Introduction

The Foundation of the Freudian Field was created by Jacques Lacan in February 1979. The Foundation is open to all those, known and unknown, who throughout the world devote themselves to the teaching of Lacan and try to follow him in their own countries, in their own languages, in their own cultures. The Foundation is in this way open to the initiatives and innovations, which it itself calls for, although those who propose them are not also those who carry them out. In this melting pot were born seven Schools of the Freudian Field, which, together with the School of the Freudian Cause, today belong to the World Association of Psychoanalysis. The Foundation houses the Institute of the Freudian Field, to which multiple networks are linked, including numerous study groups, especially in countries where psychoanalysis had been ignored until then, even prohibited. The International Federation of the Libraries of the Freudian Field came to support this great movement throughout the world, since 1990, giving impulse to the debate and assuring the circulation of publications. Every two years the Foundation organises an International Encounter of the Freudian Field, which has been carried out since 1980 until 2002 on either side of the Atlantic alternatively. From 2003 this Encounter will take place in the odd years, alternating with the Congress of the WAP, which will take place simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic in the even years. Thus the XIIIth International Encounter took place in 2003: with the Encounter of Pipol (International Programme of Studies on Applied Psychoanalysis in the Lacanian Orientation – website: http://ri2003.champfreudien.org/)in Paris on the 14th and 15th of June, and the American Encounter in Buenos Aires on ‘The Uses of Psychoanalysis’ from the 19th to the 21st of September.

Note: The Foundation of the Freudian Field, so called from 1979, is legally registered as a charitable association under the legal name of Association of the Foundation of the Freudian Field.