The XXI Congress of the International Association for Analytical Psychology.
Encountering the Other: Within Us, Between Us, and in the World.
August 25-30, 2019, Vienna, Austria
In 2019 the International Association for Analytical Psychology will convene its 21st Congress in Vienna, Austria, where Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and C. G. Jung all played their roles in
the founding of psychoanalysis. Originally joined in what they considered to be a defining moment for the coming 20th Century, they soon found that conflict would define their movement as much as their shared interest in the forces that shaped the human mind. For Freud and Jung, the conflicts that arose between them also demanded an exploration of their own psychological depths. As they increasingly defined one another as “the other” in the world of psychoanalysis, they also had to face the other within themselves. This process took various forms, and the call for participation in this congress encourages an encounter with the other within us, between us, and in the world.
In the years immediately before the First World War C. G. Jung experienced the terror of those coming events within his own psyche through dreams and visions that he could neither explain
nor ignore and that he feared foreshadowed his own mental breakdown. The outbreak of the war allowed Jung to understand his own psyche as intimately connected to transformations taking place within the culture. While we may now see darkness in many areas of the world, Jung teaches us that understanding our own darkness is the first step in understanding the darkness in others. The fragility of our own psyche speaks to the fragility of the institutions we have come to rely on in our daily life. If we are entering another period of transition where conflict between religions, nations and individuals threatens the fabric of societies throughout the world, forcing psyche to once again examine that which is within, and its expression in the objective world, then Jung’s example stands as a guide to our process. Analytical psychology itself is part of this transition as older established structures are challenged by the emergence of new programs of training in parts of the world that had not been in contact with Jung’s thought as little as 20 years ago. The character of the transition now takes the form of seeing the other within our own communities, whether in nations that are turning inward against their own citizens, or in the analytic world where the ideal of individuation would hold out the promise of accepting the other as part of oneself.
While discussions of the other have become common place in many areas of cultural analysis, the theme of this congress looks first of all to the other within our selves, where, like Jung, we may both see the outlines of larger cultural movements, but at the cost of the stability of our own sense of self. The challenge that the congress places before the analytic community is to examine the manifestations of the fear of the other within, as a guide to understanding the experience of otherness that threatens the world we inhabit. Questions that arise as we begin this process of self-examination include the future development of analytical psychology as it becomes a more global movement, the training of analysts to work in a global community that faces a rapidly changing scientific, political and cultural environment, and the role of analytical psychology in the larger world of political and cultural activity.
With very best wishes from the Program Committee of the XXI International Congress for Analytical Psychology
George Hogenson (CSJA), Vice-President, Chair
Misser Berg (DSAP), Vice-President
Gerhard Burda (OGAP)
Eduardo Carvallo (SCJA)
Toshio Kawai (AJAJ, AGAP), President Elect
Marianne Müller (SGAP), President
Martin Schmidt (SAP) Honorary Secretary
Jacqueline West (NMSJA)
Luisa Zoppi (AIPA)