INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
INTERNATIONALE GESELLSCHAFT FÜR ANALYTISCHE PSYCHOLOGIE
ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONALE DE PSYCHOLOGIE ANALYTIQUE
ASSOCIAZIONE INTERNAZIONALE DI PSICOLOGIA ANALITICA
ASOCIACION INTERNACIONAL DE PSICOLOGIA ANALITICA

Hester Solomon, President
12Kidderpore Gardens
London, NW3 7SR    UK
Tel. +44 20 7794 7402
e-mail: hester.solomon@blueyonder.co.uk

IAAP’s President Secretariat
e-mail: iaap.president.secretariat@usa.net
ph. & fax: +39 02 73958578

20 December 2009

Dear Presidents of IAAP Member Societies and IAAP Individual Members

It is a great pleasure to write to you as we near the end of 2009. Since I last wrote, the Officers, Executive Committee, and all the Committees, Sub-Committees and Working Parties have continued to follow through with their various tasks and responsibilities on behalf of the IAAP as a whole. I am writing to you as we enter the festive season to bring you up to date with recent news, and to give you some idea of the work, planning, and preparations that we have been engaged in over this year.

The rhythm of working has continued as it had during the previous year. The five Officers meet three times a year, in February, June, and November. Their work consists mainly in receiving and responding to general queries and to reports from the Sub-Committees and Working Parties, answering other communications, and preparing for the yearly meeting of the Executive Committee. We were joined at our second meeting of the year by Angela Connolly, member of the Executive Committee, and nominated by Joe Cambray, President Elect, as the next Honorary Secretary. We were pleased to welcome Angela, as she brings her large experience of the IAAP to our deliberations.

The Executive Committee meets once a year, usually in February, and a significant part of the Officers’ work during their November meeting is devoted to preparing for this meeting. At the time of the Executive Committee, there is provision for all the Sub-Committees and Working Parties to meet with a view to bringing their work forward, prior to reporting to the whole of the Executive Committee. As so much of their work is necessarily done via email, the opportunity for meeting face to face is a welcome and useful time for greater discussion and debate.

The third year of each administration is of course a very special one, as it is when the Council of Societies meets in February, and the triannual Congress in August takes place. The Council of Societies will meet for one day in February, at the time of the meeting of the Executive Committee. Here is the opportunity for the Presidents, or their representatives, from all the IAAP Societies to hear about what will be on the Agenda for the Delegates’ Meeting of the Congress, and to discuss matters of mutual interest. It is very important that these matters be taken back by the Presidents and their representatives to their Societies. The intention of the Council of Societies’ meeting is that the Delegates will thereby be informed of the topics that will be discussed at the August Delegates’ meeting, such that the Societies will have ample time to consider and debate them, and, when appropriate, informed voting will take place.

I also wanted you to know how pleased I am with how our financial affairs are being set out and administered. It is a great benefit to have, in Joe Cambray, a Finance Officer who shares with me the work of regular contact with and regulation of the IAAP’s finances, in close collaboration with Mr Martin Amsler, the IAAP Treasurer and lawyer, and Mr Daniel Gubser, the IAAP accountant. The devolution of the Committee budget system has also worked very well, such that Committees are now responsible for administering their own budgets, and we find that they are keeping well within the limits agreed at the Executive Committee meeting in February 2009.

The preparations for the Montreal Congress in August 2010 are progressing in a timely and satisfying way. The Executive Committee made a site visit during its meeting in February 2009, and found the planning, Congress venue, and accommodation provisions exemplary. A final selection of papers was made by the Program Committee. There was such a plethora of excellent choices that some very hard decisions had to be made about inclusion. The result is really very exciting and generative, and we anticipate a rich and rewarding program for our Congress.

Work has continued during this year on rehabilitating the IAAP Website. I urge you to visit this to see the fruits of the hard work Don Williams, as our Webmaster, has put into the Website, which has the dual purpose of serving as our public profile as well as our membership’s entry place into information about and contact with the IAAP.

The hardcover copy of the Newsletter for this administration has been pursued under the direction of the Editor, Emilija Kiehl. It was agreed that a sole hard copy of the Newsletter be printed for each administration, in order to keep to financial constraints. However, there is a yearly issue of the Newsletter available on the IAAP website. I do hope you will consult this freely, so inform yourselves of developments in the IAAP community overall.

The Governance Working Party, under the guidance of Paul Kugler, has continued to address the important matter of the Constitutional review. A feasibility study for this purpose was agreed upon by the Executive Committee, and the results of this study will be communicated to the Executive Committee in February.

The Mediation Working Party has also worked very hard during the year on considering the feasibility of setting up a Mediation Service within the IAAP for situations that may arise from time to time within and between IAAP Group members. As the work has progressed, the complexity of offering such a service has become increasingly clear, and discussions are still underway about this.

The fruits of the meeting in June 2008, that took place in London regarding matters pertaining to the Developing Groups and the Individual Router program, led to the establishment of an Education Working Party, chaired by Angela Connolly, to further the reflection regarding our efforts about these activities. It was agreed that the Developing Group and Individual Router programs has reached a critical developmental point, from the time of their early beginnings a little over a decade ago, and that a reorganization and recalibration were now due. This work will be ongoing, and will be a matter for consultation with the Officers and Executive Committee.

To conclude this holiday message, I would like to ask you to circulate this letter to the members of your Society, if possible in translation, so that as many members as possible of the IAAP, in the various regions of the world, will be informed at least to some degree, of the activities the IAAP is engaged in. More information about these is of course available on the IAAP website.

As always, it is my wish that all IAAP members feel in direct communication with me and with the Executive Committee.

I would like to close by wishing you and the members of your Society, and all Individual Members, an excellent festive season and the very best for 2010.

With all my good wishes

Hester McFarland Solomon
President, IAAP