blogspot.com). Indeed, I have staked my campaign and my differences with Drew on such significant issues as our need for diversity, for transparency, and for appropriate succession, all ways of ensuring that we hand off a robust organization to the current and subsequent generations of analysts. That is what matters most.
Yes, I am in favor of a certification process that is national and independently administered, and I believe that institutes should have autonomy in determining who will best supervise and analyze candidates. All indications are that this is a majority view (a substantial majority of 57% voted in this direction a mere two years ago), as well as a sensible, pragmatic, and progressive one. On my website, I have a section entitled ‘Goals’ in which I enumerate five overriding priorities of my presidency, if elected. Four have nothing to do with certification. In fact, even if you disagree with me about the problems of our current certification/TA link, you should consider the real significance of these other goals, before casting your vote.
In any event, the idea that I am “beholden” to a “vocal group” is not only untrue, it is way off the mark. Such stereotyped campaigning makes no sense. There are differences between the candidates for presidency, and I believe it is up to our members to decide who may or may not be “beholden” to whom.
For those of you who continue to be put off by politics as usual, I suggest that we candidates all stick to facts and issues, in this way we can all best determine the kind of leadership we need for our future.
Warren R. Procci, Candidate for President-Elect, APsaA
The Journey to Our Future
Dear Colleagues:
This is my final letter of the campaign (perhaps one or two too many for some of you, but please plow ahead at least a sentence or two).
I recently had occasion to attend an event at Ellis Island. As I walked through the Great Hall there, I thought of my grandparents and the millions of other uneducated and unsophisticated immigrants who traveled here in steerage at the start of the 20th century. What a transformation America wrought in them and their descendants, many of whom are now well established as managers, professionals, and leaders.
I found myself thinking about risks, journeys, and the power of time. Here we are a hundred years later, many of us children and grandchildren of those bold travelers. And now our venerable organization is moving into its second century too. But do we current travelers have any ideas where our psychoanalytic descendents will be three generations from now? Have we the courage our forebears had, to strike out towards a new world that can support a rich future? Can we even imagine that new world?
We all want an APsaA that is not just managing to keep afloat, but actively growing, with a membership that represents the full creativity, diversity, and ambition of the mental health and academic worlds: an APsaA that embraces, incubates, and generates ideas that enhance the vitality of psychoanalytic theory and practice; psychoanalytic institutes that are educational resources not only for analysts and (by extension) their patients, but also for the mental health community, the academy, and anyone else who is interested in self-knowledge and emotional development; thoughtful institutes whose forms of teaching build on and expand from our traditional models, exposing candidates and students of psychology everywhere to vigorous ideas and rigorous thinking; lively institutes that foster exciting and meaningful research in collaboration with other important disciplines. In short, we want future institutes that are truly centers of psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic research, with arms stretched into the communities who desperately need our ideas and practices. Great universities do this, and so do progressive governments. But, of course, by definition, there are risks.
Forgive me if this sounds self-serving, but what I think distinguishes my candidacy for president is that I do not know what forms the future will take, whereas the conservative agenda in our organization concentrates on self-preservation and self-reproduction. I do not think that will work. Nurturing a future that has value and meaning requires that we create right now the conditions under which our organization can grow and thrive. This means a wider expansion of our democratic ideals, a fuller embrace of diversity (of race, culture, theory, profession), and a greater openness of communication and exchange, all of which together provide the kind of evolutionary catalyst that keeps organizations and ideas from marginalization, fossilization and, ultimately, extinction.
I am no pollyanna here, but we are at a juncture in our history where we need some fresh air, some renewed boldness, and some hope and humility. Like any human being I don’t always rise to the expectation of my own ideals and, of course, I’ve made mistakes. But with your help and my leadership, we can all rise together and fulfill this achievable ideal of a thriving and enlightened future for our organization.
This is my final letter of the campaign (perhaps one or two too many for some of you, but please plow ahead at least a sentence or two).
I recently had occasion to attend an event at Ellis Island. As I walked through the Great Hall there, I thought of my grandparents and the millions of other uneducated and unsophisticated immigrants who traveled here in steerage at the start of the 20th century. What a transformation America wrought in them and their descendants, many of whom are now well established as managers, professionals, and leaders.
I found myself thinking about risks, journeys, and the power of time. Here we are a hundred years later, many of us children and grandchildren of those bold travelers. And now our venerable organization is moving into its second century too. But do we current travelers have any ideas where our psychoanalytic descendents will be three generations from now? Have we the courage our forebears had, to strike out towards a new world that can support a rich future? Can we even imagine that new world?
We all want an APsaA that is not just managing to keep afloat, but actively growing, with a membership that represents the full creativity, diversity, and ambition of the mental health and academic worlds: an APsaA that embraces, incubates, and generates ideas that enhance the vitality of psychoanalytic theory and practice; psychoanalytic institutes that are educational resources not only for analysts and (by extension) their patients, but also for the mental health community, the academy, and anyone else who is interested in self-knowledge and emotional development; thoughtful institutes whose forms of teaching build on and expand from our traditional models, exposing candidates and students of psychology everywhere to vigorous ideas and rigorous thinking; lively institutes that foster exciting and meaningful research in collaboration with other important disciplines. In short, we want future institutes that are truly centers of psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic research, with arms stretched into the communities who desperately need our ideas and practices. Great universities do this, and so do progressive governments. But, of course, by definition, there are risks.
Forgive me if this sounds self-serving, but what I think distinguishes my candidacy for president is that I do not know what forms the future will take, whereas the conservative agenda in our organization concentrates on self-preservation and self-reproduction. I do not think that will work. Nurturing a future that has value and meaning requires that we create right now the conditions under which our organization can grow and thrive. This means a wider expansion of our democratic ideals, a fuller embrace of diversity (of race, culture, theory, profession), and a greater openness of communication and exchange, all of which together provide the kind of evolutionary catalyst that keeps organizations and ideas from marginalization, fossilization and, ultimately, extinction.
I am no pollyanna here, but we are at a juncture in our history where we need some fresh air, some renewed boldness, and some hope and humility. Like any human being I don’t always rise to the expectation of my own ideals and, of course, I’ve made mistakes. But with your help and my leadership, we can all rise together and fulfill this achievable ideal of a thriving and enlightened future for our organization.
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