The aim pursued by Freud and Ferenczi in 1910, when they founded the International Psychoanalytical Association-to establish a regulatory body for the safeguarding of psychoanalysis-was supported by the international 'Guidelines for Psychoanalytic Training' developed by Max Eitingon and adopted in 1925. However, resistance to this centralised conception of psychoanalytic training soon emerged. This resistance grew as psychoanalysis spread worldwide across different cultures. The fact that differing approaches and regional autonomy in psychoanalytic training were able to gain a foothold under the umbrella of the IPA was demonstrated by the 2007 decision-still in force today-to grant equal recognition to the three training models: the Eitingon model, the French model and the Uruguayan model. A tension has arisen between central and local authorities regarding the organisation of psychoanalytic training within the IPA, which, depending on its intensity, can be either paralysing or creative for the further development of psychoanalysis. In the author's view, different translations into English of the German term 'Gleichgesinnte' used by Ferenczi highlight these contrasts. "Gleichgesinnte", who form the IPA as "people who think in the same way" (Haynal's translation), may leave less room for cultural differences than "Gleichgesinnte", who form the IPA as "like-minded people" (the author's translation). The author emphasises the value of a democratically legitimised, central authority, which must, however, remain in dialogue with local authorities within the IPA.
The institutional debates about the inclusion of teleanalysis in psychoanalytic training, as well as about session frequency in training, involve important questions grounded in psychoanalytic practice and experience. The divergent views on these matters will require close collaboration between as many members of the International Psychoanalytic Association as possible to understand their reasons. Our common ground as psychoanalysts may lie most of all in our ability to do this psychoanalytic exploratory work together. Ultimately, the authority behind institutional decisions must derive from the authority of psychoanalysis as a clinical and scientific discipline which we develop and perfect together.
This paper argues that Marion Milner occupies a foundational position in the development of two central concepts in contemporary psychoanalysis: Wilfred Bion's conception of reverie and Donald Winnicott's understanding of play. Milner was the originating theorist whose innovations established the conceptual ground upon which both Bion and Winnicott built their most celebrated contributions. Milner introduced "reverie" into psychoanalytic discourse before Bion, deploying it to describe states of creative absorption within a protected analytic frame - a formulation Bion would later refine and claim as his own. Milner's theorisation of absent-mindedness, bodily awareness and the dedifferentiation of "me" and "not-me" boundaries provided the essential scaffolding for both Bion's reverie technique and Winnicott's conception of play. The creative potential of omnipotence, the therapeutic value of pre-logical thinking, aesthetic experience and regressive processes - ideas now routinely attributed to her male contemporaries - originated in Milner's work, as will be shown here. Her integration of artistic sensibility with psychoanalytic theory constitutes an independent and generative intellectual achievement. Recovering Milner's priority transforms our understanding of reverie and play not as competing frameworks but as two tributaries flowing from a common source. A more historically accurate account of these concepts' development places Milner at its centre.
In this manuscript, I describe my experience of the evolving place of teleanalysis in psychoanalytic practice and education, focusing on the central role of the analyst's internal frame in sustaining analytic work across settings. Drawing on clinical, supervisory, teaching, and personal analytic experience, I argue that the usefulness of psychoanalysis depends less on the external setting than on the analyst's capacity to function analytically in the face of absence, uncertainty, and loss. I suggest that a priori views of teleanalysis as "less real" or "less effective" often reflect defensive efforts to avoid these anxieties, foreclosing analytic inquiry. Rather than treating differences between in-office and teleanalytic work as indicators of equivalence or inferiority, I propose that we view each setting as mobilising distinct transference-countertransference configurations that require symbolic elaboration. I consider the educational implications of these observations, arguing that teleanalytic treatment and supervision during training can provide a vital context for engaging, testing, and strengthening candidates' internal analytic frame and psychoanalytic identity. I contend that given the worldwide and widespread adoption of the teleanalytic frame, teaching candidates how to practise analysis while working teleanalytically during their training has become an existential issue for psychoanalysis.
