Peer Review Winter/Spring 2013 (PDF)

WHAT IS ACCREDITATION?
Accreditation began as a unique phenomenon of American postsecondary education. It has been a time-tested alternative to mandatory government regulation. The purposes of accreditation are to maintain and improve the equality of higher and professional educational performance and to safeguard the public. These aims are achieved through the voluntary associations of educators and various professionals. Accrediting agencies and organizations ensure quality in educational practices, promote self-evaluation, make accreditation decisions, and provide services. They operate in a way that respects the autonomy and freedom of individual schools, colleges, universities, and institutions of specialized and professional education. Accreditation is a voluntary form of self-regulation and peer review which raises institutional consciousness through self-review, reflection, outcome assessment, and collegial discussion.

Accreditation is a time-tested feature of psychoanalytic education. Its purposes are to maintain and improve the quality of educational performance and safeguard the public from educational programs of unacceptable quality and from unethical educational practices. These goals are achieved through the voluntary associations of psychoanalytic educators and other professional persons. This association provides careful scrutiny of educational practices and impose sanctions; yet it operates in ways consistent with traditional autonomy and freedom of individual schools.

WHAT IS THE ROLE AND SCOPE OF ABAP?
The American Board for Accreditation in Psychoanalysis, Inc. (ABAP) is a non-profit corporation founded in 1997 in New York City. Its goal is to provide an accreditation process to serve the needs of psychoanalytic institutes seeking to ensure the quality and standards of their psychoanalytic training programs as well as to establish, maintain, and review educational and clinical standards to be followed by psychoanalytic training institutes. The scope of ABAP is the national accreditation of psychoanalytic institutes granting certificates or diplomas in psychoanalysis.

ABAP plays a leadership role in the accreditation process. Its task is to monitor the accrediting process and ensure that, it is conducted effectively and responsibly in the interests of the students who are being educated and of the general public. ABAP governance reflects and is consistent with the traditional autonomy and academic freedom of institutions of higher education and other postsecondary educational accrediting bodies. This autonomy requires that the psychoanalytic institutions collectively exercise substantial control over the accrediting process, as is consistent with its self-regulatory character. ABAP governance also ensures the involvement and acceptance of responsibility for accreditation and its coordination by psychoanalytic institutions as represented by responsible academic officials. Full and equitable participation and involvement of psychoanalytic institutions and representatives of the public provide unity and integrity to ABAP structure. This results in an effective forum for psychoanalytic institutions to deal with their mutual and separate concerns in psychoanalytic accreditation and to formulate, debate, forward and implement policy positions. Finally, ABAP establishes standards and procedures by which psychoanalytic institutes are recognized, or by which such recognition is withdrawn, and provides an appropriate means for dealing with issues of overriding public interest and concern in psychoanalytic education.

WHAT IS THE SCOPE OF ABAP?
The American Board for Accreditation in Psychoanalysis, Inc.(ABAP) accredits institutes granting certificates or diplomas in psychoanalysis .

WHAT ARE ITS PURPOSES?
ABAP is a non-profit corporation organized under the State of New York Non-Profit Corporation Act exclusively for educational, scientific, research, mutual improvement, and professional purposes. It shall have the necessary and incidental powers to carry out its corporation purposes, among which shall be to:

1. Promote, improve, and ensure the quality and diversity of psychoanalytic education in the United States.

2. Review and recognize psychoanalytic institutes on the basis of standards related to the effectiveness of the policies, practices, and outcomes of each institute.
   

3. Provide national leadership for psychoanalytic accreditation and the enhancement of educational quality by: a) Cultivating an understanding of the role, nature, and significance of psychoanalytic accreditation; b) Serving as an official voice for psychoanalytic accreditation at national and state levels; c) Initiating conferences and activities for the purposes of improving understanding of psychoanalytic education and the processes of assessment; and d) Promoting active collaboration and/or interaction among educational leaders, psychoanalytic institutions, and federal and state agencies.
   

4. Provide services by: a) Assisting psychoanalytic institutions to
   improve the implementation of accrediting policies and procedures; b) Offering professional development programming to the membership and interested parties; c) Providing a forum and vehicle for discussion and development of national recognition of psychoanalytic education accreditation; d) Facilitating coordination among psychoanalytic institutes; e) Encouraging, sponsoring, conducting and publishing research related to the understanding and improvement of psychoanalytic education; f) Monitoring federal and state activities related to psychoanalytic accreditation and informing the psychoanalytic community; and g) Publishing annual lists of recognized psychoanalytic institutes.

PSYCHOANALYSIS DEFINED
Psychoanalysis is a comprehensive, theoretical framework, which when applied to a treatment process, consists of an intensive verbal, therapeutic relationship between an analyst and an analysand which aims for symptom relief, emotional depth, and personal integration. The psychoanalytic treatment process includes, but is not limited to, the recognition of unconscious processes and conflicts, the significance of developmental influences, and the impact of resistances, defenses, transference, and countertransference phenomena. Treatment is enhanced by an understanding developed in the analyst's training and personal analysis of unconscious manifestations, such as dreams, slips of the tongue, fantasies, and day dreams. Psychoanalytic technique varies in relation to theoretical orientation.