ABSTRACT
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the IPA, this first Asian IPA Congress which took place in Beijing in 2010 brought together members from eight Asian psychoanalytic societies and groups and from even more different countries all over the world. Beside listening and discussing within the scientific programme, this meant having a meeting of people from different societies and cultures, who shared different histories and who had individual images and prejudices about foreigners. The organising committee therefore wanted to offer a frame for mutual exchange of impressions, observations, and thoughts about the daily congress experiences, thus enabling a more personal acquaintance among the members of different Asian psychoanalytic groups and the IPA members from other regions. This should have helped to transform foreigners into colleagues, whom we know better. The encouraging results of such groups in other international congresses supported our task, but at the same time brought up difficulties in areas we did not expect.
