ABSTRACT
In this article, the foundation of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (IJP) is placed in a context with other journals from the early period of psychoanalysis. It is shown that this foundation was based on scientific and structural principles which Freud had developed with a group of followers, the “Secret Committee”, based on the controversies with alternative psychoanalytic theories, Adler’s individual psychology, and Jung’s modifications of the libido theory. Adler and Jung had published their theories in journals in which they themselves had held key positions. Freud founded two new journals, Imago (1912) and Internationale Zeitschrift für Ärztliche Psychoanalyse (IZP, 1913), together with the members of the “Secret Committee” who gathered around him in 1912/1913, both of which became an “Official Organ of the International Psychoanalytical Association”. Freud filled the important positions in them, with himself as editor and members of the “Secret Committee” as the editorial staff. In this way, he wanted to ensure the adherence to a way of thinking that followed his views on psychoanalysis and his metapsychology. When a new journal was founded in the USA in 1913, which was close to Jung, the need for an English-language psychoanalytical journal that followed Freudian thought became apparent. After the end of World War I, this step was taken in 1918, and in July 1920, the IJP was published for the first time. In structure and orientation, it followed Imago and the IZP – the decisive positions were occupied by Freud (director), Jones (editor), and other members of the “Secret Committee”; it also became an “Official Organ of the International Psycho-Analytical Association”. In this process, Jones gained the role of the most important mediator of psychoanalysis in the English-speaking world. With the help of a translation committee (Glossary Committee), he sought to develop a uniform, canonized language for the English translation of psychoanalytic, especially Freudian, works. While during the first ten years mainly translated texts were printed, which had originally appeared in German psychoanalytical journals, since the end of the 1920s, the proportion of primarily English-language original works in the IJP grew and surpassed the translated texts, in connection with the emigration of most psychoanalysts from Central Europe to English-speaking countries. These changes also reflect the shift of power and influence in international psychoanalytical organizations.
