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The psychoanalyst Gabriele Junkers is the initiator and editor of ‘Living and Containing Psychoanalysis in Institutions - Psychoanalysts Working Together.’ Over many years. Junkers has been engaged in how psychoanalytic societies are functioning. The global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, where we were not able to meet physically with our colleagues, made her think about what we missed from our societies and what was the problem in them. In the beginning of the book, Junkers asks whether ‘dissatisfaction with our institutions [is] something perennial that we have learned to live with, or can we seize this chance to open up new perspectives and change the situation to the better?’ (p. 1)
In the book nine psychoanalysts share their experiences in psychoanalytic societies. The authors of each chapter look at societies from different angles and discuss the various challenges of being a member of a psychoanalytic institution. The book is rich in depth and width - and contributes both to raising our awareness of unconscious and sometimes destructive dynamics and as well as giving advice on ways to identify and intervene in the face of devastating processes in our institutions. In this book review, I can only focus on a few of the many issues that are discussed there.
Psychoanalytic societies have a long history. They have their origin in Vienna in 1902, when Freud established regular meetings with his nearest colleagues every Wednesday - called the Vienna Wednesday Society. (Teising, M., p. 4-6) In the years thereafter, psychoanalytic societies grew in number and size in many countries and in many parts of the world. Nevertheless, it is a sad reality that different psychoanalytic societies have struggled with inner conflicts that have made them dysfunctional. Sometimes, incompatible views within societies have even led to splits into two associations. These schisms have typically been caused either by professional, organizational, and/or personal disagreements. Junkers’ bo