Leadership means listening for what one voice reveals about the institutional whole. In my recent conversations with colleagues, I have been listening to voices that carry the experiences of many others who may not yet have found the language or the courage to speak. These voices highlight a central question for us: the meaning, function, and value of the academic track for membership today in APsA.
I see the academic track as a vital pathway for engagement with analytic ideas and interdisciplinary scholarship. This pathway produces teachers and thinkers who stretch the edges of our psychoanalytic field outward, often in directions the consulting room alone cannot reach.
However, we must address how we characterize our members. I notice we sometimes define APsA’s academic members by a ‘presence of absence’—as “non-clinical” when clinical practice is missing. Even when meant descriptively, that framing can convey a ‘lesser than’ experience, like a door quietly closing. I believe we must start by noting what each pathway
cultivates,
not what it omits.
Throughout APsA, we have a rich variety of membership groups that contribute to the intellectual vitality of psychoanalytic work within our association. We must be more attuned to fairness and equity of voice. When members contribute meaningfully from varied disciplines, they enrich all of us, and deserve equal status and equitable access.
When members contribute meaningfully from varied disciplines, they deserve:
equal status
and equitable access to presenting at meetings,
fair opportunity when competing for association awards, and recognition equity as a form of fairness that is felt because it is real.
If elected to serve APsA as President-Elect, I will continue listening closely for what has found language, and what has not yet been voiced. I will keep advocating for an association where every pathway is valued for the unique light it brings to our field.
