Upcoming psychoanalysis symposium re healthcare

[Guest guest]

The Chicago Open Chapter for the Study of Psychoanalysis

American Psychological Association Division 39 (Psychoanalysis), Section IV

(Local Chapters)

Presents a

Symposium on

An Ethic of Free Association:

Reclaiming Our Profession, Education, and Practice

Presenters:

Patrick B. Kavanaugh,

PhD

David L. Downing, PsyD

February 28, 2004

Chicago, Illinois, USA

How much longer will we be

able to conceptualize, educate, and legally practice in our increasingly

regulative and instructive healthcare matrix? Recent years have witnessed the

industrialization of healthcare and the healthcare professions.

Industrialization has transformed our professional standards through

proliferation of coercive regulations with far-reaching consequences for

psychoanalytic education and practice: there has been an inexorable erosion of

independent professional judgement, one of the defining characteristics of our

profession. Standards standardize, regulations regulate, and a bureaucratic

rationality is not tolerant of professional discretionary judgement.

Industrialization and de-professionalization continue unabated, our state and

national associations notwithstanding.

 

An ethic of free association moves far beyond the narrowed definitional concept

and meaning of the fundamental rule of free association. It speaks

to how we understand and interpret ourselves as citizens and

professionals. An ethic of free association embodies certain foundational

and implicit meanings of an individual’s political, social, and personal

freedoms; is premised on the recognition that the authority for a

person’s thoughts and actions is inalienably her or his own; and, holds

that each person -as citizen and professional- is the responsible author for

her or his self, decisions, and actions (Kavanaugh,1999). Indeed,

each person is a participant-observer in her or his life, professional or

otherwise. In professional life, a participant-observer may be thought of

as a person or group that partners with others for the purpose of sharing in or

participating in those conversations that impact the practice or profession of

which (s)he is a member. Indeed as a participant-observer, (s)he has a moral

and ethical obligation to watch over the profession of which (s)he is a member;

to preserve and safeguard its essential and defining characteristics such as

the exercise of individual discretionary judgement in professional activities;

and, to oppose and counter those industrializing trends that impact the space

in which a psychological discourse takes place (Kavanaugh, 2003). In many

respects, a participant-observer is guided by an ethic of free association.

 

As a symposium, an Ethic of Free Association... provides the space and

opportunity for concerned others from the learning and practice communites to

gather and critically discuss these industrializing trends; their

de-professionalizing impact on our professional standards and lived-in

experiences; and, to participate in the process of reclaiming our profession,

practice, and education.

 

For

questions, please contact:

David

L. Downing, Psy.D. at

312.266.1665

151 North Michigan Ave., Suite 1014

Chicago, IL 60601.