You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
We have come together, psychoanalysts from different parts of the world, to share with each other our experiences, our knowledge, feelings and thoughts on Male and Female Themes in Psychoanalysis. When we were planning this conference, we did so under what seemed to be the auspices of a more peaceful world. Our hopes were broken by eruptions of massive destructiveness in the Persian Gulf. In the throes of the breakdown of the Soviet system and state socialism in Eastern Europe we see increasing tensions of nationalism and other political forces in many places. On the other side of the sea which we can enjoy just outside our conference hall, three Baltic states are engaged in a complicated struggle for independence and autonomy. We are especially happy to see representatives from those countries among us at this conference. For many people our concerns probably seem far apart from these realities. I think most of us working with psychoanalysis would not agree to such an evaluation, however. We know the forces of psychic reality, and sense in every psychoanalytic session the interrelatedness of all levels of human existence. Thus not only the theme of our third day: Male and Female Destructiveness in the Psychoanalytic Process, but our whole conference has a bearing on the fragility of the human capacity for relating and communication. Taking stock of the fact that we are to work in a field where we all have deeply imbedded feelings, we may have special reason to keep that fragility in mind. At a conference on psychoanalysis and culture here in Stockholm a couple of years ago somebody accused another speaker of being medieval in his argumentation, meaning that as a disparaging judgement. The antagonist, a bishop, remarked that medieval discussions were conducted in an order which we could be envious of. A basic rule for a discussant then was not to question anybody's utterance until he had assured himself that he had grasped his antagonist's position in a correct way.