A Modern History of AFTA

By Rachel Hare-Mustin

When our president, Celia Falicov, asked me to provide on overview of what's happened in AFTA in the last decade for the Board Retreat, I realized that I could not cover everything in the time allotted. In any case, not everything was memorable, and in my view, some things were best forgotten. Of course, this is my version of events. Someone else would tell a different story.

I was elected President of AFTA and took office January 1, 1990. After that election, AFTA changed the election cycle to have the officers and board members take office July 1, at the close of the Annual Meeting. Under the original system, some of my predecessors had felt that after the Annual Meeting those elected were in a lame duck period.

I believe that I was the first President elected who was not part of the establishment. I had several goals. One goal was to regularize the rules and procedures and make them known to all so we would have an even playing field. "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," by Freeman, pointed out some of the problems of the loose style that evolved in the 1960s and 1970s. My other goal was to increase member participation.

As President-Elect in the fall of 1989, I worked with Barbro Miles, our new Administrative Director. We established procedures and formalized the contract with George Washington University for office space through arrangements aided by David Reese.

Since Barbro worked only three-fifths time, with Board approval we took the extra $8,000 that had been a bonus for our longtime previous administrator, Susan Watson, to run the Annual Meeting and hired an experienced Meeting Manager. Diane Campbell soon demonstrated that she could negotiate lower rates with hotels.

Some of the new ideas I introduced were to:

1. Change the Business Meeting at the Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in 1990 to a Town Meeting format, open to members to voice their concerns. That has continued under various names.
2. Start a New Members Breakfast on the first morning of the Annual Meeting.
3. Start a record of which members were moderators, discussants, or presenters at major sessions so the same members were not always being chosen.
4. Start discussions for changing the AFTA name to Academy.
5. Keep senior members involved. At the 1990 Philadelphia meeting we had a Founders' Day, to honor early members and the Presidential Plenary highlighted that with Peggy Papp as moderator, and Minuchin, Framo, Nagy, and others on the panel. Kitty La Perriere subsequently developed an Interest Group for senior members.
6. Demystify the publication process with another Plenary on Journals in 1990 chaired by Carlos Sluzki, with Don Bloch, Rich Simon, Lois Braverman, and Peter Steinglass.
7. Put AFTA on a sound fiscal basis. AFTA at that time did not have a Reserve Fund. We established the principle that we must have a Reserve of at least six months operating expenses. Our auditors subsequently complimented the careful financial management by Treasurer Carrell Dammann, Barbro, and myself. Later Treasurers helped establish the principle that the Reserve should be 50-60% of annual operating expenses.
8. Include Committee Chairs as active participants at Board Meetings to widen participation and include diverse voices. Following our Parliamentary Authority Keesey (as in our Bylaws), make Board decisions by consensus whenever possible rather than votes, so all those present at the meeting felt equally valued and free to participate.

OTHER INNOVATIONS

Two other important events occurred during 1990. In fall 1990, we had the first Clinical Research Conference. The previous president, Carol Anderson, had the idea, but it did not come to fruition during her presidency. I supported it, as did the Board, although there were some objections from researchers concerned with the additional expense to participants and with the possible weakening of research programs at the Annual Meeting (the Board had previously set the policy of having a second less expensive hotel for the Annual Meeting). We committed ourselves to feeding ideas from the Conference back to the Annual Meeting. There have been five very successful Clinical Research Conferences since then, and the Board has recently decided to have such conferences on an alternate year basis.

The other notable events at the 1990 Annual Meeting were the first Women's Institute and Men's Institute. The Women's Institute grew out of a Women's Study Group that presented a position paper to the Board, largely authored by Cheryl Rampage. The paper was the basis for the Board adopting a policy supporting reproductive rights for women. The Group then planned a Women's Institute for the Sunday after the 1990 Meeting. Some men were then inspired to also have a Men's Institute at that time.

The 1991 Annual Meeting at San Diego during my Presidency was a disappointment to me because of the major disruption about the Violence and Women Plenary. I, as well as others, felt the account in the "Newsletter" was distorted. Some members left the organization. I believe, despite a number of efforts, AFTA has avoided real engagement about gender and never healed. I suggest that anyone who considers the negative reaction by some members justified listen to the audiotape of the Plenary and then compare it with the myths that have evolved around the event. Probably the only Plenary that has roused similar feeling and lack of respect since then was the Narrative-Postmodern Therapy plenary in San Francisco.

FIRST BOARD RETREAT

When I became President in 1990, I saw, as did others, that the Board Meetings focused on too many small, although important, details. We never had time to look at the big picture, at long range goals for AFTA. I had an excellent Executive Committee with whom I explored this idea. We had also had a member survey from just the previous year to respond to.

The first Board Retreat was held October 1990 in the Berkshires at Don Bloch's house with some members housed at nearby friends' places.

1. Three major directions were approved as a five-year plan, based in part on member responses to the survey: Cultural and Economic Diversity; Family Policy and Social Action; and Credentialing and Career Development.
2. Forums were to be held on these three areas at the 1991 Annual Meeting in San Diego so that members could develop policy and action proposals.
3. At the Retreat the Board established a Committee on Diversity.
4. In addition, new ideas were approved for the 1991 Annual Meeting. Brief Presentations were reconceived as Round Tables to increase dialogue, the Town Meeting format would be continued, and Interest Groups with the largest number of members would be scheduled for the largest rooms (The latter was quite controversial).
5. A Computer Bulletin Board would be established to facilitate member communication.
6. It was agreed to start in-house publication of the "Newsletter."
7. The Board agreed to keep Annual Meeting fees in 1991 at San Diego the same as those in 1990. Also, the goal was to keep dues from rising so as not to lose members. But, costs needed to also be kept down so we could start to build up the Reserve.

Subsequently, Credentialing and Career Development evolved into the "Joint Council," with other professional groups concerned with family systems. The problem was that AAMFT was moving in a different direction. Froma Walsh (who followed me as President) and I tried to meet with AAMFT leadership, but that is another story.

Important Retreat elements were felt to be the opportunity for long range planning and initiatives and equally, to build esprit and respect among Board members through shared time and informal activities so the Board could function better as a board for the next two years.

OTHER RETREATS

The second Retreat was in April 1993 during Froma Walsh's presidency. It was held at Dick Chasin's house off Martha's Vineyard. Getting there was an adventure for many of those who wandered around the Boston airport parking lots. But the shared hardship and lovely setting of the Chasin's house built esprit. The most memorable experience for many participants was the go-round on racism with Nancy Boyd Franklin raising powerful issues for Board members to confront in regard to themselves and AFTA.

The third and fourth Retreats, both during Dick Chasin's presidency, were held October 1993 and February 1995. They were each held for one day, Saturday, at Don's apartment in New York City, with the Board Meeting on Sunday. They focussed on diversity and getting acquainted exercises. The Board concluded that retreats in New York City were not as productive as elsewhere. The New York setting did not prove to be cheaper, despite some lower airfares, because of the high New York hotel rates. Also, by not being in an isolated setting, group focus and loyalty did not develop as well as in the past because members would go off on errands or have other dinner engagements, which were distractions.

The fifth Retreat was February 1996, during Evan Imber-Black's Presidency at Geronimo's in Walker Valley near the Catskills. I remember the lovely snow, the good food, and the power outage Sunday morning so the Board Meeting was very, very cold. A central focus of the Retreat was on how to get new members involved in AFTA, in addition to strengthening various diversity initiatives.

The sixth Retreat was October 1977 at the West Stockbridge Inn in Massachusetts, during Don Bloch's presidency. A recent member survey had been held. The Retreat focussed on clarify the mission and goals of AFTA, trying more innovations at the Annual Meeting, and spending more money on issues of interest to AFTA, which would require raising dues.

OTHER DECADE EVENTS

What else has happened in the last decade? Here are a few events I remember:

1. Many actions have been taken to respond to members and maintain membership. This has been a constant Board concern, as well as including foreign members, and other categories of members.
2. Clinical Research Conferences have been held in 1990, 1992, 1994, and most recently in 1998. One is in the planning for 2000.
3. The Board has constantly been trying new ideas for the Annual Meeting, and we have had some wonderful plenaries and guest speakers. (Remember John Cleese and Robyn Skinner in 1990?). Program chairs for Annual Meetings have done outstanding work with their committees in presenting fresh ideas, research programs, and therapy presentations, as well as opportunities for members to become better acquainted and dialogue with each other. Chairs in the last decade have included Marilyn Mason, Doug Breunlin, Lorainne Wright, Lois Braverman, Jaime Inclan, Janine Roberts, Jodie Kliman, Vicki Dickerson, Gary Sanders, and Carrell Dammann.
4. The in-house publication of the "Newsletter" has been greatly helped by Dick Chasin. The relation of the "Newsletter" to the Board has been clarified, and the "Newsletter" has been consistently well received.
5. The Bylaws have been revised so the Nominations Committee functions independently as required by Parliamentary Law. The policy on announcing election counts has been revised so members can know the tallies rather than the tallies being secret. Nomination by petition also continues to be readily available to members.
6. The Summary of Board Decisions has been annually recorded so the manual now dates from November 1977 to the present.
7. The Operations Manual has outlined Committee charges and procedures and includes Alta's investment policy.
8. Various fund-raising efforts have been tried, including donations, Pre-Conference Workshops (now used more for outreach), selling T-shirts, an AFTA Cook Book, an AFTA Poetry Book, and seeking money from publishers and foundations.
9. An AFTA Song contest was held.
10. AFTA has worked hard in various ways on Diversity and social issues. The Board has recognized that greater efforts are needed for further healing and for all members to treat each other with respect.
11. Through ten years of dedication by Anne Bernstein and others, AFTA has entered the electronic age.

Rachel T. Hare-Mustin, Ph.D. has served as an AFTA Board Member, AFTA Secretary, President, and Bylaws Committee Chair. She chaired an Interest Group on Gender and Humor with Jo-Ann Krestan. She has written on postmortem theory and narrative therapy as well as feminist theory.