In February 2020, in the beautiful city of Lisbon, it was decided that the next IFPS Forum would take place in Madrid in 2022. No one could have imagined that just a few weeks later the world would change drastically due to COVID-19 and the pandemic. There were the confinements, the contagions of the terrible virus, the deaths. The world stopped and we were all forced to adapt to a new reality. Our clinical work was naturally affected and we had to respond to new problems, new challenges, and new working conditions.
Two years later, with the global health, humanitarian, economic, and political crisis lessening but still present, we set about organizing the new Forum at the Centro Psicoanalitico de Madrid. Fears and doubts were faced and finally an enthusiastic group of colleagues from 21 countries gathered at the Madrid College of Physicians to embrace each other again, to dialogue and share their reflections. It was an atmosphere of re-encounter that gave a special warmth to the scientific meeting. Our coeditor Marco Conci, who was present at the Forum, has produced an excellent report (Conci Citation2023), which reflects in meticulous detail the combination of the quality of the presentations and the joy of personal contact.
The Madrid Forum marked an important commemoration. It was the 60th anniversary of the founding of the IFPS in Amsterdam. An impulse of collaboration and critical spirit brought together William Alanson White, the Deutsche Psychoanalytische Gesellschaft, the Sociedad Psicoanalitica Mexicana, and the Wiener Arbeitskreis für Tiefenpsychologie. Over the years, dozens of societies have joined the Federation and today several thousand members make up a heterogeneous, powerful, and creative psychoanalytic community that spans Europe, America, Africa, and Asia.
Naturally, several colleagues in Madrid have studied the history of our Federation and our discipline. In this issue, we find Alejandro Ávila’s reflection on the history of psychoanalysis and his own practice. A therapist of long experience and very influential in the Spanish analytic community, he explores the changes he considers most relevant. He emphasizes the essential relationality of the human being and the relational aspect of the healing process, as well as the necessary task of caring for a space that the other with whom we are connected can inhabit. For the author, the end of the pandemic brings a new hope of connection with others and challenges us to be, or again become, ourselves in the presence of the other.
Klaus Hoffman, a member of the Executive Committee of our Federation, also takes up a historical theme. He reflects on the 50th anniversary of the Institut für Psychoanalyse Zürich-Kreuzlingen. Switzerland, and Zurich in particular, has played a central role in the development of psychoanalysis from the very beginning, through the work of Bleuler and Jung. Fifty years ago a group was founded that has made a substantial contribution to our Federation and to the psychoanalytic community in general. Hoffman highlights some aspects, such as the historical relationship of the group not only with other German-speaking psychoanalytic societies, but also with institutions in Italy and with the most avant-garde political and philosophical movements in that country in recent decades. Another feature of the Zurich group is worth mentioning: its focus on severe patients, not always the object of interest of the analytic community, and especially on psychoses and forensic patients.
Jan Johansson, who has also been a member of the IFPS Executive Committee for many years, addresses in his article a topic that was also the subject of reflection at the Madrid Forum: training in psychoanalysis. This question has been debated since the birth of our discipline. The author describes in detail the Finnish model, which has a particular feature: the collaboration between psychoanalytic institutions and universities. This encounter has aroused the reluctance of many psychoanalytic groups, who see their teaching position in jeopardy. Johansson examines in detail the virtues of this model as well as the difficulties that arise from the coexistence of very different institutions, which in most countries have traditionally been very distant from each other. His assessment is fundamentally positive and this model can undoubtedly serve as a reference for those of us who are developing training programs in psychoanalysis in other places.
Miguel Angel Gonzalez-Torres, president of the Centro Psicoanalítico de Madrid, the organizing society of the Forum, and a member of the Executive Committee of the IFPS, is the author of this editorial and the following article in this issue. He addresses the complex and necessary relationship between psychoanalysis, the identity of large groups, and politics. We often avoid the political conflicts of the day, perhaps for fear of being forced to take sides in the endless traumatic situations of our time. Moreover, that side might alter our neutrality and our ability to look at reality dispassionately. We sometimes forget, however, that not taking sides is a dangerous form of taking sides in spite of ourselves. Psychoanalysis has a responsibility to its host community, and our concepts are undoubtedly useful for better understanding collective phenomena, including at the political level.
Jo Gondar, a prominent colleague from Brazil, and one of the organizers of the 14th International Sandor Ferenczi Conference, which will take place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in late May 2024, approaches politics and politicians from a different perspective. She proposes a closer look at micropolitics and, in particular, at the affects and sensitivities that make it possible to build social bonds and generate different models of political and social life. Gondar takes Ferenczi’s concepts of tenderness and passion and applies them to the political context in order to delineate different modes of political coexistence. For the author, tenderness underlies solidarity and is linked to the concept of vulnerability proposed by Judit Butler. For the author, tenderness becomes a nonviolent force capable of bringing about change in societies marked by hatred, such as Brazil today.
Lucio Gutierrez, president of our sister society in Chile, tackles a highly topical issue: the role of digital tools in interpersonal communication, and more specifically in the patient–analyst encounter. The pandemic and its aftermath have forced us all into a hasty adaptation, forcing us into different contacts that have not yet been thought through. Gutierrez’s article is a relevant contribution in this sense, opening up avenues for others to follow. According to the author, these forms of connection at a distance imply a hypnoid state that reveals a compromise between internal and external conditions, revealing internal dynamics and specific defensive mechanisms.
Anna Maria Loiacono, chair of the training institute of the Sullivan Institute of Analytic Psychotherapy of Florence, addresses the issue of psychoanalysis in the time of the coronavirus. She describes the effort of analysts to survive this difficult period and how a fluid relationship with supportive colleagues becomes indispensable. The transition from face-to-face sessions to online work is the focus of her attention, also pointing out how this new working format favours active interventions in line with Ferenczi’s and Rank’s proposals.
The issue concludes with an article by Italian colleagues Previdi, Buzzi, and Cozza, who also consider the impact of new technologies and the “digital age” on the setting and the healing process. This paper won the Benedetti–Conci Candidate Award for the best contribution by candidates. The authors address the concept of the external setting (space and time) and the internal setting (the mental state of the patient and the analyst) in an attempt to delimit the differences between online contact and traditional physical presence.
In conclusion, the issue of IFP before the reader reflects the continuity and strength of psychoanalytic work through the global ordeal of the pandemic. The diversity and richness of the contributions reflect the resilience of the psychoanalytic movement and testify to the strength of our discipline in the face of the global crisis generated by COVID, the effects of which are still being felt.