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During our time as the presidents of the Norwegian, the Swedish and the Danish Psychoanalytic societies we, Gunnar, Kari and I, have discussed our experiences in this important role. The following texts – originally presented at the European Psychoanalytic Federation (EPF) Conference 2016 in Berlin with the overall topic Authority – are born out of these discussions. We think that there is a need to reflect more generally on the questions of authority in a position that has not in the first place been just comfortable or evident for any of us, but has also been a great challenge. There is much writing especially on the authority concerning the psychoanalytic training but, at least to our knowledge, there is very little written about authority concerning the function and the role of the president of a psychoanalytic institution.
In this short presentation, I will begin by clarifying some concepts. I will then say a few words about authoritarian trends in psychoanalytic and other educational institutions, including the student revolt in 1968. Next, I will present some more local comments concerning the Danish Psychoanalytical Society, and I will close on a personal level with a few remarks on the challenge of being the president.
As Frisch, Ylander, and Bleger (2016) have clarified in the invitation to the EPF conference, 2016, there is a key difference between the concepts of authority and authoritarian. When talking about authority, one can distinguish between ‘to have authority’ and ‘to be an authority’. To be an authority implies that you have been authorized. The person who has authority has this due to the role he or she has assumed within the authorizing organization. In this case, the authority is bound to a specific role and a task. Contrary to this, to be an authority is personality based. A person who is an authority is this due to his or her personal characteristics and qualifica