The Institute for a Democratic Psychoanalysis adopts its “for a” rather than “of” in recognition of the fact that democracy, like psychic integrity, is never achieved once and for all. Cornelius Castoriadis’s work on what constitutes and generates democracy, and Sigmund Freud’s on what constitutes sublimation as well as what its accomplishment entails, are at the core of IDP. Thus, our three orienting questions are, what constitutes a psychoanalyst, psychoanalysis itself, and a democratic togetherness.
There is no final answer to how a psychoanalyst is formed, thus any ruling-caste inhibition of psychoanalysis must give way to both a receptivity and a generativity beyond oppressor-oppressed divisions.
IDP addresses the young people of today, as they take stock of the rapid and uncertain changes in civilization, and as they demand a voice that faces up to ossification in our field, calls it out, and asks questions on whose responses the very existence of any actual psychoanalysis rests.
