Iaap and Jungian Identity: A President's reflections

The origins of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP) and its functions, with a special reference to graduates from the Zurich Institute, comprise the subject of this paper. Why does such an organization as the IAAP exist? Is it really necessary? Is it Jungian to have such an organization, or is a collective of Jungian analysts not a contradiction in terms? What are the implications of having such an organization and what does it mean both socially and individually?

Let us begin historically. Jung was an integral part of the early psychoanalytic history and the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1909. Jung was perhaps the first important, non-Jewish, non-Viennese person to become interested in psychoanalysis, and surely the first to make the level of commitment that he did to Freud's project. Furthermore, in 1907, at the time Freud and Jung had their first personal encounters, Jung was the man with the more impressive international reputation; Jung, as first assistant to Bleuler at the Burghölzli, the most important psychiatric hospital in Europe, was far better known than Freud, who was considered a bit'off in Vienna, where he had a private practice of neurology. Freud held only the position of a private dozent at the University in Vienna and, because of the revolutionary nature of his theories as well as because he was Jewish, was a relatively minor figure on the Vienna scene. Freud considered Jung a most important person to have on his side in the coming struggles of psychoanalysis. Jung's presence brought, in addition to Bleuler at the Burghölzli, people like A.A. Brill from New York, Ernest Jones from Toronto, Karl Abraham from Germany, and many others into the psychoanalytic fold. At the time Jung was also editor of the Jahrbuch and thus in charge of the two most important structures of early psychoanalysis, the association and its major journal. For several years Jung was instrumental in