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The Swedish Psychoanalytical Association held its last annual meeting on March 20, 2010. Forty-six out of 73 members took part in the meeting. All voting members approved the suggestion to change the statutes of the association with the aim to fuse the Swedish Psychoanalytical Association with the Swedish Psychoanalytical Society. The Swedish Psychoanalytical Association had 73 members at that time. Fifty-two of the members were psychoanalysts and 21 were candidates.
The constitutional meeting for the new organisation was held on May 3, 2010 in Stockholm. The name of the new organisation is the Swedish Psychoanalytical Association. Internationally it is only affiliated to the International Psychoanalytical Association. The new association has 231 members and 41 candidates. Arne Jemstedt was elected to be its first chairman.
The decision to fuse the two psychoanalytical societies is the outcome of complex processes going on over many years. It would take too much space to go into the whole history here. I will restrict myself to mention a few recent factors that have made a fusion more or less necessary.
The external conditions for psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy have changed for the worse during recent years. The Swedish national agency for higher education has withdrawn the right to issue diplomas in psychotherapy for both the former psychoanalytic societies. This will seriously diminish the economic prospect for presumptive candidates in training for psychoanalysis.
As a result of this decision, Stockholm County council has cancelled the contract with the psychoanalytic institutes. This contract had guaranteed candidates the possibility to treat a patient for up to five years with a reimbursement that made it possible for candidates to pay the fees to the psychoanalytic institutes and for their own supervision. This will of course make the economic prospects for coming generations of candidates even more doubtful.
Furthermore, publicly financed psychiat