Scope and Content Note
The records of the International Psycho-Analytical Association (IPA) span the years 1933-1971, with the bulk concentrated in the period 1965-1970, when Piet Jacob van der Leeuw was president of the organization. The collection consists mainly of the presidential correspondence of van der Leeuw and of the organization's secretary, Mario Montessori, with other officials and members of the IPA, officials of component organizations, and leaders of the psychoanalytical movement. The collection also includes memoranda, minutes of meetings, a small file of clippings from Dutch and German newspapers, newsletters and other printed material, reports on the psychoanalytical movement in France, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, and a case file on a schismatic movement in France.
The IPA, established by Sigmund Freud and others in 1910, was the administrative and organizing vehicle of the psychoanalytical movement. Until the American Psychoanalytic Association severed direct administrative ties in 1938, the IPA was the regulating body for the psychoanalytic profession worldwide. After the 1938 restructuring, the association, still synonymous with psychoanalysis as an organized international movement, concentrated on establishing training standards for analysts. The IPA maintained a permanent office in London, but van der Leeuw and Montessori conducted their official business from Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The collection is divided into General Correspondence and Miscellany series. The General Correspondence documents van der Leeuw's term as president, and although letters to and from him are well represented, a majority of the correspondence was generated by Montessori, who as secretary of the IPA, bore most of the administrative burden. Much of the correspondence is concerned with organizing scientific meetings and biannual congresses. The correspondence reflects van der Leeuw's concern with developing and maintaining close ties with component organizations, especially in Mexico and South America. While much of the correspondence is in English, letters in German, Dutch, French, and Spanish are also present. Correspondents include Jacob A. Arlow, Helen Boxall, Anna Freud, Ernst L. Freud, William H. Gillespie, Avelino Gonzalez, Leon Grinberg, Pearl King, Heinz Kohut, Rudolph Maurice Loewenstein, Maria C. MacKenzie-van der Noorda, Gerhard Maetze, Sacha Nacht, Raymond de Saussure, Wilhelm Solms-Rödelheim, Arthur F. Valenstein, and Elizabeth Rosenberg Zetzel.
The Miscellany series contains material related to a number of subjects and organizational activities. The constitution and bylaws file contains the constitution of the Sigmund Freud Gesellschaft (Vienna, Austria), with a translation from German to English by Montessori; bylaws of the American Psychoanalytic Association; and drafts of amendments to the statutes and bylaws of the IPA. Documentation of the internal workings of the IPA include a memoranda file, consisting mainly of communications by van der Leeuw and Montessori with the organization's executive council, and a small file of minutes of formal meetings of component organizations, such as the Brazilian Psycho-Analytical Society of Rio de Janeiro, and of informal meetings, such as one held in 1965 between IPA members and psychoanalysts from Eastern Europe. A newsletters file contains IPA newsletters, 1966-1969, edited by van der Leeuw, and twelve issues, 1966-1969, of the Boletin Informativo , an organ of the Asociacion Psicoanalíitica Argentina. A reports file spans the years 1959-1971 and includes reports on component organizations in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Of special interest are numerous reports, some of them supported by a confidential case file, 1953-1965, on a dissident movement within La Société Française de Psychanalyse, Paris, France.