IFPS 1960–1985: A new home for international and German psychoanalysis?

Abstract

The International Federation of Psychoanalytic Societies (IFPS) was established in 1962. The first 20 years of the Federation were a time when psychoanalysis was divided into so-called liberal and orthodox factions. The (then orthodox) International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) did not admit all psychoanalytic societies, and some societies did not want to join it. In the IFPS, non-IPA-psychoanalysts from Europe, the USA, and South and Middle America came together to discuss their new approaches to psychoanalysis and to find ways to better cope with their patients’ problems. At the beginning an informal organization of autonomous societies, the IFPS persisted for 12 years without a charter. The first three secretary generals came from the German Psychoanalytical Society and greatly influenced the first few years of the IFPS. The IFPS held several international conferences, and new psychoanalytic societies became members. In 1977, after the VIth Forum in Berlin, the IFPS fell into an identity crisis. The conflicts centered on the assumption of responsibility, the authority of the members, and how to understand the aim and sense of the organization. This article deals with the theoretical background of the early IFPS and the development of its self-concept.

Key words:

• history of psychoanalysis
• founding of the IFPS
• orthodox and liberal psychoanalysis
• self-concept and theoretical background of the IFPS

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrea Huppke

Andrea Huppke is a psychologist, psychoanalyst, and group therapist in private practice in Berlin, Germany, as well as a training analyst and supervisor of the psychoanalytic training institute Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Psychoanalyse und Psychotherapie Berlin (APB), a so-called free institute of the DGPT (German Association for Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy and Depth Psychology). She is also a member of the Berliner Forum für Geschichte der Psychoanalyse. She has published several articles with themes in the field of history of psychoanalysis, mostly in the journal Luzifer-Amor. Her dissertation has the title “History of the foundation and development of the IFPS between 1960 and 1980 in the context of international and particularly German psychoanalysis.”