Some Reflections on Our Professional Standards
Abstract
BU 1 LET1N O THE F PSYCHOANALYTIC ASSOCIATION VOLUME 40, NUMBER 1 DECEMBER, 1983 SOME REFLECTi0S.S OX O U R P R O F W S l O S h L STAh.Dz\RDS -LAUREI\'CE B. HALL, hI.D.* Although the title is comfortably broad, the actual topic is a narrow one. It is based on two premises. T h e first is simple: O u r “Professional Standards” have evolved out ofthe work that goes on in our institutes as we strive to give to aspiring psychoanalysts the best possible opportunity to reach their goal and to provide for ourselves and the community the best possible next generation of psychoanalysts. As our institutes work to improve psychoanalytic education and training, they find themselves in an ongoing process of decision-making. It is in the quality of those decisions that our professional standards are defined, applied, examined, and refined. In my view, the Board's most important task is to provide an opportunity for the institutes'experiences to be shared andstudied in settings apart from the daily work. The aim of these deliberations, in committees, workshops, site visits is that all of us involved in psychoanalytic training should become a little clearer about what