Reports and Brief Communications

At the Assembly of Delegates of the IFPS in May 1994 in Florence (in connection with the IX Forum of the IFPS) Istituto Erich Fromm di Psicoanalisi Neofreudiana (IEF) in Bologna, Italy, was admitted as the 19th member society of the IFPS.

The IEF was set up in Bologna in 1979 under the name Istituto Psicoterapia Analitica and was originally connected with the IFPS society in Florence with the same name. The Bologna Institute increasingly differed from the Florence Institute, one important point of difference being its emphasis on the works of Erich Fromm, and in 1988 the Bologna Institute was reformed under the name Istituto Erich Fromm di Psicoanalisi Neotreudiana. The IEF is affiliated with the International Erich Fromm Society.

The theoretical orientation of the IEF is obvious from its name. The theoretical (cultural and psychoanalytical) and — which should be stressed — the clinical writings of Erich Fromm occupy a central position at the Institute. There is also a strong influence from American interpersonal theory and from the Middle group of British psychoanalysis.

The Executive Committee of the IEF consists of ten members with Dr. Romano Biancoli as the Director. The Training Committee has four members and is chaired by Dr. Marco Mingaralli. The training at the Institute — to which candidates with a degree in psychology or medicine are admitted — is divided into two quadrienniums, i.e. of 4 years each. During the first quadriennium the candidates study psychoanalytic theory (Freud, Fromm, Ferenczi, Abraham, A. Freud, Klein, Bion, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Bowlby, Sullivan, Horney et al.) and also more general humanistic subjects such as cultural anthropology, social psychology, history of religion, philosophy of science etc. During the first quadriennium the candidate starts his/her personal psychoanalysis which must consist of a total number of at least 350 sessions a