Meetings of Societies on Education

"Meetings of Societies on Education" is an innovative initiative for implementing the recommendations of the Task Force on Collegial Quality Enhancement of Training. Societies need a forum for reviewing and enhancing their policies and procedures for educating psychoanalytic candidates. The initiative was developed in a collaboration between PEC and the Task Force on Collegial Quality Enhancement. With the oversight function of PEC discontinued, it represents a creative means of enhancing and increasing the understanding and self-reflection within and between institutes. Goals of the encounters are  

1. to exchange information about elements of training so that societies can learn from each other and importantly reflect on their own ways of organizing
2. to increase understanding of different training models and to appreciate, when true, that different models can be employed to effectively and responsibility educate the next generation of psychoanalysts.
3. to strengthened affiliated societies institutional identity thanks to their membership in the IPA.
   
   

Structure of the Meetings
Held at regional and international conferences, Society leaders and candidates from three different societies exchange and review their educational philosophies and the procedures. Members of the PEC facilitate the process. Each society introduces itself to the group in terms of history, training philosophy, orientation and some important policy and procedures starting an interchange among participants as the introductions are provided and show different ways of dealing with educational challenges. The facilitators then introduce aspects of the four pillars of psychoanalytic education (personal analysis, supervised clinical work, theoretical seminars and the support of the psychoanalytic community). The participants present positions, policies and procedures used in their societies and exchange with each other the advantages and limitations they have found with their local approaches. Facilitators monitor the group process so that all important areas are discussed while leaving room for the participants to focus on those elements that are most salient to them. 

In 2020, PEC organized intergroup encounters with societies from North America, South America and Europe. The meetings of the EPF societies included societies utilizing the Eitingon model, and some using the French model. Altogether, in 2020 we had meetings with eleven societies, but due to the pandemic, only one meeting was in-person.

In 2021 we will hold follow-up meetings with the six EPF societies who already took part, where they will have the opportunity to exchange ideas they brought back from their first meetings to their home institutes. Also in 2021, we will continue the Meetings of Societies on Education with three new societies from EPF, North America and South America. In July 2021, we will hold the first interregional meeting with societies from Europe, North America and South America. In 2021, altogether we will hold meetings with 18 societies from all three IPA regions.

The PEC will continue these meetings of societies as a permanent offering to all IPA component societies. Our goal is to enhance creative self-reflection on what we all want to transmit to newer generations of psychoanalysts. The upcoming generations live in an interdisciplinary and constantly changing world. For the future survival of psychoanalysis, we must offer new generations an education they are passionately committed to, which includes high but achievable standards, and one that is open-minded enough to seriously consider different sociocultural realities.

Webinar October 2020