 |
 |
|
|
Former APA medical director Melvin Sabshin, M.D., has been awarded the American Psychoanalytic Association’s first Presidential Award.
The award was presented to Sabshin at the association’s December meeting by Marvin Margolis, M.D., Ph.D., president of the American Psychoanalytic Association. It was signed by him and Robert L. Pyles, M.D., the association’s president-elect.
The award was "[b]estowed in gratitude in recognition of Dr. Sabshin’s superb, invigorating leadership of the American Psychiatric Association, his dedication to the principle that the highest quality patient care rests firmly on a true integration of the latest advances in psychodynamic and psychobiological thinking, and his strong advocacy for the scientific validation of what we do - all accomplished with his own consummate grace and elegance."
On accepting the award, Sabshin stressed the importance of collaboration between APA and the American Psychoanalytic Association and focused on areas where the fields of psychiatry and psychoanalysis can complement and assist each other.
"I believe that psychoanalysts and psychiatrists need to work together to keep psychotherapy as a highly valued activity by psychiatrists," said Sabshin. "There is much current activity in [APA] to try to accomplish this goal, including the activities of the Commission on Psychotherapy chaired by Drew Clemens."
Sabshin acknowledged that there are significant differences between psychoanalytic treatment and psychotherapies. "Nevertheless," he continued, "an atrophy of psychotherapeutic skills and depreciation of psychotherapy by some psychiatrists would be closely correlated with depreciation of psychoanalysis itself."
He said that psychoanalysts need to continue to be active in teaching roles in departments of psychiatry, including residency training programs. Moreover, he said, the importance of "psychological-mindedness" in diagnosis and treatment needs reinforcement, particularly at a time when the health care marketplace emphasizes reimbursement for "biological" treatments.
Sabshin also said that psychoanalysts need to be cognizant of the numerous advances being made in the neurosciences and to support workers who develop hypotheses about neuroscience and psychoanalytic theory and practice.
Noting that some psychoanalysts have criticized DSM and the "rote, mechanical fashion" in which psychiatric diagnoses can be used, Sabshin observed that psychoanalysts can put their sensitivity about the essence of the person behind the illness to good use. "Psychoanalysts can help psychiatrists in finding effective balance between the need to classify while maintaining the formulation about what is unique in each of us," he said.
For psychiatrists, Sabshin continued, "I believe that the combination of pharmacology and psychotherapy is very important for the future of the field. Indeed, such a combination may be an important differentiation from nonmedical therapists (who practice psychotherapy) and medical therapists (who practice pharmacotherapy)." Thus, it is important that psychiatrists maintain competency in psychotherapy, he said.
He ended his comments by saying that at this moment "Edie Sabshin would have been very proud." His wife, the late Edith Sabshin, M.D., was a leading member of the American Psychoanalytic Association. - C.F.B.