FROM THE PRESIDENT

Come, walk with me through the front door at 2610 Mission Street. The soft hum of a lively, art-filled home greets us. Candidates contemplate and deliberate with teaching analysts. Whitney Center interns greet waiting patients. Someone arrives with an armload of books to return to the library. Staff members glance up from desks and screens, and offer warm nods. Hot tea steeps in the bright colorful kitchen.

We have moved in. There is a familiar feeling that grounds us even though everything is different. What we have lost, and what we have to gain, meet each other here. In the very heart of it all, often not visible, and too often unsung, is the industry of our committees (25+), dedicated to service. Each is tasked with a unique function vital to the integrity of the Institute. Our committee labors bring us into relationship with each other, and just like marriage vows, for better and for worse. We volunteer long hours and we are changed by this through an ongoing intimate engagement with each other.

Stepping into an officer role is daunting, but not foreign. It requires humility, sacrifice, and willingness-to-change, something that is also required of us in analytical training, in being an analyst and and in having been an analytical patient, roles that many of us know well. To serve as an officer also requires being under a similar microscope, where flaws and shortcomings may be enacted and revealed so that a potential for resilience and growth ensues.

None of us ever knows how we will be changed. Lifelong study of analytical psychology is a deeply creative act. Living its discoveries in community involves an enormous leap into faith, but it can be grounded in our common understanding that our work matters.

Ann Strack, PhD
President, 2024-2026