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The Sixth Congress of the International Association of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis (IAPCF) was held in Bordeaux, France from 30 July to 2 August, 2014. Over 200 delegates from Europe, the Americas, Israel, and North Africa shared current theoretical and clinical concerns under the broad heading of “The Body, Family, Couple”.
At the opening ceremony in the elegant Hotel de Ville, analytic couple therapists from around the world were welcomed by the office of the mayor and the outgoing president of IAPCF, Alberto Eiguer, who introduced the theme “Body, Family, Couple”. David Scharff was the invited speaker. He spoke on issues encountered in teaching couple psychoanalysis in China, which he and Jill Scharff later expanded upon in a panel presentation.
Each morning, a plenary presentation, with simultaneous translation in French, Spanish, and English, was followed in the afternoon by small single language panels. In both formats, keynote speakers and presenters explored the interactions between the individual, the body, the couple, the family, and wider society, and within this nexus placed a particular spotlight on the meaning and functioning of the body. In this broad “open systems” approach it was noticeable how delegates from an English speaking psychoanalytic culture utilise different theories and theoreticians from those used by our continental colleagues to explain similar phenomena. While English speaking psychotherapists will draw on the broad array of object relations theories, our continental colleagues rely particularly on the work of Kaës, Pichon-Rivière, and Anzieu to make sense of interactive processes. In doing so, they share with us a keen interest in conceptualising the phenomenology of what Mary Morgan in her presentation called “psychic space” and in thinking about the implications of this understanding for therapeutic technique.
Keynote speakers included Andrew Balfour, whose paper explored the connections between ageing, the body, and couple f