Dynamics of Psychoanalytic Institutions

Dynamics of Psychoanalytic Institutions provides a thorough appraisal of the current state of psychoanalytic groups and how they might move forward under fraught conditions, representing the outcome of many years of work by the Institutional Matters Forum (IMF). This erudite book presents the thoughts, experiences, reflections, and outcomes of the IMF, a long-standing working group of the European Psychoanalytical Federation (EPF). Organisational and group dynamic issues have a great influence on the life of psychoanalytic societies. However, they are often lived through as part of institutional and professional daily lives or retold as part of a history, marked with frequent conflicts, disruptions, splits, and impasses. This book recognises the need to explore the structure, culture, organisation, and unique characteristics of psychoanalytical organisations and to provide the space and tools for reflection. Consisting of seven psychoanalysts from seven different countries, the IMF group charts the origins of analytic societies, explores group mentality, and considers the impact on the global experience of war and the Covid pandemic on psychoanalytic institutions.

Jasminka suljagic is a training analyst and the former president of the Psychoanalytical Society of Serbia. She is a member and founder of the EPF Institutional Matters Forum, member and former general editor of the EPF Executive Board, and chair of the EPF Archive Committee. She has many presentations and publications in seven different languages.

Introduction Part 1: On the Origin of Psychoanalytic Organisations 1. On the Origin of Psychoanalytic Institutions in Vienna 2. The Origin of Psychoanalytic Institutions and their Compulsion to Repeat: Some Thoughts Part 2: Infantile and institutionalisation 3. The Role of the Infantile and its Shortcomings in Institutional Events 4. Infantile and Institutionalisation Part 3: The Familiar and the Unfamiliar in Psychoanalytic Institutions. About Stumbling across Otherness 5. Interweavings. Unconscious Singularity, Group Mentality, and Reconstructed History 6. Differentiations and their Reversals 7. On the Defensive Use of Psychoanalytical Concepts Part 4: Paths and Figures of Intimacy within Psychoanalytic Rooms and Organisations 8. Fervor, Traces, and Figures of Intimacy 9. When Institutional Disorders Occur instead of the Psychic Activities of Private Intimacy 10. Could there be Destructive Forces vis-à-vis Psychoanalysis, Contained in the Intimate Workings of Psychoanalytic Societies? Part 5: Institutional Life in Psychoanalytic Organisations 11. The Many Facets of Authority in Psychoanalytic Institutions 12. A Quick Look at Organisational Issues in European Psychoanalytical Institutions 13. History of the Protocol and the Principle of the French Model Training. Après-coup and Overdetermination of Training Models Part 6: The Vicissitudes and Maternal Function of Psychoanalytic Organisations 14. Maternal Function of Psychoanalytic Organisations 15. About the Vicissitudes of New Societies Part 7: How Do Different Societies Cope with the Disruption of their Ideals by Wars and Covid? 16. The Shattering of Denials and Disruption of Ideals in the Assumption of Novelties within Psychoanalytic Organisations 17. Ideals, Unconscious Beliefs, and Leadership in Times of Conflict and Covid Part 8: Psychoanalytic Organisations Caught in the Crossfire 18. Psychoanalytic Organisations Caught in the Crossfire. Group Psychologies Revealed 19. Psychoanalytic Organisations in a Time of Crisis. A Survey Report Part 9: Rebirth of Psychoanalytic Organisations. Ideal and Reality Then and Now. 20. A Split and a Merger - Experiencing the Dynamics of Reorganisation 21. Rebirth of Psychoanalytic Organisations. Ideal and Reality Then and Now - Exemplified in the Hungarian Psychoanalytical Society 22. Rebirth of Psychoanalytic Organisations. Ideal and Reality Then and Now, Using the Example of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society