Introduction

This chapter focuses on the study of this rich material, the Working Party on Initiating Psychoanalysis (WPIP) of the European Psychoanalytical Federation (EPF) will try to clarify how analysts actually perform the task resulting in recommendation of analysis, and what goes on that makes it possible to initiate an analysis. The WPIP conducted its Workshops at the EPF Conferences from Vilamoura in 2005 up to and including the Paris conference in 2012; workshops were also held at the international psychoanalytical association congresses in Berlin and Chicago. In practice, several investigative teams, called Working Parties, were set up, each ideally composed of members from different EPF societies and psychoanalytic cultures. Many of these programmes involved bringing together the participating analysts in Clinical Workshops, held annually at the EPF conferences, where they could study the case material. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book.