Thank you Paula. In your excellent response I see an added dimension of the feminine collective power. You are giving us a way to see the extent of change in the analytic world by showing the prestigious presentations at the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and its Committee on Women (COWAP) that really institutionalize newer understandings of female development. These changes include more attention to social and political factors impacting ego development, more attention to the overt expression of inner feelings and thoughts, and more willingness to focus on individual experience as it shapes development.
COWAP was, at the time when I was North American representative, the only committee of the IPA that actually made money for the parent organization. I believe that this is still true. The meetings all over the world have been attended by many analysts, some have also been open to therapists and some to the general public as well. This makes COWAP a forum for the presentation of psychoanalytic ideas in the larger community. It attracts potential analysts and analysands. It thus brings back to the larger public ideas from the psychoanalytic thought collective. It also opens psychoanalysts to the questions, objections and confirmatory thoughts of that larger public.
Even more permanent exposure of psychoanalytic thinking about women has been effected by the many publications of papers from those meetings. The publications make available the latest ideas on the subject and keep a record of the changes over time. Because they are from all of the regions of the IPA they also allow us to compare issues affecting women in different societies. This allows us to see the commonalities and the, often vast, differences between the experiences of women in the different countries of the world.
The institutions found common ground in the local component societies
of the IPA so that the American Psychoanalytic Association has also honored speakers on the subject. All of this ensures that the battles fought and won will not easily be forgotten. It means that younger women analysts will be empowered to speak out. It also means that we do not need to be thinking of ourselves as only rebels against a patriarchy, but we also can see ourselves as builders of something better.