The Thirty-ninth Congress of the International Psychoanalytical Association, scheduled for July 30–August 4, 1995, will be held in San Francisco at the downtown Marriott Hotel. The American and the four independent IPA institutes in the U.S. are official hosts for the Congress, which will be only the second ever held in the United States. The site was chosen in Rome in 1989, and planning for the San Francisco Congress has been under way ever since. Now, with the 1991 Buenos Aires Congress and the 1993 Amsterdam Congress to learn from, planning for 1995 shifts into high gear.
The Marriott is a large modern hotel with twice the meeting-room capacity available in Buenos Aires. The giant Moscone Convention center is just across the street and is available if registration exceeds the total of 3,000 or so that is expected. Registration at Amsterdam totaled over 2,100, and many more North and South Americans are expected at San Francisco. Over 3,000 registered for the Buenos Aires Congress. Provision has been made for hotel accommodations both at the Marriott and at five other hotels within easy walking distance. In addition, accommodations are being arranged in apartments, at a very reasonable price, for candidates and for members with families.
In charge of the Congress, and a member of the Local Arrangements Committee, is IPA Secretary Ana Maria Andrade de Azevedo. The committee also includes Harriet Kimble Wrye of Los Angeles, who represents the four independent IPA institutes in the U.S. The theme of the Congress, chosen by IPA President Horacio Etchegoyen, will be “Psychic Reality,” and the Program Committee has been hard at work for some time.
Analysts have had many opportunities to attend meetings of The American in San Francisco, but the city has been beautifying itself recently, if that can be imagined. The magnificent Yerba Buena Gardens just opposite the Marriott include a new Center for the Arts and a beautiful park with an impressive memorial, under a dramatic waterfall, to Martin Luther King. A new Museum of Modern Art will be completed next spring. An elegant multilevel shopping center, only a few years old, is adjacent to the Marriott, and the old freeway on the Embarcadero, demolished after the 1989 earthquake, is being replaced by a lovely bayside drive and park.
San Francisco is also a jumping-off point for such spectacular destinations as Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Carmel-by-the-Sea, and the Grand Canyon. A short distance by car or tour bus from San Francisco is the famed wine country of Napa and Sonoma counties, where wineries and award-winning champagne cellars keep increasing in both number and grandeur. Nearby, close to the charming town of Sonoma in the Valley of the Moon, is the house of Jack London and a museum commemorating that prolific author. North of San Francisco are also to be found the giant redwoods, and, somewhat farther afield, Hawaii is but a few hours away by air.
Joseph E. Lifschutz, M.D., and Reed Brockbank, M.D., co-chair the Local Arrangements Committee for the 1995 IPA Congress in San Francisco.
TAP will be providing ongoing coverage of preparations for the Congress, the IPSO Pre-Congress, and the IPA Training Analysts Conference, to culminate in a Special Section that will appear in these pages next spring.