New IPA president Daniel Widlöcher of Paris, attending the APsaA's New York meetings last December, responded eagerly to TAP's invitation to talk about his perspective on the International Psychoanalytical Association.
Widlöcher, a generous man with an expressive face and a very approachable demeanor, became president of the IPA in 2001. He is a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst with a small private practice in Paris. He is an emeritus professor in the medical school of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Paris, where he does some teaching.
Widlöcher said he has three main goals for his presidency.
The first is to improve communication between the membership and the central organization of the IPA. The IPA can no longer function as a centralized body involved in deliberation and decisionmaking only. Members must be better informed about the issues the IPA Executive Council has to address and why. Widlöcher also plans to communicate more often with the presidents of the component societies.
“I think there will be a difficult debate about training regulations in the next two years,” said Widlöcher. He wants the members to stay informed about this and other issues. “One of my goals is that the [member] feels it's his or her IPA,” he said. To this end, the IPA plans to capitalize on the Internet as a key resource.
Widlöcher's second goal is to reform the international congress to increase members' involvement. A new format is already planned for the Toronto congress in 2003, and details will be announced shortly. Briefly, instead of primarily offering major papers presented by international notables to a passive audience, the IPA will organize regional workshops during the years preceding the congress. Members of these regional workshops will then present their groups' work when the congress convenes. (Discrimination against homosexuals in analytic education has been a hotly debated topic at previous congresses. See the box on page 24 for information on the IPA's new antidiscrimination policy.)
Widlöcher's third goal as president is to increase contact between the IPA and the outside world, including psychiatric organizations, the academies, the scientific community, and allied professions. He is pleased that the World Psychiatric Organization has opened a section on psychoanalysis.
Photo by Mervin Stewart
Widlöcher spoke of the problem of educational standards, which differ significantly from country to country. There are the official requirements, and then there are the realities. In France and Italy, for example, a candidate can be analyzed by any analyst. In other countries (not just the United States), the training analyst system is extremely structured. “We need an open discussion on peoples' views and what they are actually doing,” said Widlöcher, adding that this is frequently a big issue among local groups. He believes the international group must play a significant role in opening up the debate, including a discussion of the tension between the reality and the published standards. “We must deal with reality; otherwise the debate is pointless.”
I asked about certification issues around the world. Widlöcher said he is not aware of such a system elsewhere.
Widlöcher wants the IPA to continue to develop clinical research programs. He hopes to open up IPA-sponsored grants and the summer school research training program to include historical and conceptual research.
Widlöcher acknowledges that the IPA central administration is complex and needs to be simplified. The organization must respond to members' complaints (loud in the United States) that dues are high and to the frequent query, “What does the IPA do for me?” He plans to reduce travel expenses by doing more work regionally and relying more on e-mail communication. Cost-cutting measures now being instituted could show results in two years.
The IPA president hopes that members can appreciate and support the organization's international outreach. “We also have obligations outside the current membership,” he stated. “To Russia, Serbia, Croatia, Poland, Bulgaria, for example.” There is now an IPA institute for Russia and former Soviet Union countries. Countries in Central America, South Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Lebanon all have nascent psychoanalytic communities, which could not exist without the IPA's encouragement and support.
Asked specifically about distance learning programs and how IPA standards relate to these, Widlöcher said, “It's absolutely unrealistic to expect the same level of training in these outreach areas as in our own countries.” Some people will be well trained and others less so, as always when psychoanalysis develops in a new area. He believes that some psychoanalytic presence is far preferable to none at all.
When is the IPA going to have a woman president? Too polite to say that it wasn't under his control, Widlöcher replied that he has appointed many female committee chairs. He also pointed out that three of the nine vice presidents are women.
In September 2001, the UN sponsored a meeting for non-government organizations (NGOs) in Durban, South Africa. The IPA was represented by members of its Committee on the United Nations, chaired by Afaf Mafhouz. Vociferous groups disrupted the sessions with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel demonstrations, and the meeting leaders lost control of the event. The meeting became political. Some members of the APsaA objected strenuously to the presence of IPA representatives at these meetings and to inadequate communication between the IPA administration and its representatives in Durban.
Six months after the disruption of the Durban meeting, Widlöcher appointed a committee of the three North American IPA vice presidents (Bob Tyson, Bob Pyles, and Helen Meyers) to consider the issues and make recommendations concerning the IPA's UN committee and how it should be structured. “We have to keep this committee,” said Widlöcher, indicating a continuing desire on the part of IPA administration and membership to further NGO activity worldwide, despite potentially
troubled waters. As currently constituted, the UN committee of the IPA has two members, both of whom are from North America.
Widlöcher concluded his remarks on the problems at the Durban conference thus: “The IPA's role should be non-political at all times. It is absolutely necessary that we play a role in NGO activities, especially in the field of world mental health. But we have to be extremely cautious.” It is the responsibility of the IPA to look at any situation that could become inflamed. “We have to take control of our own participation,” he said.