The Anatolia Center was established by Yavuz Erten and Allen Siegel in 1998. Group members came from different cities all around Turkey such as Istanbul, Ankara, Samsun, Malatya, Konya and Izmit. In the beginning there were 30-35 members in the group. The number of the members approaches 52 at this time. In order to grow in a healthier way and to continue our education program in a more effective way, the group has re-organized itself. In 2002 we decided to become a closed group.

The education system in the group has different components. One of them is teleconferences, another is our newly developed video conferences. The group members meet in Ankara or Istanbul and communicate with teachers from America. Another component of our education is our eSupervision groups. Currenlty we have 9 eSupervision groups with some eSupervisors from the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and some from New York City. The third component of our system is the visiting professors. We invite 3-4 visiting professors in a year for a series of workshops.

The group members of the Anatolia Center have differing levels of education and background which makes out programming a challenge. Some of our members are highly experienced in this field and work as teachers at different universities. Others are still psychiatric residents or are in doctorate programs. They all come together at our self psychology meetings and all members sit side by side, young or old, experienced or inexperienced, to learn the theory and practice of self psychology - the primary goal of our group. Almost half of the group members are still in or have just completed their psychoanalysis. The other members have differing psychotherapy experiences, such as individual psychotherapy or group psychotherapy. The members who have psychoanalytic experience are planning to join IPA school that will form in Turkey soon. Five psychoanalysts from IPA were scheduled to visit Istanbul to meet candidates in February 2004, however, a blizzard interfered with the visit and only two could make it. Nevertheless, some of the group members had chance to meet them. Some of the members will meet interviewers during a May visit to Turkey.

There is a continuing development of psychoanalysis in Turkey as well as in the Anatolia Center. Our changes have created some new needs for the group members who have differing plans for their various futures. Some plan to become analysts, others want to work only in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. A very few of our members decided to leave us and work at different areas, such as business.

The above changes have brought a need for a new structure and management of the group as well as a need for more reliable financing. Using technology to solve part of our geographic dispersal, the group held an Internet discussion and decided to establish two executive committees, one in Istanbul and the other in Ankara. There are 5-6 members in each committee and both committees communicate with Dr. Allen Siegel, who is now the leader of the group. The committees are working together on several topics at this time, one of which is the creation of an officially recognized association.

Group members will be reevaluated soon in terms of criteria for membership since we are creating membership standards. At that time, several new members will also be accepted. One problem for the executive committees and leader is that we all live in dispersed locations, very far from each other. To address this problem we are developing chat rooms for our meetings, hoping that this might solve the distance problem. Time will tell if we will succed in this endeavor. The executive committees will soon prepare education programs and curricula for all the group members. This program should be suitable for all members of the group from different backgrounds and with different ideals.

One of our major problems is our financial struggle. The group members pay for many meetings with their own sources. Sometimes drug companies help by sponsoring visiting professors. On occasion we have nbot been able to invite visitors because of our funding difficulty. We are still trying to find sponsors for future organizations and Dr. Siegel met with Prof. Dr. Arman Kirim when he visited Istanbul in January 2004. Prof. Dr. Kirim is a well known man who has a great professional experience in marketing in Turkey. He works as a financial counselor for many national and international companies and also gives lectures to their managers. Dr. Kirim is interested in the Anatolia Center and in Self Psychology. He agrees that psychotherapy education in Turkey should be supported by professionals. Dr. Siegel and Dr. Kirim are planning a future self psychology conference that will be held in Istanbul either on a national or international basis.

In May 2004 Ruth Gruenthal and Dori Sorter met with us for an intense weekend. In September 2004 we are planning to meet with Dr. Marian Tolpin. Form Sante, the well known Turkish magazine of health, hopes to sponsor her meeting. Dr. Tolpin will have a weekend workshop with Anatolia group members and then will meet with other professionals in mental health and also with the general public.

In summary, the clinicians in Turkey continue to have a strong interest in the field of self psychology. We plan to receive some of these people as new members shortly. We are excited at the continuing developments in both our organization and in the world of the psychoanalytic psychotherapies in Turkey.