Presidential Address, London Congress

Ladies and Gentlemen, I declare open the 29th Congress of the International Psycho-Analytical Association.

An event has taken place in London which, it seems to me, has a symbolic value for our Congress. The Executive Council of your Association has held a meeting in the house where Miss Anna Freud, its Honorary President, had invited us. During our discussions we were able to see the room where Sigmund Freud used to work during his last days, his couch and the important items amongst his collection of objects d'art. The inspiration our colleagues found during this meeting was probably due in part to the circumstances and to the place where we were. This is a lesson for us all, if we remember that the British Psycho-Analytical Society, whose importance in the history of the psychoanalytical movement you are aware of, welcomed Freud and his family warmly at the time when events had forced them to flee from Austria.

I am therefore pleased that this 29th Congress taking place in London gives us the opportunity to meet here in great numbers. We can see at this meeting many colleagues whom we are accustomed to seeing at our Congresses, but also, happily, many psychoanalytic candidates—these latter are, of course, the future of our Association.

Unfortunately, this meeting is also a sad occasion on which our thoughts must go to those who have passed away since our 28th Congress, and whose memory will officially be commemorated on Wednesday morning (23 July) during our Business Meeting. However, I do not want to miss this opportunity to recall the memory of Walter Joffe who, as you know, was President of the British Psycho-Analytical Society at the time when he invited us, on its behalf, to meet here in London. He was also the Chairman of the Programme Committee, and his death was certainly one of the consequences of the exhaustion to which all his duties condemned him. It is to him that we owe the idea of a Congress the scientific sessions of which will take place thr