ABSTRACT
Though a number of developments that were very significant for the unfolding history of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) took place during the time of my presidency, 1985 to 1989, they were all overshadowed by the major threat to its organizational integrity –the lawsuit that threatened to split it asunder –which author will describe first. Intellectually, the dominant theme during authors' IPA presidency was the widespread consideration of the burgeoning theoretical diversity or pluralism in psychoanalytic thinking and practice. The theme selected for the 1987 IPA Congress in Montreal was the exploration, after 50 years, of Sigmund Freud's "Analysis Terminable and Interminable". Additionally, the IPA has been sequentially transformed administratively more than once in the intervening years, with little if any active memory of a time when the three regions did not have equal status and equal determining power. Overall, author had the fortune to lead the IPA through a period of major problems, major initiatives, and with major consequences.
