Analysts Demonstrate Interest in SOFAR

Several of the analysts who attended the SOFAR session at the American Psychoanalytic Association's winter meeting have told Psychiatric News that they would like to get involved with the program (see story above).

“I will bring this issue to the coordinating committee of my psychoanalytic group—the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia—and see how much interest there is,” Ira Brenner, M.D., said. Brenner has already had experience with providing free psychological help to those in need. He joined Disaster Psychiatry Outreach after 9/11, and during his tenure as president of the Philadelphia Psychiatric Society, in 2001 and 2002, he organized Disaster Psychiatry Outreach training for some 60 psychiatrists.

“My current plan,” Lucy Fox, a North Carolina analyst, reported, “is to gather support for SOFAR within the Durham-area psychoanalytic community. I am still in the organizing stage but have high hopes. Harold Kudler, M.D., a former teacher of mine and a leader in the North Carolina psychoanalytic community, has been very helpful and supportive of my efforts. Dr. Kudler currently coordinates mental health services for a three-state region of the Veterans Administration for the Department of Veterans Affairs and is acting director of the VA's Post-Deployment Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center based in Durham.”