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What is a “Free University”? A place at the border between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the known and the unknown. A space where old knowledge can be respectfully reevaluated and new knowledge eagerly looked for and critically tasted. A place where passion and reason could cohabitate, creating an ésprit of real enlightenment. An adventure land for grown-up kids.
As I have been reading and editing reports from study and research groups around the world for the last three years, my feeling of meaningfulness and hope for the future for psychoanalysis has been steadily growing. After more than 30 years working as a psychoanalyst, partaking in conferences and clinical developments, I must confess that I felt there was not much new knowledge I gained, but rather new words for the same old clinical experiences. That was good, but not enough.
With the opening up of the psychoanalytic field for not only psychosomatics, which has been a pioneer settlement in the territory of investigating the body, but for neuroscience, which brought the brain-as-such on to the scene, psychoanalysis has, in my experience, gained new life and revitalized Freud's old concepts of drive, affect and defense.
Beyond the simple descriptive words of these reports, sent to me during the years, this is what I sense: A new Free University.
I encourage you all to join it. Don't hesitate to contact me, for ideas, referrals or information. And, of course, send me a report from your study or research group for the forthcoming issues of Neuro-Psychoanalysis.
Addendum: As the bulletins for this issue were written during the summer of 2002, and should have been published before the Stockholm Conference in September 2002. As a result, some sentences are out-dated. However, it is retained in its original format—a reminder of difficult publishing times and with a hope for future improvement.