Letter to Our American ColleaguesBy Paola Mieli
In 2001, four major—American psychoanalytic associations, grouped together under the umbrella designation of The Psychoanalytic Consortium, formally drafted and ratified a document titled "Standards of Psychoanalytic Education." These four organizations are: the American Psychoanalytic Association, the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, the National Membership Committee on Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, and Division 39 of the American Psychological Association. In her official presentation of the "Standards of Psychoanalytic Education," Dr. Laurel Bass Wagner explains that this document is the fruit of compromise among the different opinions of the organizations that ratified it—a process that took roughly two years and, to some extent, left everyone involved dissatisfied. It nevertheless represents, in the words of Dr. Bass Wagner, "an enormous achievement." In support of this document, the Consortium has established an entity called the Accreditation Council for Psychoanalytic Education (ACPE), which is seeking official recognition as the national accrediting body for psychoanalytic training institutes. The express goal of this body is to gain authorization from the US Department of Education as the accreditation center for psychoanalytic institutes in the United States.
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