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In 1983 the Deutsche Psychoanalytische Gesellschaft (DPG) sent me as a delegate to the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS). My trip to New York was associated with many expectations. As a young analyst at that time, I was particularly curious about meeting foreign colleagues. My expectation of meeting a venerable circle of analysts there was, however, harshly disappointed. I found myself disillusioned in a discouraged and haphazard committee that was desperately looking for prospects for the future. After a successful IFPS forum in Berlin some years before, the society was apparently exhausted and they were looking for someone willing to take the chair and lead the federation through the crisis. There was a lack of spirit that held the federation together, of money to finance future-oriented activities, and of personnel willing to commit to the idea of a liberal international psychoanalysis.
Ann Turkel of the William Alanson White Society in New York finally agreed to take responsibility. She received the necessary support from the Executive Committee and from her society. Then we were looking for a brilliant idea for the renewal of the federation.
In this situation, the foundation of an international psychoanalytic journal appeared to be an option for the future. It was created in the corridors in front of the meeting and lecture rooms and became a redeeming thought that especially inspired the younger ones among us. And so the International Forum of Psychoanalysis (IFP) was born in a long-term and sometimes arduous process.
As far as I can remember, it was the Swedish colleagues from the Society for Holistic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, above all Jan Stensson and Christer Sjödin, who took up the idea of an IFPS journal and persevered despite the many concerns and reservations that were associated with it. They found support from individuals such as Jochen Kemper from Rio de Janeiro and Arne Jemstedt from Sto