Welcome

Dear Colleagues,

Happy new year! I hope you have all been able to relax with loved ones over the holidays. I want to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you, to let you know a bit of what I hope to accomplish over the next three (!) years as your President. This is the first of  a monthly series of letters from me to you in order to keep you informed on various happenings in the Division by highlighting the activities, offerings, and the work of our various committees and task forces. There is much that is bleak right now as authoritarianism seems to be closing in more and more every day.It is not an easy time to head a liberal professional organization, but I hope to lead with equanimity, righteousness, and a guiding light towards what is just. 

As many of you know, Stephen Soldz stepped down as President in May, which according to our bylaws meant that our immediate Past President, Lara Sheehi, became President again. Once I was elected in June, I immediately became the de facto President-Elect, and I am taking over as President for what would have been Stephen’s second year in his Presidency. I am grateful that Lara was willing to step back in and I want to thank her for doing so in what has been a particularly challenging time for our Division. We have much to thank Dr. Sheehi for, particularly her ability to recruit and engage younger and more diverse members within our organization. I also want to recognize Stephen ’s many contributions. As a longtime vocal opponent of the torture issue in APA that became public a decade ago, Dr. Soldz fought back against several attempts to cover up our parent organization ’s involvement in the abuse and torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and other military black sites. I have learned much from both of my predecessors about how essential it is for us to speak truth to power, especially when it is inconvenient to do so.

Since many of you don ’t know me, let me tell you a bit about how I got here. I am a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Boulder, CO. I attended my first SPPP Spring Meeting as a graduate student in 2008. In 2011 I joined the Early Career Committee and was elected to be the SPPP Secretary the following year. After two terms in that role, I served as a Member at Large for one year before being elected as one of your Council Representatives to APA. During the six years in that role, I had the chance to advocate on behalf of psychoanalysis and social justice issues. In that role, I collaborated with APA and challenged them when they were not supporting equitable and fair treatment for everyone. My experience on Council has shown me that having a platform means we have an obligation to make a positive impact. As a psychoanalyst, I ’ve also learned that much of our behavior is shaped by unconscious influences, which do not always have the best intentions. The work of course is to recognize the inherent ambivalences with which we all must contend and do our best to act in ways that reflect our morals.

I have been on the Division 39 Board of Directors since 2013, and in that time, I learned a great deal about how this organization functions well and also how it struggles. As most of you are well aware, SPPP has had a rough few years. Many of our challenges are not unique to us; professional organizations at large are struggling to recruit and retain members. Younger colleagues are less and less interested in giving their time and money without clarity around what those precious resources are supporting. Older colleagues are increasingly disaffected and feeling discarded. COVID exposed many cracks and schisms between different political factions in a way that has become harder and harder to gloss over. Our Division Forum collapsed under the pressure of the disinhibition that asynchronous online interactions tend to potentiate. Many of our members belonging to marginalized communities expressed feeling regularly attacked and violated by the discourse, and any illusions of psychological safety made the listserv no longer viable. And while it has been replaced by the Discussion listserv, the harms from its forbearer have rendered it virtually lifeless. 

In addition, SPPP has been experiencing significant financial distress for the past few years. For a number of reasons, the Spring Meetings which would typically generate income for the Division now cost us money. We are working on solutions, but in the meantime it has become de rigueur for the Board to be presented with Spring Meeting budgets that predict significant financial losses. Furthermore, obtaining precise and current membership figures from the APA has become challenging, which often leaves us uncertain about our revenue from membership dues. Our membership is aging, and almost a third of you are now considered Life Members, which means you are no longer asked to contribute dues to our organization; simultaneously, our new grad student and ECP members pay reduced dues. The Scholars program—which has been instrumental in engaging graduate students and early career professionals, including individuals from historically marginalized groups—no longer operates under the initial (generous) grant that was provided to the Division at its inception; we must now fully fund this essential and expensive program. This year, for the first time, we were forced to tap into our long-term reserves to meet our expenses. Put all this together, and it is not difficult to see how fewer resources combined with increased political hostility and tension has made it challenging for SPPP to operate the way that it once did. 

Finally, to name the elephant in the room, conflict around beliefs related to the war in Gaza has exploded to the point of what often feels like an all-out war of its own (if you will excuse the bit of hyperbole). We are all aware that psychoanalysis has its origin as a largely Jewish field. As we have expanded to be more inclusive, we have also had to reckon with very different ideas about Islamophobia, antisemitism, and Jew-hatred and address how these things do and do not exist in the modern geopolitical sphere. I am not naive enough to believe that I can solve these problems. But, as your President, I am committing to name the tensions and conflicts without claiming to have answers, much like what we do with our patients. I am aware that this will be insufficient for some of you. My hope is that by reckoning with these quagmires, we will be able to make some progress towards having a more functional organization that can feel like a professional home to as many psychodynamic and psychoanalytic professionals as possible. 

If you have read this far, thank you! While we are a group with many obstacles facing us, we also have many, many strengths; namely, all of YOU! One of the best parts of being involved in Division and APA governance has been the opportunity to meet so many talented, intelligent, decent-hearted, and like-minded peers and mentors. I know firsthand how many exceptional resources we have in our membership, and I aim to harness as much of that talent as possible. SPPP is a professional home to so many of us, and while it certainly has its warts and weaknesses, it is a home worth fighting for. Please join me in fighting that good fight.

Sincerely,

Dana Charatan

SPPP President