The History of CAPA

ABSTRACT

This article describes the history of CAPA (China American Psychoanalytic Alliance), from its unplanned conception in 2001, to its birth (incorporation as a 501c3 nonprofit) with Yale University as the midwife in 2006, to its development and growth over the next 13 years with more than 400 Western teachers, treaters and supervisors acting as godparents engaged in training more than 500 Chinese mental health professionals as analytic psychotherapists, more than 35 of whom are now in distance training at APsaA psychoanalytic institutes. CAPA’s goal, which seems within reach, has been for the Chinese graduates of CAPA to take over psychoanalytic psychotherapy training and ultimately, psychoanalytic training in China.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Notes on contributors

Elise W. Snyder

Elise W. Snyder, M.D., was born in New York, graduated from Queens College (a branch of the City University) and in 1958 from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons – one of 10 women in a class of 120. She has taught in several departments of psychiatry and is, at present, an Associate Clinical Professor at the Yale University College of Medicine. She is the longest member of the APsaA Board of Directors (31 years), has chaired many APsaA committees, is Past President of the American College of Psychoanalysis and the Founder and President of the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance. She is a recipient of the Sigmund Freud Award of the American Association of Psychoanalytic Psychiatrists and the Presidential Award of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry. She has two daughters, one a psychiatrist psychoanalyst and the other a professor of English Literature at Berkeley. She is a member of (among others) the following organizations: APsaA, IPA, AAPDP, APM, APA.