If your knowledge about the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) is approximately what mine was two years ago, your awareness of what this major professional organization is and what it does is probably rudimentary.
Like you, I noted the item of dues to the IPA on the invoice sent each autumn from The American, and was aware that all members of The American are automatically members the IPA.
Like you, I received from time to time a newsletter—which used to require a handlens and strong light to read, but which now has an attractive, readable format—with articles of broad interest along with a calendar of meetings.
For a long time I thought the IPA was primarily focused on its biennial congresses. Whether I attended a Congress depended largely on my summer holiday plans or geographical coincidences. Since becoming better acquainted with the IPA when I was The American's Treasurer, and now as IPA's Treasurer, I am in a position to supply you with details that will surely revise your gestalt of this organization, as mine was.
With approximately 9,100 members—about a quarter of them from The American—the IPA is about three times the size of The American. Its members are from North America, South America, and Western Europe, with some in Asia and Eastern Europe.
Its overall structure involves the general membership, whose full voting members at the business meeting of a biennial Congress constitute the ultimate source of decision-making authority. The members elect some of the members of the Executive Council of the IPA, which has a total of twenty-five councilors. This group is charged with governing the IPA between the business meetings at the biennial congresses, and it meets semiannually. Council members elected by the general membership are its voting members. Of the appointed Council members, only the IPA Secretary has the right to vote. Nonvoting councilors furnish advice on all matters brought to the Council's attention.
The President, Secretary, Treasurer, Past-President, and President-Elect constitute the Committee of Executive Officers, and they conduct the business of the IPA between the meetings of the Council, just as The American's Executive Committee does.
Not too long ago, there was a sense that because new IPA officers were elected only by business meetings at congresses, the entire matter was distant and of little interest. Revised voting procedures for officers, now conducted by mail ballot, brings the identities of the candidates into our very living rooms, better enables members to consider their experience and attitudes, and keeps us connected with IPA activities.
A new subdivision of the IPA, the House of Delegates, was created several years ago. Its delegates are appointed or elected by the three main geographic regions of the Association. The House of Delegates was envisioned originally as a conduit for advice of all kinds from the various societies to the officers and Executive Council of the IPA, supplementing communications from Society presidents. At present, the functions of the House are being developed and defined, and a by-law provision has made it an integral part of the IPA. The IPA has its own committees—at least as many as The American—that are charged with diverse activities. The IPA's activities promote its three primary objectives: (1) to facilitate communication between psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic organizations through publications, congresses, and other scientific meetings; (2) to promote training and education standards; and (3) to support the development of psychoanalytic organizations.
Our biennial congresses don't just “happen”—they require enormous effort by a local arrangements committee appointed years in advance, collaborating with the Central Office and sometimes with a professional congress organization, all orchestrated by the IPA's Secretary. The local arrangements committee has numerous subcommittees, and a separate program committee is charged with selecting a topical theme, organizing panels and small-group meetings, and, where indicated, pre-Congress publication of presentations. Yet a third large committee is for the Pre-Congress on Training, which meets the weekend prior to the main Congress, selects its own main topic, and similarly organizes its meetings. Altog-ether independent is the international Psychoanalytic Students' Organization (IPSO), which receives some financial support from the IPA but designs its meeting for institute candidates from everywhere. IPSO's meeting interdigitates with the main Congress, but it emphasizes the enjoyable small-group format.
Regional meetings are also organized each year by IPA psychoanalysts, such as FEPAL in Latin America and the EPF in Europe.
Here again, the small-group format evokes great enthusiasm. There are various conferences focused on children and adolescents; conferences organized by language groupings, such as the English Speaking Conference in London and the French Language Congress for Romance Countries in Paris.
A new committee, the Committee on Regional Meetings, is developing a program to address the needs of members for whom distance and expense make it difficult to attend biennial congresses. The IPA intends to organize small groups of senior members who will bring a scientific program to an outlying area, to present it and interact with members of the local society and institute in a few days, and is considering interaction with local communities of mental health professionals and non-members. These traveling programs would bring the stimulation of psychoanalysis and its most experienced practitioners to younger analysts and students who would otherwise lack that exposure.
The IPA newsletter is known to you all. It is produced by an international committee and is issued in the four official languages of the IPA. From time to time, the IPA produces monographs, which are overseen by the Publications Committee.
An IPA psychoanalytic journal is under consideration. (You might not be aware that the International Journal is the journal of the British Psychoanalytical Society.)
The membership roster issued biennially is a membership benefit. In its next edition later this year, it will include telephone and fax numbers, and E-mail addresses. We anticipate that the added
convenience will compensate for the additional production costs. We are considering CD-ROM format for future rosters, but we need to learn more about the technology level of our widespread members.
An elaborate committee structure is in place for development of new psychoanalytic organizations. The International Committee on New Groups has regional subcommittees, as does the International Committee on Societies. The Latin American Committee on New Groups, for example, is sponsoring six new groups in that region. The Committee for Eastern Europe is seeking to nourish organizational development where none has existed for decades, and the Committee for the Development of Psychoanalysis in Asia is consulting with analysts in India and Japan!
To some degree the activities of these committees and subcommittees overlap. For “New Groups” the objective is to assist groups of analysts in various locations who wish to become official IPA Study Groups, and who may then proceed to develop training programs and advance through the stages of Provisional Society to full Component Society of the IPA. This evolutionary process is no less complex than in the United States, requiring site visits for satisfactory oversight. For “Societies,” the emphasis is more on the organizational health of local societies and problem solving.
The Committee on Psychoanalytic Education (COMPSED) is studying career and emotional effects of acceptance or rejection of applicants to institutes for training. COMPSED is also working on a study of the curricula of the various institutes, with a view toward attempting to outline an “ideal syllabus,” and making details of such curricula available via a public electronic database. To improve training COMPSED is interested in studying different models of psychoanalytic education.
The Committee on Ethics has drafted a Code of Ethical and Professional Conduct for use by the various societies, if desired, and is considering whether to augment the draft code with a draft procedural model.
The Committee on Psychoanalytic Research meets annually to deal with specific research-related questions, and to conduct a summer workshop program on research methodology in psychoanalysis.
Other administrative committees include the Committee on Congresses, which is studying and recommending measures to improve our congresses; the House Management and Finance Committee, which prepares our annual budget; the Nominating Committee; the Appointments Committee; the Committee on the Procedural Code; and the Information Task Force.
Apart from administration, there is a Standing Committee on Myths, the Committee on Archives and History, the Standing Conference on Psychosis, and the Standing Conference on Intracultural and Intercultural Dialogue.
No doubt I have omitted some committees, but my intent is to emphasize that the tendency for communications from the IPA to be dominated by news of the biennial congresses is really an artifact: Tremendous efforts are being made by many from all member countries concerning psychoanalytic theory and practice in all its forms.
We are mindful of the problems affecting the clinical practice of psychoanalysis, differing in detail from one country to another. The solutions crafted for meeting these problems in the United States can be exported, and some of those devised abroad can be used here.
Survival of a healthy psychoanalytic discipline requires efforts to affect maximum impact on the general cultural stream. Freud was aware of the need for promotion of psychoanalysis to the general public, in publications and through the celebrated lectures delivered to educated lay audiences at the University of Vienna. We have already learned that we cannot “sell” psychoanalysis to the general public. But we can have psychoanalysts communicating with the public directly, revealing that they speak plain language and have special knowledge and experience to bring to bear on their listeners' bedeviling problems. Clinical practice is, after all, the base on which rests our community of clinicians, their organizations, and the future of our specialty.
It behooves the members of The American to be familiar with their colleagues' efforts elsewhere, to share in them, and to contribute to cross-fertilization of ideas. We have something uniquely valuable to offer, and only we are positioned to promote its vigorous survival.