MCPP Board of Directors Meeting Minutes September 2019

Michigan League

Ann Arbor, MI

September 15, 2019

9-10:30am

Attendance:

Present:  Peter Wood, Sonya Freiband, Eve Avrin, Karen Weber, Lisa Larson, Shil Sengupta, David Freiband, Mary Nowack

1. Secretary: Sonya Freiband, acting

            The minutes of the meeting of May 19th, 2019, were approved with minor revisions.

2. President: Peter Wood

• Discussed need to fill positions of Secretary and Membership Chair. Encouraged us to think about who to personally invite.  We will rotate role of secretary until then.
• Reported on meeting with Alycia Levandowski at MSU to build a bridge with her psychodynamic clinical psychology program. Plans to meet again to discuss aspects of psychoanalytic training that she feels may be outdated and off-putting.  Sonya Freiband may join them, or she may be invited to present ideas to the board.  Led to a general discussion of how to make our training program more widely received:  ideas of reaching out beyond our local area with Zoom, and the features we have to offer.
• Banquet planning: June 6th, 2020.  Sonya will coordinate with Mediterrano in Ann Arbor, and will be helped in planning by Eve and Lisa.
• Bylaws: Peter will contact Art Brickman to begin a review of our bylaws.  Shil agreed to help Peter review the bylaws for potential revisions.
• Chubb Insurance: Peter, Eve, and Keri Warren will clarify MCPP’s current insurance coverage. Discussion about costs and coverage provided.
• Bert Karon’s important place in MPC’s founding and as a member and colleague through the years was discussed, and the board agreed to have Peter use his discretion about a donation in his honor and/or flowers for his memorial.
• Book donations: We are waiting on Peter’s contact at the University of Monterray, in Mexico, to send shipping payment information – boxes are ready to be sent.

            Treasurer’s report was passed out to board.  Outflows included mostly costs for updated web design, NASW Continuing Education Collaborative payment, and Paper Image printing.  Eve is still working with Keri to get access to our Schwab and PayPal accounts.  Once she gets access, she will coordinate with training director to make sure all students’ payments have been received.

4. Membership: Lisa Larson, interim

• Lisa reports currently following up with former members re: dues.
• Discussion about how to encourage membership by disseminating information regarding the value of depth psychotherapy, and our value in keeping this tradition alive and available. Discussed ways to improve access to PsiAn’s bibliography (Karen will highlight this on our web page), facilitate contacts with schools, highlight more generally accepted areas of dynamic psychotherapy (such as childhood trauma and “Trauma-Informed Psychotherapy”), perhaps hold a symposium related to trauma-informed psychodynamic work, etc.  Encouraged spicing up our membership letter to include support of this kind of treatment and training.
• Planned to seek a new administrative assistant to handle the secretarial aspects of the membership position.

• Reported on classes: Perspectives and Cases was postponed until next year due to lack of enrollment.  Dynamics of Inner Life is currently up and running with 7 bright, interested, curious and engaged students.
• Discussed ideas about holding “one-off” courses throughout the year to keep people engaged with our training programs. Discussed a series of one-meeting courses to be potentially taught by various instructors on topics such as, “Paper that changed my work”.  Also, possibility of again offering a course on Ethics.
• Discussed including current students on our mailing lists (David F will ask if any want to opt out).
• Discussed encouraging current students to join as members, noting that we have a very low rate for students and new clinicians.
• Discussed the costs and benefits of sending out paper brochures.

• Discussion of three possible presenters who are not local, having exhausted the local presenters at the moment. Agreed to offer $1500 or less, if possible, to cover their costs.
• Discussed possible Symposium topics and formats, but need someone to volunteer to organize a Symposium and others willing to present case material and/or discussion.

• Murray Meisels presented Board Members with copies of his book, entitled, “Tradition and Innovation in Psychoanalytic Education”.
• Karen Weber presented a report on the status of the website update, provided by Reena Liberman. Reena had been unhappy with the work of the original designer she’d hired and has been pursuing fixes and changing designers.  She regrets how long it has been taking.  Karen also mentioned that Reena has been fixing email listserve problems that have emerged.  The board expressed appreciation for their work.

Notes respectfully submitted by Sonya Freiband