APsaA ELECTIONS: SECRETARY
CAMPAIGN STATEMENTS
I am very excited to have this opportunity to be a candidate for the position of Secretary of the American Psychoanalytic Association. I believe we have come to a time in the history of APsaA where we have a chance to change ourselves in a good way for the profession and offer what we know to make a better world. We are entering a new era with strong scientific evidence that supports psychoanalytic thought and practice. The challenges are significant but with our focusing less on our internal differences, we can focus on improving our relationships with the outside world so that our clinical practices are known and utilized appropriately and we are able to more directly help with the world’s suffering. Feelings of energy and excitement are palpable these days when we get together. I want to play an active role in taking us further in these directions. Let me tell you why I think I could be helpful to the organization.
I graduated from the Topeka Institute for Psychoanalysis in 1997 and was certified in 2001. From 2005 until 2010, I was Director of the Greater Kansas City Psychoanalytic Institute, where I remain as a Training and Supervising Analyst and Faculty Member. I maintain a fulltime private practice. I have also written books and papers and am the Guest Editor of a recent issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, “Today’s Bridge Between Psychoanalysis and the Group World”, 38 (4). While I am mature in years, I am a relative newcomer to APsaA. I was elected as Councilor in 2014, a position I continue to hold. Since that time, I have served as Co-Chair of the Committee on Council (with my opponent for this office—we get along!), as a member of the Community Vision Task Force and am presently a member of The Executive Director Search Committee. While I have witnessed the distress and debates over years, I have not been part of them.
These are times when strong leadership is essential; I have experience in leadership. My background and training in leadership and group dynamics, beginning at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, have served me well when applied to other situations. I have used these skills in a number of leadership positions: administratively and clinically at Menninger, providing psychoanalytically informed organizational consulting to many organizations over several decades and most notably in facilitating the Greater Kansas City Psychoanalytic Institute to become an approved institute. I believe that everyone in an organization counts and as I campaign I will be active in contacting people at all levels of APsaA to learn what it is you need at the local level and then, if elected, will facilitate providing it. As Council reorganizes itself to function as a board of directors for APsaA, I hope to apply those skills once again, especially paying attention to the unconscious group dynamics that can assist or obstruct us in obtaining the changes we want. Institutions function most effectively when leaders are steady, solid and provide a safe environment. Lines of authority must be clear and fair. Leaders must be constantly striving to understand group members and their relationships with one another. All voices and points of view are relevant. When these factors are not given consideration, destructive events and processes can happen inside organizations. People do not act creatively and in innovative ways when they are insecure, feel unheard, devalued or scared and leadership is responsible for seeing that the environment is safe and secure so that growth and innovation can happen. In short, I think psychoanalytically about how to provide good leadership.
Finally, these are challenging and chaotic times. We can offer understanding about how people function and what their needs are at a time when it is needed more than ever. I want to be able to play an active role in making a difference by giving the world ways to understand what is happening and make it better. As your Secretary, I will strive to do that.
Bonnie Buchele
reports no ethics, malpractice, or licensing board findings.
This is an exciting time in our Association’s history! The reorganization has now freed our energies to focus our efforts outward to the broader community and the world around us. We need to put our efforts behind rebuilding bridges with the academic community, and in strengthening our scientific basis as we reclaim the Association’s position as the preeminent scientific home for psychoanalysis. We need to be expedient in streamlining our governance structure so that we can turn our attention to judicious allocation of our resources and to our future as a profession, a science and as a membership organization. We all have a stake in our professional home regardless of our position on “certification,” “externalization” or the “training-analyst system.” It is not to say that these hot button issues are not important but they can serve to distract us from the issues that are really at the core of our long-term survival as an Association and a viable profession.
Our Association and profession are in need of strong leadership and a coherent vision of what we aspire to achieve as an organization representing the profession and science of psychoanalysis. Making an impact in our patients’ lives, our society and the global community requires a vision that will serve to guide our decisions about how we allocate our limited financial resources but most importantly our human capital.
I envision an Association that is primarily “patient focused,” secondarily “candidate-focused” and thirdly “member-focused.” These are our most important priorities if we are to become an organization that thrives! As Secretary of the Association, my voice and leadership on the Executive Committee will help to guide our Association in a direction that will help us to focus on innovation in all aspects of our organizational and educational functions. I believe in fostering an educational system that will ensure that all of our graduates enter a profession that will provide for a financially-viable practice, satisfying personal engagement with their patients, and a professional home in their local Institutes and Societies that provide the opportunities to continue to grow professionally among supportive colleagues. The Association has to take the lead in fostering the spirit of innovation necessary to thrive in the 21st Century!
As Secretary of the Association, I vow to be expedient in all matters related to enhancing the communication between the Executive Council, the Executive Committee and our members. I will work closely with our new Lead Councilor to ensure that we improve the functioning of the Executive Council, our Board of Directors, by ensuring timely and comprehensive cross communication between our leadership, our committees, our Councilors and the members we represent.
In my twenty years of service to the Association, I have garnered much experience having served on key committees: Membership, Budget Advisory, Membership Review and Requirements, and the newly formed Governance Committee among others. I have served on the Executive Council for eight years as the Councilor for the Florida Psychoanalytic Center. However the role that consolidated my commitment to the Association and gave me the know-how and preparation to assume this leadership position was my four years serving as president of the Affiliate Council, our Association’s national candidate organization (renamed the Candidate’s Council). The biggest perk of that position is getting to sit in and take part in many of the deliberations that impact our Association and our members while serving as the voice of candidates. Serving under several presidents (Newell Fischer, Jon Meyer, and Lynne Moritz) and BOPS chairs (Ronald Benson, Eric Nuetzel, Calvern Narcisi, Myrna Weiss) gave me invaluable insight and the leadership experience necessary to assume the role of Secretary of our Association.
I hope you will share in my excitement and vision for the Executive Council and our Association and put your support behind my candidacy for Secretary of the Association.
Julio G. Calderon
reports no ethics, malpractice, or licensing board findings.
APsaA ELECTIONS: COUNCILOR-AT-LARGE
I am pleased to announce my candidacy for Councilor-at-Large for the 2019-2023 term.
I first became involved in APsaA as a candidate, and was fortunate to serve as Secretary of the Candidates’ Council for four years. During this time, I learned more about how APsaA functioned as an organization. I learned about past conflict and future goals. I learned the value of collaborating with colleagues. Most of all, I learned what APsaA had to offer.
Since then, I have served on many local and national committees. As noted on my CV, I am currently co-chairing the Program Committee at the Florida Psychoanalytic Center, in addition to teaching psychotherapy students and candidates. I have also been involved in many APsaA committees since graduation, including the Fellowship Committee, the Membership Committee, and the Teacher’s Academy. In addition, I had the honor of serving on two Task Forces: the Task Force on Value, Engagement, and Community, and the Community Vision Task Force. The purpose of these task forces was to look to the future and set goals to get there.
This brings me to the reason I am running. My platform rests on the ideas of unity, moving forward, and acceptance of differences. Our organization has been through a long period of turmoil, and the 6-Point Plan has set down some guidelines to accomplish these goals. I support local choice for standards. I believe our organization will become more unified if different sets of standards are each accepted as part of the APsaA “umbrella.” DPE has been set up internally to help facilitate the recent changes in standards adopted by APsaA, providing consultation as needed. Institutes can also continue with prior standards, decided locally, with DPE consultation or with the help of an external organization. For APsaA to thrive, it is critical that all groups can ‘agree to disagree’ about how standards should be set. There must be mutual respect for the choices that each institute makes if we want to grow together.
All of us are APsaA. If elected, I pledge to work with the standards of all institutes and promise to respect institute choice. My goal is to help facilitate the many steps that our leadership has already taken to move APsaA forward. I’ve been privileged to be a part of this so far and ask for your vote so I can contribute on an even greater level.
Gennifer Lane Briggs
reports no ethics, malpractice, or licensing board findings.
I am asking for your vote to be a councilor-at-large of the American Psychoanalytic Association. I have enjoyed working with and learning from my APsaA colleagues and would like to give something back to the organization and members who have given me so much. We all know that APsaA (and our profession) faces challenges as well as opportunities. I hope that you will give me your vote and the opportunity to help APsaA meet those challenges and seize those opportunities.
I am Chair of the APsaA Psychoanalytic & Psychodynamic Teachers’ Academy, which builds connections between APsaA and academic psychiatry, psychology, and social work. Thousands of graduate students, externs, interns, medical students, residents, fellows, and postdocs have a better view of analysis and APsaA because of the Teachers’ Academy. At APsaA I also present cases, was a member of the Committee on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis (COCAA), am a member of the Department of Psychoanalytic Education (DPE), was on the Value, Engagement, and Community Membership Task Force, was on the Community Vision Task Force, and am on the Membership Committee. At the Association for Child Psychoanalysis (ACP) I present cases, am secretary-elect, and chair the communications committee where I created the listserv, chaired the newsletter, and am helping redesign the website. At the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NYPSI) I am a Training and Supervising Analyst. I am also an Associate Supervising Analyst in Child and Adolescent Analysis at NYPSI. I have been NYPSI Advertising Director, Treasurer, on the Board, and taught adult and child classes. I am also on the faculty at Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Pace University Counseling Center, and the Psychological Center at the City College of New York where I teach and supervise child and adult externs, interns, fellows, residents, social workers, and triple boarders. I am a child, adolescent, and adult psychoanalyst and psychologist in private practice in New York City.
I believe that my experience helps me to listen and work effectively with all of our APsaA colleagues. I am asking for your vote.
Daniel W. Prezant
reports no ethics, malpractice, or licensing board findings.
Erika Schmidt
Why do I want to serve as Councilor-at-Large? My vision for psychoanalysis is a broad one. As an organization, it is critical that APsaA continue to find ways to communicate effectively to the public what psychoanalysis is and why what we do matters. I am committed to psychoanalytic education that trains psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and those in allied disciplines. This education needs to demonstrate the wide applicability of psychoanalytic ideas to work in community settings and problems of social justice. I have had experience developing educational programs and clinical services within the Chicago Institute, strategizing about public outreach and figuring out the many financial challenges most institutes face, and APsaA as well. In this time of change, APsaA has a critical role to play in promoting the value of psychoanalytic thought.
Since 2013, I have been President of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, the first woman, the first non-MD and the first child/adult analyst to hold this position. My election signaled it was time for change and I am proud to have provided leadership during this period. We as a faculty adopted the “Chicago Plan” in 2014 which allowed candidates to remain in an analysis with a non-TA. We restructured our education programs, creating a first year “Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Thought,” which offers a foundational year in the essentials of theory and practice. Conceived as a diverse learning community, it is the first year of our three training programs, and can also be taken as a stand-alone program. It has attracted a cadre of enthusiastic students. We have welcomed candidates outside our geographic boundaries who attend our analytic program using distance technology from China, New Zealand, Iran and Florida. We have students from several states that lack training programs. Of course, much of my effort goes toward the challenges of development and fund-raising and positioning the Institute as a relevant, contemporary site for mental health education, scholarship and clinical service.
Within APsaA, I have perhaps been most visible as a dissident voice within BOPS. As a BOPS Fellow, I supported change in the TA system and structure of APsaA. In looking forward to APsaA’s new structure, I was on the Task Force that worked out the structure for the DPE. I was a member of the BOPS Committee on Child and Adolescent Analysis. I also serve on the History, Library and Archives Committee and Psychoanalysis in the Community Committee. I welcome the opportunity to bring to the APsaA Council what I have learned in Chicago and continue to contribute to the change process at the national level.
Erika Schmidt
reports no ethics, malpractice, or licensing board findings.
M. Jane Yates
Recently there seems to be a refreshing sense of enthusiasm within APsaA. New departments have been structured, and leaders are now functioning in their new positions. In our enthusiasm we must not inadvertently recreate some of the same problems that we hoped to solve by externalizing regulatory functions, and making other needed changes. We need to be sensitive to the loss that some of our members have experienced, and not exclude them. All members should be valued as we move forward in implementing, what some refer to as “progressive” goals.
If elected Councilor-at-Large, my pledge is aspirational in the sense of wanting to remain open to thoughtfully considering a broad range of opinions and options, respectfully discussing them, and coming to consensus if possible. When I disagree, I aspire to do so respectfully.
Based on my experience on Executive Council (also referred to as the Board of Directors), I am confident in our ability within APsaA to successfully meet the challenges we face as a national organization. One of these is adapting to the reality of a changing external culture that no longer seems to value clinical psychoanalysis as much as it once did. In this regard, we should support psychoanalytic research and educational endeavors. We could be more collaborative with other professional organizations, and seek ways to be collegial with those devoted to clinical modalities other than our own. I strongly support APsaA speaking out publicly regarding social and ethical issues of the day. These communications contribute to the well-being of humankind, as well as keep relevant psychoanalytic understanding in public view.
We must meet the challenges of internal realities also, such as declining membership, and financial constraints. As we adapt to these, we will require us to openly discuss our identity as a professional organization, and a membership organization. I favor ongoing program evaluations to assist the Board of Directors in making wise (sometimes difficult) budgetary decisions.
During my eight years as a Councilor representing the Atlanta Psychoanalytic Society, I have served on the Membership Requirements and Review Committee (MRRC evaluates applications under the expanded-pathway criteria), and the Policies and Procedures Committee. Currently I serve as Chair of the Policies and Procedures Committee of Council, and as one of four elected Councilors to the Executive Committee. These experiences have allowed me a broad view of the activities and functioning of APsaA.
I hope to have the opportunity to represent you as Councilor-At-Large, and welcome your comments, questions, and concerns.
M. Jane Yates
reports no ethics, malpractice, or licensing board findings.
APsaA ELECTIONS: CANDIDATE COUNCILOR-AT-LARGE
Sandra J. Landen
I am honored to be a nominee for the new Candidate Councilor-at-Large Position. Since I began my candidacy six years ago, I have been actively engaged in APsaA on the Candidates’ Council, which I believe is a critical entry point for all candidates becoming involved in APsaA as well as in having a voice in the future of psychoanalysis. I have had the privilege of serving on multiple APsaA committees, which has fueled my passion and conviction about the importance of being involved as a way to positively impact both the future of psychoanalysis and our organization.
Currently, my APsaA commitments include serving as Secretary of the Candidates’ Council, Chair of the Child and Adolescent Committee on the Candidates’ Council, Candidate Representative to the DPE Institute and Advisory Consultative Section, Candidate Representative to the DPE Child and Adolescent Section, and a Member of the Candidate Study Group: Challenges in Training.
At my home institute, the New Center for Psychoanalysis (NCP), Los Angeles, I am currently the Co-director of the membership Division, a member of the Strategic Planning Committee, the Board of Directors, and of the Child Committee and Child Study group. I have also served as President of the NCP Candidate Organization, Junior Member-at-large, as well as on the New Initiatives and Outreach Committees. I have also served as the Candidate IPSO representative.
Presently, we are in both an exciting as well as challenging time as APsaA transitions to a membership organization. We are facing some specific changes in terms of financial health, membership retention and recruitment. I believe that active outreach and recruitment of undergraduates and graduate students of all disciplines via our APsaA institutes positioned close to universities and graduate schools is ultimately the best way to provide ongoing education about psychoanalysis and our organization. Targeted outreach and education about psychoanalysis to young early career professionals from mental health and allied academic fields would lead to a healthier, more diverse and robust membership. Also, continued increased visibility via social media to educate the public about the value of psychoanalysis, promote our organization and conferences, and our ongoing advocacy for mental health issues in our communities both locally and nationally.
If elected to serve as the Candidate Councilor-at-large I would be available to candidates to hear about their ideas and concerns about our field and organization, and would represent candidates’ best interests while working creatively on the Executive Council to ensure APsaA continues to thrive and grow.
I welcome the opportunity to serve on the Executive Council and I can be reached at: drsandylanden@gmail.com.
Sandra J. Landen
reports no ethics, malpractice, or licensing board findings.
Adam Moriwaki
It is with great enthusiasm I am running for a Candidate Councilor-at-Large position on the Executive Council. Over the last six years, I have enjoyed the creative efforts between the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and Wisconsin Psychoanalytic Institute to help early-career clinicians pursue analytic training. As a beneficiary of these ideas, I am passionate to share my unique experiences to help psychoanalysis and analytic training flourish in years to come.
I am also mindful there are many barriers that prevent talented clinicians from pursuing analytic training extending beyond the realm of intrapsychic conflict. It is my position we must better understand and more expeditiously unwind these barriers. As a Candidate Councilor-at-Large, I will work to assure these issues are not seen as intractable. Where some may see my youth as a liability, I believe it one of my greatest assets. The American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) is in need of fresh, bold, and invigorated perspectives.
I run on a platform of freedom, autonomy, and self-determination. These are hallmarks of the analytic method, and I believe them to be equally essential to apply to the various national APsaA matters of the day. Each APsaA institute represents beacons of creative potential. I believe in individual institutes’ rights to choose. The William Alanson White Institute provides a wonderful example of what can emerge when the seeds of freedom of thought are left to grow. I would like to see many more examples emerge as great laboratories of psychoanalytic innovation. As clinicians, we understand how profoundly structure affects process. Flexible structures facilitate creative process—leaving good ideas to flourish and bad ideas to wither.
In my previous career, I earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in marketing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was there I learned the importance of not only having a clear message, but of delivering one’s message. The life changing power of psychoanalysis in contemporary society is oftentimes overlooked as a relic of the past. It is my belief that APsaA can and should have a unifying and powerful presence to alter this unfortunate disconnect. I believe this is where APsaA as a national organization can help psychoanalysis the most.
My unique path in analytic training and background as a clinical psychologist provide an able background that I believe would be an asset to the Executive Council and the broader psychoanalytic community. I would be honored to receive the votes of my fellow candidates and colleagues and look forward to the opportunity to serve as a Candidate Councilor-at-Large on the Executive Council.
Adam Moriwaki
reports no ethics, malpractice, or licensing board findings.