Dear Colleagues,
As it looks like this trading of posts may go on until all the ballots are in, let me say right away that I completely agree with Drew Clemens that this election is not about certification, or local option, or by-law amendments.
It is about whether we want the more traditional forces who have run this organization for decades (whether in the executive committee or through the Board of Professional Standards) to continue: to resist the call of the future; to resist the call for full and equal rights for social workers, for psychologists, and for academics; to resist the call for candidates to have greater choice in choosing their analyst; to resist the call for greater democratization and for greater investment of power in our democratic processes.
Or do we want our elected officers to speak for the long disenfranchised, to speak to both our elitist history and our inclusive future, to work diligently to move our organization towards a creative and diverse future, to become an association of psychoanalysts that really is at the center of the next generations of psychoanalytic ideas and psychoanalytic practitioners. These are the truly progressive candidates who are best suited to represent all of our members.
As far as depth of experience is concerned, I’ll say, hopefully immodestly and briefly, that mine is unmatched by any recent candidate for this office, with five years as an officer and a total of nine years as an elected member of our Board of Directors, as well as with many years of additional experience in this and in other organizations (rather than take your time here please visit my website at www.wrprocci.org or http://warrenprocci.blogspot.com ).
Yes, labels are troubling, but sometimes necessary to clarify differences. I am asking you to vote for the progressive candidates in this election, so that we can all effect the ongoing transformation of our organization into a rich, creative, democratic place for all of us (analysts, therapists, teachers, researchers) who love this field.
Sincerely,
Warren R. Procci, Candidate for President-Elect, APsaA
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
A Distinguishing Feature of My Candidacy
Dear Colleagues,
The recent exchanges about removing certification from the bylaws help to highlight a distinguishing aspect of my candidacy.
“Taking certification out of the bylaws” would not resolve our difficulties about certification. The leadership of BOPS has been and is likely to remain firm in their insistence that all institutes must follow “national standards”, which include certification.
The difference between my position and Drew’s is clear. He writes:
“The prominent issue of certification should be resolved so that the procedure is perceived to be collegial rather than noxious if it is retained, and the institutes ***through BOPS*** should be freed to be more flexible about how they select training and supervising analysts” (emphasis added).
This would leave the amount of “flexibility” available to institutes up to BOPS which might well amount to flexibility within quite rigid limits.
I trust our institutes to act reasonably. I favor local institute option as to whether or not an institute uses certification as part of their procedure for selecting TAs.
I hope you will vote for me.
Warren R. Procci, Candidate for President-Elect, APsaA
The recent exchanges about removing certification from the bylaws help to highlight a distinguishing aspect of my candidacy.
“Taking certification out of the bylaws” would not resolve our difficulties about certification. The leadership of BOPS has been and is likely to remain firm in their insistence that all institutes must follow “national standards”, which include certification.
The difference between my position and Drew’s is clear. He writes:
“The prominent issue of certification should be resolved so that the procedure is perceived to be collegial rather than noxious if it is retained, and the institutes ***through BOPS*** should be freed to be more flexible about how they select training and supervising analysts” (emphasis added).
This would leave the amount of “flexibility” available to institutes up to BOPS which might well amount to flexibility within quite rigid limits.
I trust our institutes to act reasonably. I favor local institute option as to whether or not an institute uses certification as part of their procedure for selecting TAs.
I hope you will vote for me.
Warren R. Procci, Candidate for President-Elect, APsaA
Sunday, December 9, 2007
What Distinguishes My Candidacy for President-Elect
Dear Colleagues (especially the undecided, dispirited, or confused),
My apologies for yet another post, but it seems that my letters and postings about inclusiveness, diversity, democracy, and reconciliation spurred first a flurry of negative responses and have now brought on postings that, in some ways, nearly copy my words and positions. But the differences among the candidates are great, and this is a very important election, so please vote, and vote thoughtfully.
HERE ARE WHERE THE IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES LIE:
I have said repeatedly, and have long supported, that we need an inclusive and democratic vision of our future. (Among other things this means absolute equal rights and opportunity for social workers, academics, psychologists etc.) Other candidates say ‘yes, but we’re all analysts….’, as though equality can just be assumed.
I have repeatedly raised the issue of diversity (in race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, and discipline, etc.) and our need to embrace diversity as a foundation for creativity and progress. Other candidates have seemed loathe to grapple with this fact in any depth.
I have spoken strongly for our need to attend to our history and to work to reconcile the exclusionary wounds and abuses that have marginalized those within and without our organization. My more traditional opponents think we do best to ignore that history, as if we could possibly move forward or bring people together without fully comprehending it.
I have written about the freedom that candidates need to have in choosing the analyst who’s best for them and how, through so-called local option, we can begin to make this happen. The more traditional candidates speak about ‘national standards’, not seeming to realize how our exclusionary and arbitrary national standards have diminished our prominence in the world.
I do favor national standards (just as have been ecumenically designed by the Consortium of major psychoanalytic organizations) and a certification system that is national and independent of our organization, as is the case in all other clinical and academic fields. Those who are more traditional want to obscure this issue, either by diminishing it, by delaying it, by ‘task forcing’ it, or by acting as if all hell (a 3-letter word) would let loose if such changes occurred.
As I’ve noted before, we are at a ‘tipping’ point in our organization, and the choice is to continue with business as usual or to take some creative and evolutionary steps to help our organization thrive as the robust, diverse, and creative umbrella for psychoanalysts and psychoanalysis that it has the potential to be.
Please do contact me if you have any questions or concerns (email wrprocci@sbcglobal.net, or phone 626-793-7957). And please don’t neglect to vote.
P.S. As an aside, it amuses me somewhat to be depicted as ‘radical’ or ‘divisive’. In case you don’t know, I have been the Treasurer of APsaA for the past six years. I’m a middle-aged white guy who walks around our meetings in three-piece suits, quietly listens to the perspective of others, works easily and collaboratively with my colleagues, and rarely utters a four-letter word (though they don’t escape the momentary fantasy).
So, in a sense, I’m an establishment figure who greatly values our organization, who gets things done in productive and cooperative ways, and whose ideas about governance, outreach, research, and practice overlap on many points with our more conservative candidates. But I also think that the differences I’ve outlined above are crucial to the future success and creativity of our organization, and qualify me as the best candidate to lead all of our members.
Warren R. Procci, Candidate for President-Elect, APsaA
My apologies for yet another post, but it seems that my letters and postings about inclusiveness, diversity, democracy, and reconciliation spurred first a flurry of negative responses and have now brought on postings that, in some ways, nearly copy my words and positions. But the differences among the candidates are great, and this is a very important election, so please vote, and vote thoughtfully.
HERE ARE WHERE THE IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES LIE:
I have said repeatedly, and have long supported, that we need an inclusive and democratic vision of our future. (Among other things this means absolute equal rights and opportunity for social workers, academics, psychologists etc.) Other candidates say ‘yes, but we’re all analysts….’, as though equality can just be assumed.
I have repeatedly raised the issue of diversity (in race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, and discipline, etc.) and our need to embrace diversity as a foundation for creativity and progress. Other candidates have seemed loathe to grapple with this fact in any depth.
I have spoken strongly for our need to attend to our history and to work to reconcile the exclusionary wounds and abuses that have marginalized those within and without our organization. My more traditional opponents think we do best to ignore that history, as if we could possibly move forward or bring people together without fully comprehending it.
I have written about the freedom that candidates need to have in choosing the analyst who’s best for them and how, through so-called local option, we can begin to make this happen. The more traditional candidates speak about ‘national standards’, not seeming to realize how our exclusionary and arbitrary national standards have diminished our prominence in the world.
I do favor national standards (just as have been ecumenically designed by the Consortium of major psychoanalytic organizations) and a certification system that is national and independent of our organization, as is the case in all other clinical and academic fields. Those who are more traditional want to obscure this issue, either by diminishing it, by delaying it, by ‘task forcing’ it, or by acting as if all hell (a 3-letter word) would let loose if such changes occurred.
As I’ve noted before, we are at a ‘tipping’ point in our organization, and the choice is to continue with business as usual or to take some creative and evolutionary steps to help our organization thrive as the robust, diverse, and creative umbrella for psychoanalysts and psychoanalysis that it has the potential to be.
Please do contact me if you have any questions or concerns (email wrprocci@sbcglobal.net, or phone 626-793-7957). And please don’t neglect to vote.
P.S. As an aside, it amuses me somewhat to be depicted as ‘radical’ or ‘divisive’. In case you don’t know, I have been the Treasurer of APsaA for the past six years. I’m a middle-aged white guy who walks around our meetings in three-piece suits, quietly listens to the perspective of others, works easily and collaboratively with my colleagues, and rarely utters a four-letter word (though they don’t escape the momentary fantasy).
So, in a sense, I’m an establishment figure who greatly values our organization, who gets things done in productive and cooperative ways, and whose ideas about governance, outreach, research, and practice overlap on many points with our more conservative candidates. But I also think that the differences I’ve outlined above are crucial to the future success and creativity of our organization, and qualify me as the best candidate to lead all of our members.
Warren R. Procci, Candidate for President-Elect, APsaA
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