Leo Rangell was elected Honorary President of the International Psychoanalytical Association at the International Psychoanalytical Congress held this summer in Barcelona. He was nominated by a unanimous vote of the Executive Council at its meeting in London on August 9, 1996. The election was ratified by acclamation at the Business Meeting of July 30, 1997.
A lifetime position, this is the first time the honorary presidency has been held by an American analyst. Rangell follows in the footsteps of only three predecessors: Ernest Jones, Heinz Hartmann, and Anna Freud. Rangell was twice president of the IPA and twice president of The American (five years apart). He is an honorary member of several psychoanalytic societies in the United States and abroad. He has written over 350 scientific publications and has won almost every prize in psychoanalysis including the Signourney Prize, the Heinz Hartmann Award, and the International Clinical Essay Prize of the British Institute.
In Rangell's remarks at the business meeting in Barcelona, he thanked Horacio Etchegoyen and Otto Kemberg “for making this event bipartisan and unanimous.” He went on, “Perhaps this is a symbol and portent of harmony and agreement on more basic matters. Psychoanalysis enters its second century at the acme of challenging times. These stem equally from external realities and internal conflicts. I hope to continue to influence the solving of these, by the psychoanalytic way of thinking about conflicts which binds us all.”
Rangell ended with a note of personal sadness. “I had planned at this point to call to the platform … my wife, Anita. After 60 years of our sharing every occasion and almost every thought, she missed this one by three months. She died in April after a tumultuous illness. Anita was half of every psychoanalytic idea I ever had.” Rangell concluded with thanks to the IPA.