An Interview with Arne Jemstedt

Arne Jemstedt is a prominent figure in Swedish and Nordic psychoanalysis. He is 69 years old and a medical doctor, being trained in psychoanalysis at the then Swedish Society for Holistic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis (founded in 1968, and a member society of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies). He held several positions in this society and was its president from 1996 to 2003. During his presidency, the society applied for membership of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and changed its name to the Swedish Psychoanalytical Association; this became a Provisional IPA Society in 2001 and a Component Society in 2005. From 2003 to 2010, Arne Jemstedt was director of training of the association.

In 2010, the two Swedish psychoanalytic societies, the Swedish Psychoanalytical Society (founded in 1934) and the Swedish Psychoanalytical Association, joined together to form the new Swedish Psychoanalytical Association. Arne Jemstedt was elected president of this new association and remained in that position until 2012.

Arne Jemstedt has been the editor of Swedish translations of Winnicott's central works and is now the editor of one of the volumes of the forthcoming The collected writings of D. W. Winnicott, planned for publication in 2015. He was a member of the nomenclature committee of the Swedish translation of Freud's Standard Edition, and was for several years a member of the editorial board of the International Forum of Psychoanalysis. He is now co-chair for Europe of the newly formed IPA project the IPA Encyclopedic Dictionary Task Force.

Arne's wife, Camilla Silfverskiöld, is an adult and child psychoanalyst.

The interview was constructed by e-mail, by telephone conversations between September 2013 and July 2014, and also by face-to-face meetings in December 2013.