The PANY Bulletin

Psychoanalytic Association of New York
Volume 42, #3 Fall 2004

IAAPS Interdisciplinary List Serve: The First Four Weeks
by Alice Maher, M.D.

Anyone interested in developing psychoanalysis as a force for social change is invited to join the new interdisciplinary list serve sponsored by the International Association for Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. IAAPS is hoping to establish a virtual intellectual community that can become a force in creating new approaches to old social problems. I was honored to be asked to moderate the list, which began on September 27, 2004.
As of this writing there are approximately 110 subscribers. The majority are analysts and other mental health professionals, but the group also includes artists, scientists, educators, lawyers, physicians, academics, administrators, editors, business owners, full-time parents, and others.
My introductory post contained the following challenge: "It seems timely to begin with a discussion of politics and prejudice, and continue it until after the election. The world seems so scary and out of control right now, and our country seems so divided. Does psychoanalysis have anything useful to contribute? If not, what's getting in the way? Are Democrats and Republicans so prejudiced against one another these days that no genuinely creative solution is free to exist?"
The group began just four weeks ago, but it's already possible to see a process developing. Initially there was a lot of Bush-bashing and cross-talk, while many analysts had difficulty translating their theoretical language into simple English and non-analysts had equal difficulty confronting that defense. But lately we've become better able to communicate with one another in a genuine way. I've been working hard to challenge an underlying feeling of hopelessness against today's social, political and analytic realities so that the group can move beyond a "chat room" and feel empowered to imagine and effect real change.
Here's an example of a recent exchange: A molecular biologist suggested, "If you have two bad choices (referring to Bush and Kerry), changing the way you choose between them doesn't help much. Better instead to change the conditions so that the system is designed to produce good, decent human beings as leaders instead of people who are so compromised they can't see straight. That's a real challenge, and one that would seem to be obvious to a group of psychoanalysts." An analyst responded by talking about the need for "movement from a culture of unconsciousness to a culture of consciousness." An editor from another country wondered "how emotional education is to be modified in the light of the fact that there are great differentials in people's capacity for this." I suggested first finding a way to bring "empathic imagination" into our classrooms to help the next generation learn how to recognize and demand more self-aware people as leaders. An analyst responded by giving an example of the way her daughter, a social studies teacher, attempts to do that by having teenagers role play various politicians, members of minority groups, members of different countries etc. in current-day political situations. A person wrote to me off the record to ask if we had access to funding to advertise/lobby for psychologically minded presidents or to start programs like "Teach for the World." (We don't, but maybe we'll get some eventually.)
We're still just talking, but we're challenging one another appropriately and the fantasies that arise are of concrete ways to catalyze genuine societal change.
New contributors from any walk of life would be most welcome. You can contact me at AliceLMaher@msn.com or go directly to our web site at www.iaaps.org to subscribe.