Members, Affiliate Societies and National Representation:

A Tabulation and Analysis of Relationships

 

Allan Compton and Miriam Tasini

 

            This is the report of a brief study of the numerical relationships between the members, the affiliate societies and national representation in the American Psychoanalytic Association.  The purpose of the study is to clarify the numerical facts and the structural conditions which give the numbers meaning.  The guiding concept is parity: equivalence of power.  It is also our intention to provide data that will facilitate reasoned discussion about the issues before the Association at this time.

 

Method

            The number of societies and the number of members that comprise each society  are recorded on the basis of the listings in the 2002 Roster of the APsaA, the most recent roster in print.  The California Society and its members, new since the last Roster, are also included, with data as listed on their website.  Numerical relationships between members, each society, the nationally elected seats in Council (up to 16 in number as specified in the Bylaws of the Association)¹ and the four proposed additional nationally elected seats are tabulated and analyzed.

            Comparisons are usually exemplified by using the largest (Boston) and the smallest (Portland) groups.

 

                        Please refer to the accompanying Table 1.

•                     Column A is a list of the 41 Affiliate Societies of the APsaA in the order of smallest to largest.

•                     Column B is a count of the members of each society, obtained as described above.

•                     Column C categorizes the societies according to size as small (<50 members), medium (50 to 100 members) or large (>100 members).  The dividing lines are arbitrarily chosen.    The last row of each group of societies is used to present the total number of members of that group.

•                     The decimal numbers in Column D are calculated by dividing the number 1 (each society has one Councilor) by the member count of each society, yielding  the number of representatives for each society member by society as decimal fractions.

•                     Column E uses Boston’s membership count as the basis for calculating dis-parity.  We are using units of representation as a measure of the represented power of a member.  The calculation is, for example, 388/9 = 43, to compare each Portland member’s representational power to each Boston member’s representational power.  This is an as-things-are calculation.

•                     Column F takes Oregon with 9 members who divide among them the representational power of one vote as the standard. This is the same calculation, using a the opposite end of the table as the base.  If 9 members get one vote, then Boston needs 388/9 = 43 representatives to equal Oregon’s voting power per member: 9/9 = 1.  Again, we are using units of representation as a measure of the represented power of a member.  This calculation demonstrates what would be  necessary to establish parity among members of various societies.

 

            In addition to the 41 society-entitled votes, there are16 possible council seats to be filled by national voting of all members directly, rather than appointed by societies, creating a total of 57 possible votes on Council.  A proposal under consideration would add 4 nationally elected seats.

•                     Column G is constructed on the basis of the addition of the currently specified 16 (or fewer) nationally elected seats.  The calculation is (1 divided by the number of members of a society) + (16 divided by the number of members of the Association) for each society.

•                     Column H is the same except for adding 4 more seats, nationally elected, to the present number: (1 divided by the number of members of a society) + (20 divided by the number of members of the association).

•                     Column I and Column J present the results of Columns G and H in rounded whole numbers which show the actual proportion of representation among the societies, that is, following the model of column E but now including the nationally filled seats as the Association is currently structured, using 16 and 20 seats respectively.

 

Results

            The American Psychoanalytic Association is composed of 41 Affiliate Societies with a total of 3546 members.  The membership of individual societies ranges from 9 to 388, with a mean of 86 members.  One Councilor represents each society with one vote at the Executive Council of the national association, which also serves as the Board of Directors.

            In this study the societies are divided into three groups, small, medium and large.  The 21 “small societies”, less than 50 members each, have a combined total of 682 members, represented by 21 Councilors .

            The 9 “medium societies”, 50 to 100 members each, have a combined total of 606 members, represented by 9 Councilors.

            The 11 “large societies”, with more than 100 members each, have a combined total of 2258 members, represented by 11 Councilors.

            Of 3546 members of the Association, the 21 smallest societies have 682 members or 21 votes or one vote for every 32 members.  The 20 medium and larger societies have 2864 members and 20 votes or one vote for every 143 members.  The medium societies considered alone have 67 members per Councilor.  The large societies considered as a group average 205 members per Councilor.

            The 21 smallest societies have 19% of the total members and 51% of the voting power.  The 11 largest societies have 64% of the total members and 27% of voting power.  The medium and largest societies considered together have 80% of the members and 49% of the votes.

            By including the 16 nationally filled seats (8 Councilors at Large, President, President Elect, Secretary, Treasurer, the immediate Past-Secretary and as many as 3 Past Presidents) with the 41 Society Councilors, Portland’s representational power, for example, goes down from 43 times that of Boston to 12 times that of Boston.  The addition of as many as 4 more seats for nationally elected representatives (Councilors at Large), however, does not affect the equivalence figures except by one unit in only three cases: Long Island, Cleveland and PINE.²

 

Comments

            Without any nationally elected members, a Council of 394 members in which Boston, for example, had 43 delegates (Councilors) and Oregon had one delegate, would be required to achieve something close to parity of representation. 

            Within the current structure of the APsaA, counting the 16 nationally elected representatives, Oregon, for example, has 12 times the representational power of Boston.   Council would require 121 voting members in order to establish parity for all members if we made all of the indicated changes in society representation.

            Four more Councilors-at-Large would bring the number of nationally elected voters to 20.  This addition makes almost no difference in the parity numbers, though it raises the total required number of members in Council from121 to 125.  We ran the calculations again with 8 new Council seats with the same result: almost no change in the parity numbers.

            With 16 or 20 or even 24 nationally elected seats, there would still be 41 seats determined by individual societies rather than elected nationally by individual members.  Only 16 are, or 20 would be, the product of a one-person-one-vote structure.  The numbers would have to be subject to flexibly written bylaws  because the number of societies, and therefore of councilors, may increase or decrease.  New societies almost inevitably would add to the block of small societies and multiply the large-small dis-parity.

            To assign an appropriate number of Councilors to each of the societies would be a much more efficient way of increasing parity of representation than is adding Councilors-at-Large, but would lead to a Council with 121 seats.

 

Limitations of the Study.       This method of counting members by society introduces limitations of the accuracy of the count, for several reasons.  Societies do not report their membership by name to the APsaA office except at the time of Roster listing.  For purposes of calculating annual society dues ($15/year/member of APsaA, who has a dues obligation to the society), each society makes its own count and calculation of the amount owed.  Societies do not all use the same criteria for selecting and listing fully privileged (voting) members and other members.  There have been changes in the composition and number of members of most or all societies since 2002.  The national Association does not maintain its own count of society members.

 

Conclusions

            If “one person, one vote” is taken as the gold standard for parity of representation, the current method of selecting members for the Board of Directors of the American Psychoanalytic Association is a not a good example of that standard.