Presidential Letter

January 15, 2002

Dear IFPE Member and Colleagues,

As I start my second go around as president of IFPE I want to thank everyone for the confidence you have placed in me. Despite the tear in the fabric of civilization that September 11th brought, we were able to have a productive conference in Fort Lauderdale this past October.

One of the questions that the Board of Directors has frequently addressed is the role IFPE plays in our members' professional lives. As president I continue to ask: why should one belong to IFPE... what do we offer?

We offer no certifications or diplomas, no student or member patient referrals, no educational credits, no professional journal, no psychoanalytic ideology to guarantee that we have found the truth. Because we offer nothing, we are free to provide an opportunity to share the excitement of psychoanalytic ideas free of political or theoretical biases. You can come to our conferences and get to know Jungians and Freudians, Lacanians and Object Relationists, Inter-Personalists and Humanistic Existentialists and the many, many of us who are just psychoanalysts and/or psychoanalytic psychotherapists or educators interested in psychoanalysis.

If we do not talk to each other, if we only talk with like-minded practitioners, we will, all too easily, perpetuate the destructive isolationist and dogmatic tendencies that have plagued the psychoanalytic movement since its inception. In some small way our meetings and conferences, where we are able to listen and interact with such varied approaches, help us overcome the seclusion and inevitable self-reference of our daily routines. I do not think it an exaggeration to say that if psychoanalysis is going to continue to be a viable force in the therapeutic and academic worlds it will have to find new roots, a new sense of what it means to be an analyst and to become an analyst. IFPE is a place where that process is recognized and appreciated; where ideas are valued over dogma; where friendship sustains both discussion and disagreements. Isn't that an organization you would like to support?

Please renew your membership and set yourself the task of letting your colleagues and friends know that they should also join us. Our fees are modest; our goal is nothing less than the growth of psychoanalysis in its many colored shadings, both in the consultation room and in the educational forum. Plan on coming to our conference in Fort Lauderdale, again, on October 25, 2002. And tell your friends and colleagues what an organization that offers nothing can provide.

Sincerely yours,

Gerald J. Gargiulo, M.A.
President