the 5^th "Three Section" Conference in Stockholm
4–6 July 2003

Welcome greetings
in Stockholm 4th of July 2003

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames, Messieurs, Meine Damen und Herren, Senoras y Senores. You are all very welcome to this fifth three-section EFPP conference in Stockholm, which has the theme: Psychotherapy in our times - When, Where and for Whom.

My name is Siv Boalt Boëthius and I am the chair of EFPP since the beginning of this year. The EFPP consists of three sections for psychotherapy: Adults, Children and Adolescents and Groups and three delegates from each section constitute the Executive committee.

The other members of the Executive committee representing the three sections are: From the Adult section: Anne-Marie Schlösser from Germany (section co-ordinator), Luc Moyson from Belgium and Eva Wold from Norway (honorary secretary), and from the Child and Adolescent section: Liselotte Grünbaum from Denmark (section co-ordinator), Dimitris Anastasopoulus from Greece (vice chairman) and myself, and I come from Sweden. Representatives from the Group section are: Rudolf Balmer from Switzerland (section co-ordinator and treasurer), Alfonso Accursio from Italy and Inger Larsson from Sweden (conference co-ordinator). Olivier Nicolle from France is co-opted to the executive and convenor for research issues. Administrative secretary is Anita Ekner from Sweden and Joyce Piper from the UK is financial administrator.

We are delighted that all of you have come, and that so many of you have sent us interesting abstracts about clinically relevant topics, related to the theme of the conference. I feel that together, we have managed to achieve a really good mix of presentations from the three sections. And there are also several papers, which deal with issues from more than one of the three sections, which I find promising. In the Scientific committee we have tried to combine papers from different countries in the same session with a similar or related content.

As you might have seen already, the programme contains, apart from individual paper presentations, also four different Workshops focusing on the following themes: Infant observation, Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Psychotherapy, Training and Research and Trauma and State Violence.

The two presentations within each theme take place in the same room during all four sessions for paper presentations. The same applies to the French speaking sessions, as there is at least one French speaking session during all of the four scheduled times for paper presentations.

It means that we have a really good opportunity to continue developing the idea of the EFPP - the full name is The European Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in Health and Related Public Services - the goal being to describe, analyse and discuss how the work with psychoanalytic psychotherapy is being thought about, thought of, and put into practice in different countries in Europe.

According to the information I have, we are about 400 persons from 27 different countries, and coming from Europe, Israel, Cyprus, Russia, and overseas from Bolivia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA. And this is in my view a very promising start.

But, as some of you know, one important person is not here. The first of our invited main speakers, Ludvig Igra, died totally unexpected, a few weeks ago of a heart attack. He was a Swedish psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, and one of the most well known and most respected in our field in Sweden, as well as in the rest of the Nordic countries.

He was born in Poland 1945 and came to Sweden with his parents in 1947. He grew up in Stockholm and got his training as a psychologist and later as a psychoanalyst. Ludvig Igra worked both with psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, and was a key person in these fields. He was also very appreciated and much in demand as a lecturer, teacher and supervisor. He gave numerous lectures at training institutes in psychotherapy in all the Nordic countries.

Ludvig Igra also gave a face to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in the general debate in Sweden – in radio and TV as well as in various newspaper articles. He had an exceptional capacity to explain theoretically complicated issues, in a way that made people understand, what it might mean to have a psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic treatment. His natural curiosity and intellectual clarity was a great asset for us, who worked with him in different ways.

During his whole life he maintained his strong engagement and interest in the psychology of destructiveness of offenders. One of his books deals with the theme of Destructiveness and the Will to Live. I can't find a good translation of the title to his last book. It is called something like The Thin Membrane Between Care and Cruelty. He illuminates, through examples, the closeness between care and cruelty, and how we all of us are capable of both. Other books and articles he wrote deal with object relations theory, and he was one of the persons who introduced Melanie Klein's work in Sweden.

We miss Ludvig very much, not only because of his engagement in this conference and his professional theoretical knowledge and clinical skills, but also for his personal qualities and his integrity, which had a very inspiring effect on those who met and worked with him. His death is a great loss to our field of work.

But having accepted that Ludvig Igra is dead, even if it will take much longer before the sadness of the loss is accepted, we have found three persons, who we think are able to take the responsibility for, and are willing to give the first presentation as a panel. They will be introduced later by Margareta Mörner, the former vice-chair of the EFPP and the head of the Organising committee for this conference.

As you know the aim of the EFPP is to promote psychoanalytic psychotherapy and good opportunities for training as well as encouraging research of different kinds. So far the main interest has been directed towards the clinical practice and the standard of training in different countries. And I see this as an ongoing process that needs a lot of work, careful attention and engagement from all us, who are involved in these processes.

The EFPP is depending on that this work continues, and I am convinced that this development will continue, if we use our knowledge and keep our minds open. We will then be able to increase our understanding of how the human mind works, the connection between mind and body and the connection between the individual and his or her environment.

And as more and more countries have established training opportunities, which are accepted by the EFPP, a third step from clinical treatment and training programmes, namely research is coming more in the foreground. By research I mean different kinds of systematic exploration of what we actually do in our clinical work and to examine the result of our treatment.

A systematic exploration of what goes on in a psychotherapeutic relationship can be described in many ways. For many years the two main ways of doing this was by means of theoretically based case illustrations in psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic journals or more traditional research designs based on statistical analyses of groups of patients. There has been a lack of thinking about alternative ways of describing the work in a systematic way, which has been frustrating for many of us. However, to me it is evident that we can see a change. More and more psychotherapists feel the need for documentation of their work and a variety of methodological aspects are being used – with interesting and sometimes very surprising results.

In the programme you will find quite a few interesting examples of different kinds of research using different approaches, presentations which have been integrated in the combined paper sessions. And we also have one session, where more specifically the goals and methods in psychoanalytic research will be discussed.

A specific characteristic of the EFPP conferences is the Discussion groups, which will be described further by Margareta Mörner. The idea with these groups is to give enough time to discuss the content of the main presentations. But they also allow you ample opportunities to get to know your colleagues from different countries and to learn from each other. The mixture of languages, nationalities and cultures is richness. But it also can create difficulties. For instance when you think you have understood one thing talking to somebody from another culture and it turns out to be something totally different in the head of the other person. You have to think again and sort it out and when doing that, you often learn something new.

And I think this describes the two main reasons, why I accepted to become the chair of the EFPP. One reason being that I believe it is extremely important to offer good psychotherapeutic work in the public sector, including systematic descriptions of psychotherapy that can be understood not only within our field, but also by people who don't share our way of thinking.

A second reason is more social, by coming to the EFPP conferences and engaging in this network, you get to know colleagues in other countries. Persons you can share your ideas with, enjoy talking to and learn from. It stimulates your own work and you feel connected to a larger network than your local work group or your national network.

Personally I have learnt from Serge Frisch, who was the chair of the EFPP for six years before me, about keeping an open mind to what is going on. And also from Brian Martindale, who was the first chair of the EFPP and who was one of the persons who initiated EFPP, to accept chaos, as I remember my first delegates meeting. I have experienced it elsewhere too, but it is a special feature in this international context.

We are all very grateful for the dedicated and often very hard work you have both put into the shaping of this organisation, together with the other members of the executive. But it has also been evident that you have enjoyed the work. And finally, I hope that we will all enjoy this conference and that it will offer you new thoughts through shared experiences.

I will now leave the floor to Lars Sjöberg, who is a well-known Swedish musician and he will then take over the next part of this introduction together with Monica and Carl-Axel Dominique.

Siv Boalt Boëthius

Chair of the EFPP

Welcome greetings »»
Summary (with photo's) »»
Report from Discussion Group convenors meetings »»
Evaluation »»

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last updated: 2018-12-18