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In 2003, the IPA established a Development of Psychoanalytic Practice and Training (DPPT) Program to address the perceived crisis in psychoanalysis manifested by a widespread decline in the number of patients seeking analytic treatment and the number of candidates seeking psychoanalytic training in its existing component societies. The desired outcomes for the projects were to increase the number of patients seeking analysis and to increase the number of candidates in full training. Yearly submissions were invited with three-year funding awarded on a competitive basis. The three presentations at this panel represent different approaches to address these problems in the three IPA regions.
Isabelle Lasvergnas and Marie-Eve Lapointe of Montreal presented a description of the process of establishing a new low-fee psychoanalytic clinic within the Société Psychanalytique de Montréal (SPM). Their candid report revealed the struggles within the SPM (mid-1990s to 2006) in considering its self-definitions and boundaries and the concomitant problems in presenting itself to society at large as offering its treatment services. Initially, Montreal's psychoanalytic community was philosophically opposed to the clinic's emphasis on diagnosis and symptoms. It also feared that advertising and outside funding sources might unduly influence the goals and procedures of the clinic.
The clinic was established to serve a socially disadvantaged population, who in the public sector would be treated only with short-term treatments, cognitive therapy and medication. The minimum fee is 10-35 Canadian dollars per 45 minute session. The prospective patients treated would be youths, drop-outs, students, the unemployed, immigrants or single parents-all socially disadvantaged. This population was more likely to have deficient primary object relationships, archaic pathology, and excess and poorly differentiated drives. The clinic believed that this population could be treated using broadened psychoanaly