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."