Letter From Lebanon

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to inform you about our Society, the Lebanese Association for the Development of Psychoanalysis (ALDeP), at the critical moment in the history of the country where it is established. The Lebanese Association for the Development of Psychoanalysis (ALDeP) is the first society in the Arab world to be affiliated with the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and the European Psychoanalytical Federation (EPF) as a Study Group, which occurred in January 2010.†

Cultural background and brief history

The development of psychoanalysis in Lebanon has to take into account its historical and cultural background, and the diversity of its religious communities. Although it has not been confronted with the same level of resistance as in neighboring Arab countries, psychoanalysis in Lebanon has evolved in tandem with a culture where prejudices, conflicts and arrangements must be taken into consideration.

Despite domestic and regional conflicts and divisions, the inception and development of psychoanalysis took place during the Lebanese war (1975-1990), and it has been well received and supported in the mental health circle and in universities. In Lebanon, the practice of psychoanalysis began in the early 1970s from the interest of some psychologists and psychiatrists in the work of Freud. The 1975 Lebanese Civil War caused a setback to the still modest activities of these early psychoanalysts, but it did not prevent them from continuing their clinical and academic practice. In 1978, one of the pioneers, Michel Asfar, died – struck by shrapnel in his home. An obituary of Paul-Claude Racamier, published in the Revue Française de Psychanalyse, testifies to the qualities and merits of another psychoanalyst who disappeared in the early years of the Lebanese psychoanalytic life (P.-C. Racamier, Michel Asfar, Revue Française dePsychanalyse, Presses universitaires de France, Tome 42, n°4, 1978). Other practitioners left Lebanon before the war