DIRECTORS'S COLUMN

By Seth Warren, PhD

Welcome back to all our members! I hope you have all had a restful and enjoyable summer break, and feel ready to take on the challenges of this new year.

Our Fall Brunch will take place on September 30 at the Maplewood Community Center, where it has been held in the past. I am looking forward to seeing everyone there. I want to remind all candidates and faculty how important this event is for our community. It is the one time each year we get together as an institute, and can meet face-to-face to share our progress, our concerns, and plans for the future. This is your chance to hear from our Board members, our Committee chairs, and to meet faculty and candidates in a relaxed and casual setting. Plus, who says there's "no such thing as free lunch... "

I would like to take a moment to welcome our incoming candidates, Ilya Weiner - (who is returning), Shoshana Stockelberg, Heather Lopes and Luisa Contreras. Thanks to Susan Masluk, who has once again coordinated our admissions process, and thanks to all those who helped Susan with our admissions.  

I would like to offer a special invitation to those of you located in Middlesex, Monmouth and Hunterdon Counties as well as those of you coming from Bergen County. We are continuing to work on ways to keep all our members connected and feeling involved, including continuing to hold events in diverse locations, to continue holding our Faculty Forums in Bergen County and in Central NJ as well as Morris/Essex, and re-establishing regional brunches which have been so successful in the past. Your presence will be extremely helpful in arranging to coordinate and schedule these activities for the coming year.

There are several important issues that face us as an institute going forward, and I would like to bookmark some of these for your consideration, and to start a community dialogue about these issues that should be continued at the Fall Brunch and beyond.

We are now two years post-merger. With the urgency, pressure, and organizational demands of that merger process now behind us, we have the chance to catch our breath as an organization, and begin to look toward our continued growth and success. Our Board of Directors will be addressing some of these issues of strategic planning, clarification of our missions, and setting priorities for future directions. We will need all of your input on the aims and goals of our institute as we continue to go forward, in the context of continuing and fluid changes in the healthcare environment, decreasing third-party payment for psychotherapy, continuing debates over the nature and importance of psychotherapy, and more specifically, the aims and purposes of psychoanalytic education.

I advised our community over the summer that the New Jersey State Division of Consumer Affairs made a final decision to implement rules for the state certification of psychoanalysts. These rules will permit training programs, under specified conditions, to offer the new NJ State Certified Psychoanalyst title. CPPNJ will have to address this issue in one way or another. We do not need to participate in any way, as all of our candidates are licensed (or license-eligible) mental health practitioners, and we are entitled to continue to certify psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as we have always done.

The primary vehicle the Division has chosen to address the issue of minimum training requirements for NJ State Certified Psychoanalysts is to rely on the accreditation of psychoanalytic institutes by a nationally-recognized accrediting body. So in reality, the question of participation in the new state certification process will come down to a question for us about accreditation.

To be very clear, we do not need to pursue accreditation to continue all of our current training programs (the vast majority of psychoanalytic institutes in the US are NOT accredited). And, even if we choose to pursue accreditation, we do not need to participate in any way with the State certification program. The process of accreditation will be time- and labor-consuming, and would also involve additional expenses as well.

But these events do require some consideration and thought by our membership, and I hope we will all be prepared to share our ideas about these important questions about our future and the future of psychoanalytic training in the US, and in our state of New Jersey.

Happy fall to you all!

New Scholarship Fund Created

By Bob Morrow, PhD, Chair, CPPNJ Scholarship Fund

As CPPNJ enters the 2012 - 2013 academic year, I am pleased to report to our membership that the Training Committee has developed and launched the CPPNJ Scholarship Fund. Consistent with its desire to find and implement ways for candidates to successfully complete their training, the Training Committee sought a way to financially support our candidates when the financial burden of training became too weighty.

Following much planning and development, a subcommittee of the Training Committee reported its recommendations for such a fund to the full Training Committee, which was excited and pleased to approve and launch the new Scholarship Fund. Oversight of the fund, including the review of applications for funding, and disbursements to candidates will continue to be provided by the subset of the Training Committee that developed the structure and plan, the CPPNJ Scholarship Subcommittee. The Scholarship Fund Subcommittee is comprised of Bob Morrow, Chair; Veronica Bearison, Director of Training; and Michelle Bauer, Associate Director of CPPNJ. When the proposal was presented by the Subcommittee to the Board at its May 20th meeting it was unanimously approved.

The Scholarship Fund is established as a restricted fund. All monies comprising the fund will be set aside in the newly created account dedicated solely as the repository for the Scholarship Fund. All contributions to the Scholarship Fund will be deposited directly to the Scholarship Fund account and will not be comingled with CPPNJ's general operating funds.

All donations to the Scholarship Fund will be acknowledged in writing by the Chair of the Scholarship Fund Subcommittee.

The Scholarship Fund is available to all candidates and is intended to supplement tuition payments, not replace them. Disbursements to candidates will be made to cover up to 50% of the tuition of one course, not exceeding two courses per semester.

Deliberations by the Scholarship Subcommittee when considering a candidate's application will be confidential. Disbursements to candidates will be based on financial need and will be made from the Scholarship Fund only and directly to the candidate.

Candidates receiving funds are not precluded from applying again in the future.

When application is made by a candidate in the Couples Program, the Director of the Couples Program will be included in deliberations by the Scholarship Subcommittee.

Candidates interested in applying for funds are asked to submit a letter directly to Bob Morrow, the Scholarship Fund Subcommittee's Chair, no later than two weeks prior to the registration deadline for the semester in which they are seeking funds.

Looking toward the future, it is the hope of all involved with creating the Scholarship Fund that we will be able to grow it substantially. Throughout the year you will notice frequent opportunities to donate to our new fund and support our candidates. In fact, if you go to the CPPNJ website, you can make a donation to the Scholarship Fund directly from our homepage.

Welcoming Sue Grand to the CPPNJ Faculty 

 
I have been a psychologist in private practice for over 30 years. My particular specializations are in the treatment of trauma, and in couples therapy with those who have suffered child-hood trauma. I have been writing, and thinking, and teaching in this area in many settings. I am a faculty and supervisor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, as well as at a number of other teaching institutes: The National Institute for the Psychotherapies; The Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis; The Mitchell Center for Relational Studies, and The Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. I have taught other therapists about trauma in Israel, Greece and Turkey. I have published two books on the subject of trauma and cultural problems. I am currently co-directing an NYU conference on the trans-generational transmission of trauma, which has become my more recent focus in workshops, courses, and writing projects.

I feel that that many of us carry the problems of our parents and grand-parents, and that re-visiting these histories can contribute to our own mental health. I also feel that psychologists should always keep in mind our larger world, and consider the ways we can contribute to healing conflict, poverty, and violence. With this in mind, I am involved in many projects, and work as an associate editor for the journal, Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. I am also an associate editor for the journal, Psychoanalytic Dialogues. I am in private practice in Teaneck New Jersey as well as in N.Y.C.

Member Presentations and Publications 

Daniel Goldberg, PhD

Professional Workshop Series: "Getting Past The Affair": Working With Infidelity in Couples Therapy."

Thursday, September 27,  2012. 9:00am-12:00pm. Cost $55. Princeton House Behavioral Health, Hamilton, NJ.

All Programs are Co-Sponsored with the New Jersey Society for Clinical Social Workers 

Our E-Newsletter Editorial Staff

Correction

July/August Newsletter

Marion Houghton was incorrectly listed as LCSW. She is actually EdS, LMFT. 

Unsolicited articles are welcome.  Something you'd like to write?  Send it to us at cppnj@aol.com.  We're happy to hear from you.   

Thank you for joining us. Look for our next newsletter in October 2012 when the featured article will be "Conquering Severe Asthma via Psychodynamic Therapy - A Psychosomatic Success Story," by Martin Silverman, MD.