Psychoanalysis and Forensics — Identifications with the Oppressor and with the Oppressed

I thank the Editors and the Editorial Board of the International Forum of Psychoanalysis for the honour to edit a special issue about forensic psychotherapy.

Psychoanalysis in forensic settings like prisons and special psychiatric inpatient and outpatient units has often had the touch of less precious, less pure psychoanalysis. However, starting with Sigmund Freud himself, psychoanalysis has dealt in a significant way with forensic issues. This included amongst others August Aichhorn's work with antisocial adults and Edward Glover's introduction of group and individual analysis into high security units in the United Kingdom (Hoffmann, 2005). Psychoanalysis has never been restricted to a technique used in private practice. Analytic parameters (Eissler, 1953) taking into consideration different ego-structures do not only exist in prisons, in forensic units, in mental hospitals, in child-care-units or in halfway houses, they can also be discussed for the private practice situation (Who sends a patient for what purpose? Who pays for the treatment? Which information about the patient does the health insurance company require?).

Especially in the tradition of the Institute of Psychoanalysis (IfP) and its founder Norman Elrod, psychoanalysis deals with individual, collective and societal subjectivities (Rostek, 2003). This approach is essential to forensic psychotherapy, in which identification with the oppressed (when and how are or were we victims, when and how are or were we perpetrators?) and gender issues (male and female identifications) are essential.

The forensic department of Reichenau Mental Hospital organised a jubilee symposium on 7 December 2007 where many of the contributions of this volume were presented to a multiprofessional audience (psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, nurses, social workers, justice people).

Klaus Hoffmann presents the psychoanalytic foundations of forensic psychotherapy including psychoanalytic remarks about what delinque