In the modern world, psychoanalysis enables the subject to withstand the deadly effects of globalization processes in all spheres of life and activities, to survive in a consumer society, where the subject’s desires are negated. Following S. Freud, psychoanalysis can be called a path of truth, the truth of the subject. And in order to go this way, you need an appropriate psychoanalytic environment. That is why the members of the International Federation of Psychoanalysis adhere to the principles of psychoanalytic ethics and follow the rules of “three R”: Read, Research, Reinvent. To go this path is possible only if the psychoanalytic community follows the psychoanalytic principles which are laid down in the foundation of psychoanalytic practice.
Psychoanalysis is a time-proved, most complete system of knowledge about the underlying motives of human behaviour and mental processes. Psychoanalytic work obliges psychoanalysts to develop themselves and to improve their knowledge throughout their lives. Therefore, we stand on the positions of quality psychoanalytic training and in-depth study of texts by Freud and his followers.
Psychoanalysis is a method of study that originated from the psychoanalytic clinic and is based on the psychoanalytic theory. However, the psychoanalytic method has moved far beyond the limits of psychotherapy; it is not limited to the clinic and is used in various fields of science, art and modern life as a whole. It is impossible to imagine modernity without psychoanalysis, which is implanted into many areas of human life.
Our Federation as a community of psychoanalysts is based on the following principles:
- Psychoanalysis is, in the first instance, a special ethical position, which is to recognize the radical otherness of the other, to maintain the subject in his uniqueness and singularity. And the analyst’s role is to search for the truth of the subject, to recognize his desire, but not to withdraw his disturbing symptoms or “to normalize him”.
- Psychoanalysis insists on the subject’s singularity in the raging sea of modern life. It is about the subject’s recognition of his way of being in a world which has nothing to do with common ideas. The subject of psychoanalysis is not a passive object of certain techniques. He is an active participant in the process.
- The subject of psychoanalysis is more than just a human being. Following Lacan’s thought, we mean the speaking subject, the split subject, the subject of the unconscious, the subject of relations.
- Clinic and theory are inseparable. We consider it necessary to return again and again to psychoanalytic theory in order to protect the basis of psychoanalytic thought from modern distorting and simplifying interpretations.
- To protect the boundaries of psychoanalysis from modern psychological, psychotherapeutic theories based on psychoanalytic thought. The ethics of psychoanalysis does not take the side of good or evil. Therefore, the desire of the analyst cannot be the desire to help, cure, correct, etc.
- Our activity is aimed at preserving psychoanalysis as a theory, practical method, and cultural phenomenon.