From the President

Etta G. Saxe, Ph.D.  

In the last few months, with the MSPP substantive projects and programs through which we pursue our goals and objectives thriving, the Executive Board has turned to those inevitable internal matters necessary to support our work and relevant to maintaining the ongoing functioning of the society.  In this, the last column of my presidential term, I want to take the opportunity to report about these discussions and the current state of functioning of MSPP.  In our 23rd year as a local chapter of the Division of Psychoanalysis, MSPP has many significant accomplishments to report and a number of challenges to its ongoing functioning for which member assistance is currently being sought.

Seven members of the executive committee have regularly participated in the above-mentioned discussions.  These individuals are: Susan Greenshields, Ph.D., Secretary; Raymond J. Vasser, Ph.D., Treasurer; Gloria E. Cruice, Ph.D., Past  President; Barry Dauphin, Ph.D., Section IV Representative; Terri I. Egan, Ph.D., Web Editor; Cynthia McLoughlin, Ph.D.,  Editor, MSPP News, and myself, President and Program Chair. These individuals, with the assistance of Kathleen Kremser Nelson, Ph.D., who serves on the Secretarial Committee, have carried forth the work of MSPP in the last year.

Before I go on to describe our deliberations I want to thank each and every one of them for his/her extraordinary and successful efforts in maintaining  the substantive, organizational and  administrative work  of MSPP over the last year and for those on-board through my full term of office for their efforts of the last two years. Each has demonstrated competence and commitment in growing his/her specific area, each has also very importantly worked on Board projects and  participated in board deliberations in all matters of  concern to MSPP and its ongoingness of goals and being.

In our recent deliberations we have taken a look at the various offices/areas of responsibility and at the specific functions and tasks falling under each office/position, whether vacant or occupied.  We have considered how and by whom tasks necessary to sustaining MSPP are being accomplished and which tasks, while technically falling under a position, have not been accomplished satisfactorily, if at all. We have thus come to understand that some reconfiguring of organization maintaining tasks and functions is necessary. We have also come to understand that for most if not all offices/roles, the reconfiguring needs to include the perspective that the role/office be seen as including being a committee chair who would coordinate volunteer individuals working on specific tasks in a time-limited and task-specific manner.  It is our hope that we would find among the members of  MSPP some individuals who would find themselves able to make such an investment in support of the goals and purposes of our Society.

MSPP is maintaining its membership numbers at a steady level over the last few years.  While a few individuals have not renewed their membership, some new members join us each year.  While we are not among the largest local chapters, as we once were, our numbers place us solidly in the middle among the 29 local chapters. Nevertheless, a recent search indicates that through our active, well-designed and well-thought-through cyber presence, www.mspp.net, we are listed among the first twenty groups found by entering the words Michigan, psychoanalysis and/or psychology in the Google search engine.  Since one of our major goals is psychoanalytic education and public information (article II, MSPP bylaws) each member can feel satisfied that through his/her membership, each is indeed working "for psychoanalytic psychology."

The maintaining of our membership is a major organizational task of MSPP which requires yearly effort and specific time commitments to allow for a smooth and respectful process through which individual members are able to continue their commitment to being “for psychoanalytic psychology.”  MSPP is currently in need of individuals who would be willing to assist the Treasurer in this vital area.  Such assistance would not require attendance at meetings.  It would require a commitment of a negotiable and specified amount of time mostly between September and December.  It would further require some computer skills. 

When I began my term of office as president, MSPP had done some significant reorganization of tasks and functions in line with its economic circumstances and it fell to the efforts of the last year and a half to implement these changes and carefully monitor our financial resources in relationship to those tasks and activities which are required to maintain a functioning society as well as to fulfill the substantive goals inherent in our bylaws.  I am pleased to report that we have been able to live within our strict budget and we have been doing so while maintaining our programs, communication with members and the larger professional and lay/public communities, our educational imperatives such as the newsletter and website and our presence within Section IV of Division of Psychoanalysis (39). We have also done so while directing considerable energy towards public efforts geared to holding open the space for diversity in psychoanalytic thinking and practicing in the current climate of increasing centralized bureaucratic management of options and information. In part this is made possible through the use of electronic communication, which has substituted for the expensive paper communication of our monthly brochures and with the addition of e-mail communication with most of our members. In addition we have done this through our website, which regularly contains the MSPP News, program announcements, an archive of previous volumes of the News and information about  important topics of the day, such as  MCE. Through the coordinated efforts of the Website Editor and the News Editor, information is available in a time-sensitive manner and  reaches  people who were previously sent communications through our extended mailing list as well as many interested others “out there.”

While such changes reduced monetary costs they do not come free of all costs.  Tasks previously paid for are now performed by officers and board members and there are now fewer people taking on the commitments of offices and positions. Therefore members of the Board, particularly our Editors and Secretary, are called upon to offer substantial  time and effort in maintaining our electronic communication system. This is one of the areas where those responsible for the specific tasks find themselves in need of assistance from members who are willing  and have the skills to offer the society assistance with specific and time-limited tasks. The specific responsibilities in these areas and the time any individual member might be able to offer, while not entirely free-form, are viewed as negotiable within the specifics of the tasks and the reasonably flexible time frames for them.

If you find yourself interested in participating more in MSPP by offering the kinds of assistance described in this column or if you find yourself with some other ideas as to how to contribute to MSPP, please get in touch with me. I prefer e-mail luckystone34@provide.net  If e-mail is unavailable please feel free to call me at (734) 769-5383.

For those who are planning to attend APA in Toronto, there will be a debate taking place about Evidence Based Treatment. Two members of Division 39 will be debating two psychologists from Division 12 on the establishment of Evidence Based Treatment (EBT) as the Standard of Care. I urge people to attend, ask questions and contribute comments as this issue is very important to the survival of psychoanalytic work within psychology.

For those who are not members of Division 39 but who like to visit the website of the Division of Psychoanalysis, this site has had a major makeover and has changed its address. It can now be found at www.Division39.org

As Program Chair and President I want to thank all of those who have presented at our meetings and have thus enriched MSPP and  offered us the opportunity  to hear their ideas, discuss their work and think with them about their ideas.  I want to also thank all who have attended our meetings, listened and participated in the discussions. This process is a major one through which we are able to fulfill our educational objectives.  For helping to provide the context  in which this process can live, I want, in closing, to thank all the members of the  MSPP Board and those beyond the Board who have worked with us on specific issues/problems for a very busy, interesting and satisfying term of office.