My Candidacy for President-Elect of APsaA

I am very pleased that our new election List is up and running. The list will give more of our members the opportunity to hear from our candidates for office and to interact with them. As a candidate for President-Elect I plan to use this platform to introduce myself to many of you and to start an ongoing conversation about the issues which concern all of us. I hope that my participation in dialog on this list will help you decide for whom to vote.

First I would like to tell you about myself, my background, and some of my thoughts about what I’d like to accomplish if elected. I’ll be brief for now but I will discuss many issues in much more detail as the campaign progresses. I would direct all our members to my website where I have provided more information about myself, my TAP statement (“Thoughts on the Presidency”), and my openline statements concerning some of the most pressing issues in the Association. To do so please go to: http://warrenprocci.blogspot.com or www.wrprocci.org

I am a psychoanalyst in private practice in Pasadena, CA. I believe I have had exceptional preparation for the office of President-Elect. I have been elected nationally three times, as Councilor-at-Large once and as Treasurer twice. I have served extensively on both our Board of Directors and on our Executive Committee. I have also been a Fellow of BOPS. During my tenure as Treasurer we have balanced our budgets, funded our programs, and established a number of new programs, all without raising dues. I have brought transparency to our budgetary processes and I have always been willing to respond publicly or privately to any member who has questions about our finances.

My background includes eight years of service as a Trustee and Executive Committee member of my undergraduate alma mater, Wagner College. I have chaired the college’s Committee on Academic Affairs which has given me valuable first hand experience dealing with issues of Trustee oversight of academic functions and processes. I have also been an active participant in a major capital campaign and in the development and implementation of a strategic plan. Many of these experiences have direct applicability to my work with our Association. I wouldn’t need to learn “on the job”.

If elected I would bring a “focus for our future” approach to the office. For now, let me limit my discussion of my plans for APsaA to just two items. I will be telling you much more about my other ideas during the upcoming months in future posts. First, as President I would make it a prime objective to seek a solution to what I consider the major source of our ongoing organizational dissension, the certification/TA link. We do need to come to some resolution so that we can focus much more of our attention on the numerous other issues which confront us: members’ practices, candidate recruitment, outreach to communities, practice protection, etc. Second, I would develop processes to insure that organizational planning and decision making are pluralistic and involve all of our members and not just a limited few.

I hope you will support progressive changes in our Association. We face many challenges but I believe that APsaA has great resources and the potential to advance our field. I hope you’ll give me an opportunity to play a leadership role.

Warren R. Procci

My Track Record for Reform in APsaA

Dear Colleagues,

In an earlier posting I made the point that our Association has finally begun to change as we recognize many of the internal and external realities which affect us. In particular, I emphasized that we need to find a way to end the certification/TA link which, in my view, is the biggest contributor to our current dissension.

Since I am currently a candidate for APsaA President-Elect I want to remind you about my history of support for a number of progressive reforms so that you can decide for yourself whether or not I’m the best candidate to lead us towards change.

My first involvement with APsaA was in the early 90’s on behalf of my local institute. At that time there were very rigid requirements and procedures governing the admission of “non-medical” (a term we used then) candidates. I felt, as did my local institute, that we were not at all well served by placing obstacles in the path of well-qualified “non medical” mental health professionals who wanted to join us. In fact I think we are still paying the price for this by bearing animosities from such colleagues, even these many years later.

I argued back then at the CNMCT (COPAP predecessor) and in front of both BOPS and the Executive Council for the relaxation of these procedures. I also argued for granting considerably more discretion to the local institutes in admission policies. Some significant reforms have occurred in this area and I believe my voice has helped. So I think it’s clear that I’ve stood for greater local institute autonomy for fifteen years.

After I was elected EC Chair of my institute I began service as a BOPS Fellow (’96-’01). A year later I was elected Councilor-at-Large (’97-01) and began to serve on our Board of Directors (the Executive Council) where I continue to serve. I was elected Treasurer twice (’02-’05, ’05- ) so I have been an officer and a member of our Executive Committee for over five years. I’ve always spoken out for the need for progressive changes in our organization at BOPS and our BOD.

I supported a bylaw amendment delinking membership and voting status from certification, a bylaw amendment granting voting rights to our candidates, a proposed bylaw amendment to remove certification from the bylaws, and, most recently, the local option bylaw amendment. I supported initiatives to expand further opening of membership opportunities to qualified non-APsaA trained analysts. I supported a BOPS proposal to create a very limited but alternate route to TA status (the “Associate Training Analyst” Proposal). I was often in a lonely position, as the sole member of the Executive Committee or, at most, one of only two members, supporting such changes.

My point is that I have a long, consistent, and principled history of support for progressive changes regardless of whether or not the majority of the particular governing body or the organization as a whole was behind those innovations. Winds of change have moved our organizational weather vanes towards many of the very same proposals that I have supported for years and I would like the opportunity to help bring about those needed reforms which can help solve our organizational dilemmas. I think you can count on me to take a principled position even if it has been unpopular in the past. I hope that I will be worthy of your support. Working together we can advance our Association and psychoanalysis.

Warren R. Procci

Goals for the Presidency

For our Association to have the kind of impact we all desire, we need to take a very broad view of the role of psychoanalysis in the world. It is essential that we look outward towards the realms of academia, mental health, government, and public service. We simply cannot accomplish what we must in these areas if we continue to spend so much of our time, energy and resources on our disagreements about governance.

After spending five years on our Executive Committee and a total of nine on our Board of Directors (Executive Council), it is abundantly clear to me that a President must be extremely focused in order to accomplish his or her goals. There are five areas in which I have major goals that I wish to accomplish during a Presidential term and I am outlining these areas below:

1. The certification/TA link. Of all the issues that bedevil us, this I believe is the major issue that is diverting our energies. We simply must find a solution to this dilemma and this would be a major focus of my presidency. While we were once well- served by this link, the major changes in the psychoanalytic world of the past two decades have made this exclusive connection highly problematic. It is clear that dissatisfaction with this link is widespread, including not only our changed membership but also our own Board on Professional Standards and many of our individual institutes. Many of us recognize an imperative for change.



2. Greater pluralism, less central regulation. I believe this issue is closely related to the solution of the certification/TA link difficulties. Our organizational history has often been characterized more by an elitist hierarchical form of governance than by a democratic one. We have many examples where small groups of members have made decisions affecting the broad membership. We have also had a long history of central regulation concerning various issues, including educational policy, TA appointment, eligibility for membership, and privileges within the organization. While at one time these policies may have been helpful, they have clearly become cumbersome, restricting and alienating in current times. This kind of approach must change quickly so that we can more readily attract and advance our younger members, provide them with leadership opportunities, and involve many more of our colleagues in decision making. We might also make our organization more inviting and appealing to colleagues trained in other settings but who are eligible for membership in APsaA and who are capable of enriching our Association. Greater inclusivity and pluralism should bring greater creativity and more innovation.



3. Strengthening the Executive Committee and the Executive Council. During my lengthy leadership service in APsaA, I have noticed a number of structural problems with our governance. One notable difficulty is that presidents often come into office with a definite and laudable agenda but once their relatively short two-year term is ended, the agenda often withers without their presence to articulate and support it. The succeeding president may well start his or her own term with a completely new set of priorities. I believe we need more continuity in our planning and policymaking. One specific way of doing this (there are others) would be to add three members (Councilors) from our Board of Directors (Executive Council) to our Executive Committee. I anticipate that these members would represent Council’s best interest on the Executive Committee and would help assure that policies and objectives put into place during our administration would be kept vital until accomplished. I strongly advanced this position during my campaign for president two years ago. I suspect many think of this as a good idea since the proposal and the current Bylaws Committee have both endorsed this for renewed.



4. Development. As Treasurer for the last five years, it has become clear to me that we cannot rely on our current sources of income if we are to expand the scope of our Association and its activities. Dues, subscriptions, meeting fees, etc. can cover basic expenses but cannot cover the cost of the new innovative efforts we need to attain creative leadership positions in wider venues. We need a program of development to expand our resources and provide the funds required to allow us to implement generative ideas and new programs. We also need to establish an endowment. During my eight years as a Trustee and Board Executive Committee member of Wagner College, my alma mater, I have been an active participant in a major capital campaign, which has substantially increased the size of the college’s endowment. I will bring this expertise to my presidency.



5. Advocacy. One of my proudest achievements as Treasurer is that we have made support of our government relations advocacy program one of our highest budgetary priorities. I have consistently seen to it that we have put as much of our financial resources behind these efforts as we can reasonably afford. However, my support for our advocacy efforts precedes my term as Treasurer. I was Chair of the CGRI from ‘97-‘00. During my time on CGRI, we made a major shift in our priorities towards the protection of the privacy of the psychoanalytic situation. During my tenure, we undertook a search for new leadership for our representation in Washington. I played a significant role in hiring Jim Pyles, and this has led to our playing a major role on Capitol Hill and in other areas of Washington in setting the priorities for the privacy of the mental health treatment setting. However, I have learned that the situation in Washington, D.C, can change very rapidly so it remains essential to have a major presence at the negotiating tables in the nation’s Capitol. When I chaired CGRI, we held a meeting in Washington, D.C, and had an opportunity for many of us to meet directly with legislators, policy developers and government regulators. I would re-establish the practice of having CGRI conduct a Washington meeting. I will continue to provide as much support, financial and otherwise, as is possible to our ongoing advocacy effort.

While there are many other areas I value greatly and will also support, such as psychoanalytic science, community involvement, individual rights, etc., I believe it necessary to have a specific set of goals and priorities for major attention in order for a President to have significant organizational accomplishments during a brief two-year term.

A Voice of Change

Dear Colleagues,
Many of us are now back to our lives at home after a week or two in Europe both at the IPA Congress and, for a lucky few, having a chance to tour around Europe a bit more. Now that we’re home thoughts about our own Association return to mind.

A voice of change has taken hold in our Association. These changes and the voices supporting them began softly, probably at least a decade ago, and they continue to make themselves felt. Many of us have been working to promote such changes and because I’m a candidate for President-Elect of APsaA I’d like to tell you about some of the changes I’ve favored and worked to bring about. Let’s start out on the issue which seems to be the most prominent right now, the link between certification and TA appointment. The voices in our Association seeking to change this link are varied and consistent. Our voting membership appears to be increasingly strong in seeking relief from the continuing burden of this link.

A vote several years ago to remove any reference regarding certification from our bylaws, which I supported, came close to achieving a majority. The Local Option bylaw, which I supported very strongly and which is quite consistent with my own thinking, sought to give greater control over TA appointments to our local institutes. This Local Option proposal gained a robust 57% of the votes cast, within striking distance of the super majority required for a bylaw change.

Other evidence of these voices can be seen in the results of the survey on certification of 2002, recently summarized on this list by Tom Bartlett. Fully half of our membership expressed the sentiment that our Association not have a certification process at all. Tom also reported data showing that a dwindling number of our graduates are pursuing certification.

A final piece of evidence, which we saw at the recent Congress of Institutes in Denver, was the strong division within BOPS itself concerning the certification/TA link. Several of our largest Institutes were front and center in advocating for increased flexibility regarding TA appointments. Additionally a major BOPS committee, the PIPE (Project for Innovation in Psychoanalytic Education), has been giving very careful consideration to routes to TA appointment other than through certification.

There are several reasons why this issue is so important to all of us. First, this debate has been front and center for so long that our ability to make progress in other vital areas has been compromised. Secondly, the restrictive link of TA appointment to certification has major effects on the career advancement of our members. Finally the link has had a very significant, harmful but less directly observable effect at limiting the candidates who seek admission to our institutes. Our institutes have powerful competitors, especially in our larger urban areas.

The confluence of these voices for change in APsaA must not be ignored. I believe our leadership must be willing to assure the Association that this problem will be addressed and resolved. If elected I will make this my number one priority. My personal and very strong preference for achieving this is through a local option arrangement. In some future notes I will describe several other goals that I consider essential to achieve as President and I will also discuss some of the other means that will be available to me as President to bring about a resolution to the certification /TA dilemma.

Warren R. Procci