100 Years of the IPA

This collection of essays on the 100 years of history of the International Psychoanalytical Association provides far more than a chronological account of events. Within its pages, one encounters pioneering presences in the world of psychoanalysis, savours endearing anecdotes, comes across phrases that are both quaint and novel, reads the accounts of various splits and also the emergence of new groups, sees new journals evolve, senses the excitement of fresh discoveries in the field, and partakes in a delightful and thrilling sojourn of thought and praxis. Even more importantly, the book offers a close glimpse of the nuanced dialectic between major psychoanalytic concepts and the sociopolitical environments in which such ideas were germinated, spread, took roots, and further evolved. Travelling from Freud's Vienna to locales as different from each other as the United States and Japan, Uruguay and India, England and Turkey, Brazil and China, Australia and Mexico, psychoanalysis retained its basic core while assimilating local expositions of theory and technique. Consequently, the binary essence of psychoanalysis shines throughout the various contributions to this book: all human beings are basically alike and each one is uniquely different. Such unified testimony to our disciplines essential humanity and respect for authenticity makes us feel grateful to the books contributors.'- Salman Akhtar, MD, Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, and Professor of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia