Mandate
This Committee falls within the Professional, Scientific and Educational Group of IPA Committees. The overall strategic objective of the Group of Committees is "to foster scientific development and learning, and the maintenance of high professional standards".
Background
The Committee was established in 1998 to provide a framework for the exploration of topics relating to issues primarily of concern to women. In 2001 it shifted to considering the relations between men and women, masculinity and femininity, and currently includes issues of concern to men.
The particular approach of this Committee has been to link theoretical and clinical psychoanalytical thinking with the outside world and its problems. This approach is not only significant from a socio-cultural viewpoint: experience has been that it has often contributed to a revision and updating of psychanalytical concepts.
Scientific Issues
The Committee will continue to encourage and support local, national and international study groups, to organize conferences and regional events and foster publications, by creating, where possible, opportunities for psychoanalytic meetings, work groups, and theoretical-clinical conferences on issues of social relevance.
The Committee aims to expand interchanges amongst analysts interested in the activities of the Committee, and will also encourage candidates to participate in its activities.
The Committee will conduct psychoanalytical research into problems concerning the complex relations between categories of sexuality and gender and their implications for psychoanalysis. It is planned to study the cultural and historical influences on the construction of psychoanalytic theories related to men and women.
Political Issues
The Committee will aim to establish joint activities with other institutions such as NGO organizations. Any joint activities with institutions where the IPA already has Committees working in these areas, such as the UN or universities, must be established in agreement with those Committees.
The Committee will aim to further psychoanalytic knowledge in the community and to encourage young professionals to undertake psychoanalytic training.
Reporting
The Chair of the Committee will provide a report to the Board not less than once a year outlining the actions and achievements of the Committee in pursuit of its Mandate.
Term
The Chair and members of this Committee will be assumed to have submitted their resignations on the change of IPA administration in accordance with the Committees section within the IPA's Procedural Code.
Approved by the Board by email November 2005
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