The PCPG Board regards issues of DEI as a major priority for our organization and encourages and supports the active attention and awareness of these issues in all aspects of PCPG.

We wish to increase the diversity of our Board membership and welcome input and assistance in this endeavor.

In an effort to encourage PCPG’s engagement with a more diverse community, the PCPG Board has established a tuition assistance fund for those who identify as a person of color. These funds may be applied to any of our educational programs including our Intensive Study program in Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy, our Annual Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Lecture, or any of our educational offerings.

We are currently collaborating with other San Francisco Bay Area psychoanalytic organizations in discussing and understanding the issue of systemic racism in our theory, practice, institutions, and in our profession at large. The complete statement of this multi-organization project is expressed below.

In collaboration with other San Francisco Bay Area psychoanalytic organizations, PCPG has written and committed to this joint statement on racism.

What We Believe: Our Statement of Commitment to Addressing Systemic Racism

We members of the Bay Area Psychoanalytic Community, Analytic Psychologists, Psychoanalysts, and Psychodynamic Psychotherapists, come together during this time of collective trauma. We are saddened and sickened by the repeated incidents of systemic brutality, including police brutality, that have led to countless incidents of dehumanizing violence and murder of African Americans. We acknowledge that this follows centuries of institutionalized racism towards non-white people—racism that causes grave harm to individuals, and by extension, to society as a whole. This racism is ingrained in the social and political fabric of our country, including the mental health sector of which our organizations are a part.

We are immersed in the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and pervasive racism. We find ourselves face-to-face with the opportunity to confront the ways in which, institutionally, we have been complicit in perpetuating systemic racism. Going forward, the undersigned mental health organizations, together, commit to holding ourselves and one another accountable for deeply and actively engaging in personal and group work towards identifying and dismantling the sources of institutional racism within our training and administrative structures. Together, over the coming months and years, we commit to inter-organizational collaboration towards collective change of institutional culture, including shared educational programs and public policy advocacy.

We recognize that this statement is only a first step. We are committed to interrogating our part in long-term systemic racism and in moving forward to make real and substantial changes together towards progress and equality.

With grief and with hope we learn to walk in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.

· The Psychoanalytic Couples Psychotherapy Group (PCPG)
· Access Institute
· CG Jung Institute of San Francisco (CGJISF)
· Lacan School of Psychoanalysis
· Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (NCSPP)
· Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC)
· The Psychotherapy Institute (TPI)

We are actively seeking out a broader and more diverse range of applicants to apply to the PCPG Intensive Study Program.

Our faculty are participating in various educational opportunities offered by PCPG to expand and deepen their understanding of how matters related to DEI impact clinical work.

We are integrating DEI awareness in our study program by including readings focusing on DEI in course syllabi and expanding this inclusion to additional courses. We encourage the presentation of more diverse clinical cases in our classes, training, and presentations.

We are updating our faculty and student manuals to include a clear statement of our ongoing commitment and attention to matters relating to DEI. These efforts include faculty attention to reviewing the clinical literature regarding DEI matters, encouraging conversation in the classes about DEI concerning the clinical literature, and actively considering how DEI is included in case discussions.

Our Member Education Committee has organized a number of events that are oriented to increasing the awareness and understanding of DEI issues in clinical practice, psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theory and institutions. These include:

- A four week reading, viewing and discussion group focused on race and psychoanalysis with Jeffrey Prager, a sociologist and psychoanalyst (Winter 2022)

- A monthly racism-related reading and discussion group with PCPG members (Spring 2021)

- A multi session seminar on race with Sam Kimbles, a Jungian psychoanalyst (Winter 2021)

- A PCPG group viewing of the documentary, “Black Analysts Speak” followed by discussion with PCPG members. (Spring 2020)

- A PCPG group viewing of the documentary “Psychoanalysis in the Barrio” followed by discussion with PCPG members (Spring 2020)

- A group viewing of the play “Polar Bears, Black Boys, and Prairie Fringed Orchids” by V. Durham followed by discussion by PCPG members (Fall 2020)

The PCPG Community Education Committee strives to incorporate a diversity of theoretical psychoanalytic/psychodynamic models that derive from broad international sources and scholars. In our programming, we actively encourage incorporating clinical material that reflects diversity with regard to sexual orientation, gender identity, social class, cultural, and racial differences. It is our aim to increase these efforts in various ways. We will be integrating more DEI speakers and values into our Annual Psychoanalytic Couple Psychotherapy Event and in all of our programs. In addition, we will be promoting the use of the PCPG Tuition Assistance Fund. This fund is open to anyone who identifies as a person of color and can be used at any of our community offerings and events