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The XVIII Forum of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies took place in Kaunas (Lithuania) on September 17–19 2014, and was a very successful conference, the first big psychoanalytic conference to have ever taken place in the Baltic countries – with almost 200 participants from 24 countries. Under the title “Psychoanalysis, trauma and severe mental disorder”, the scientific committee coordinated by Agnar Berle (Oslo), Jan Johansson (Helsinki) and Darius Leskauskas (Kaunas) put together a very interesting and articulate program, and the local organizing committee coordinated by Živilė Paulauskienė did also a very good job. My impression was that in such a context – a relatively small group working together for three days in a place like Kaunas, a place facilitating the concentration on the group process – the kind of close and personal international exchange could take place which our Federation and this journal stand for. In fact, we consider it an essential ingredient of our professional identity as psychoanalysts. Being Spanish and English the two official languages, we could for example hear for the first time a report, by Cristina Diaz Erofeeva, about the kind of psychoanalytic psychotherapy which has recently become possible in Cuba and converse with her at length. The Individual Members Section chaired by Michael Ermann (Munich) also had a good start (with members attending from Ireland and from Egypt) and now has more concrete plans for the future. Last but not least, six candidates presented papers and two of them (M. Fernanda Calvijo López from Mexico City and António Alvim from Lisbon) won ex aequo the Benedetti–Conci Candidates Prize – entailing the right to have their papers published in our journal.
As far as the International Forum of Psychoanalysis is concerned, the Executive Committee of IFPS (chaired by Juan Flores and Valerie Tate Angel) and the Assembly of Delegates – which met on Monday and Tuesday September 15 and 16 – approved