Presidents Remarks
by Elise Geltman, LCSW
As this new year begins, I hope this finds you rested, strong, resourced, and resilient. There will be work ahead.
But what work must be done? What is possible? And how? On a bad day, we might add, "Is anything really going to impact meaningful change?" Such inquiry can be overwhelming. However, at the recent holiday party, I was reminded that it is possible to create something together. In a brief review of NCSPP history, past leadership including Maureen Murphy, Sam Gerson, Michael Guy Thompson, Francisco Gonzales, and Andrew Harlem discussed NCSPP's development and various struggles and accomplishments throughout the years. Through ideas, collaboration, curiosity, action, and passion over the past 30 years, NCSPP has become the largest chapter of Division 39, helped open up analytic learning in the Bay Area, led to the founding of PINC, and, more broadly, has contributed to the rich and varied analytic community we have here. Let's keep it up.
During 2017 (and beyond), NCSPP will be focusing on strengthening community within our organization, building bridges in the Bay Area analytic community, working against splitting in the field, and supporting cross- pollination and creative thought. As part of our interest in community, and motivated by members' interest in social justice and the sociopolitical landscape, we will also be taking up the deep work of examining power and privilege and how we succeed and fail at actualizing stated values around creativity, inclusion, justice, and diversity in many forms. We all co-create NCSPP, and I look forward to the good work we will do together.
2016 Community Service Award
Each year NCSPP awards a Community Service Award to a person or program for outstanding community service in psychoanalytic psychology. Although much of our work takes place at the individual level, community and community building are vital.
For their excellent leadership, commitment to social welfare, and dedication to community, this year's award went to Katie Fahrner, PhD, and Sharon Tyson, PhD, at California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC). For 17 and 12 years respectively, Drs. Fahrner and Tyson have trained and mentored interns and postdocs in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, establishing a rigorous and well-respected training placement. They spearheaded the arduous effort to receive APA-accreditation for CPMC's internship, and with full funding for 10 interns, CPMC now offers the largest psychoanalytic, APA-accredited internship in the county. CPMC has managed to maintain strong relationships with our local analytic community, many of whom teach and supervise pro bono for the program. Drs. Fahrner and Tyson regularly dedicate their own pro-bono hours to CPMC to ensure high-quality training and clinical services. CPMC provides much needed psychological services to the San Francisco community at no or very low cost and accepts Medicare. CPMC is a valued resource for our Bay Area community and a model for other analytically oriented training programs. Thank you, Dr. Fahrner and Dr. Tyson.