Welcome

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last few weeks, many of you have written to me expressing concern and frustration about both the Call for Proposals and my response to it. In those conversations, two themes have emerged repeatedly: that the framing of the call felt alienating to some members, and that my comment about "older and whiter" members landed in a way that felt dismissive and hurtful. I have also heard from younger members who share these concerns, a reminder that broad organizational tensions rarely map neatly onto demographic categories.

Regarding the latter, I apologize. I was attempting to speak to broader organizational and generational dynamics and intersectionality, but I did so clumsily and in a way that further alienated some members rather than fostering dialogue. That was not my intention.

A challenge of leading an organization like ours is trying to speak clearly while also recognizing that we are a remarkably diverse group of people with very different experiences, values, and visions for what this Division should be. Some members want psychoanalysis to engage more directly with social and political realities. Others worry that in doing so we lose something essential about our mission. I suspect this tension is not going away anytime soon.

One thing that has become increasingly clear to me is that many of the difficulties we are experiencing are not simply disagreements about ideas. They are also the result of a breakdown in communication between different parts of the organization. Too often committees, leadership bodies, and membership groups have operated in relative isolation from one another. Going forward, communications sent to the entire membership will come through the President. My hope is not to limit communication but to improve coordination, accountability, and dialogue across the Division. 

As those of you who attended the Spring Meeting heard, there was considerable discussion about the harms institutions can cause. This is important and even necessary. At the same time, I found myself wishing we had spent more time thinking about our ambivalent relationship to institutions. Institutions harm, but they also protect. They exclude, but they also create belonging. There is a certain irony in the fact that conversations about institutional harm could only take place because an institution created the space for them. Most of us have complicated feelings about the institutions we inhabit because they inevitably disappoint us while also providing a home.

That includes this organization.

Some members have left. Others are considering it. As the Division changes, some people will feel more at home and perhaps others less so. While that may be inevitable, I hope we can resist the temptation to retreat into certainty about one another. We of all people should know how easy it is to stop listening and begin assuming we already know what someone else thinks, feels, or intends.

At the same time, dialogue is not without limits. I believe we must be able to tolerate disagreement, even profound disagreement, if we are to remain a viable organization. But dialogue also depends upon a willingness to recognize one another's humanity. We may not agree about politics, theory, identity, or history, but I do not believe we can have a meaningful conversation if we are unwilling to acknowledge the dignity and lived reality of those with whom we disagree.

Thank you again to those of you who have written, called, challenged, supported, and criticized me over these last few weeks. I remain committed to staying in conversation.

Dana Charatan, PsyD
SPPP President