ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses three main areas Horacio Etchegoyen tackled during his presidency: the relationship between the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and its members, the relationship between the IPA and its component societies, and the relationship between the IPA and society at large. The achievements in these three areas are, authors believe, as relevant as they were then. Freud warned us about the repetition compulsion, which can affect individuals, institutions, and governments. Of course, this is not all Freud said: one of Etchegoyen's favourite quotes may remind us all that not only the negativity of repetition but the positivity of reason are at play in society. In addition to the three core areas we have discussed, it is also worth mentioning one further institutional achievement. Horacio Etchegoyen, alongside Ana Maria Andrade de Azevedo, Elizabeth Tabak de Bianchedi, Gunther Perdigao, Jorge Olagaray, and Samuel Zysman, undertook to restructure the finances of the IPA, which had been in the red.
