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The Forum of Psychoanalysis was founded in 1985 by the founding fathers Michael Ermann, Jürgen Körner, and Sven Olaf Hoffmann. This year, the two founders celebrate their 80th anniversary. The Forum of Psychoanalysis has been connecting clinical practice and research since its inception and is open to all psychoanalysts. It provides a space for exchange and encounter, where ideas are discussed and supported. The article celebrates the birthdays of Michael Ermann and Jürgen Körner, the founders and editors of the Forum of Psychoanalysis. The authors praise their ability to promote openness and creativity without allowing for arbitrariness. They have contributed to making the Forum a platform for interesting and substantial contributions. The authors thank the jubilarians for their long-standing work and wish them a happy birthday. [Extracted from the article]

Borders and rules define the psychoanalytical process and at the same time promote its 'magic' moments. Psychoanalysis contains thoroughly playful elements, even though it is concerned with severe crises and conflicts. These are very effective for example in working with transference. When a psychoanalyst assumes a transference role which has been unconsciously allocated to the psychoanalyst by the patient, the psychoanalyst becomes involved in the mental reality just as someone becomes involved in the reality of a game. In the game, which is played in earnest, something is portrayed in the psychoanalytical performance. In this context the asymmetrical rules for the linguistic game of psychoanalysis can be comprehended as 'disguise measures' which promote the magic of transference. This 'magic' is necessary in order to enter into a world detached from the everyday world and to set a process in motion. At the same time the psychoanalyst must be aware of the fact that the magic will be attributed to the psychoanalyst (and at the same time will be promoted by the borders and rules) who must never misuse this magic: it must always be used as a means of promoting the autonomy of the analysand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author discusses two aspects of psychoanalysis which in contrast to other fields have received little attention in the specialist literature: (a) the end of the analysis and (b) the postanalytical relationship between analysand and analyst. The circumstances of this specialist lag are seen among others as being due to unresolved fears and demands still remaining in the unconscious mind for both sides of the analytical pair. In that the author turns against the metaphor of death as the end of an analysis it is apostrophied as a separation process and developed into aspects, such as objectivity, process of sorrow, loss suffering, gain of relief, return and departure as well as dialectically folded gain of autonomy. In this way separation and binding can be simultaneously understood as essential features of every psychotherapy. The postanalytical relationship patterns will be illustrated according to the various starting positions, therapeutic or training analysis relationship, in each case internal and external reality and again for both sides of the analytical pair. The author is also especially concerned with the practical consequences in the reacquaintance of trainee and trainer. The cooperation on the dissolution of the original fascination of psychoanalysis and its allure is promoted. Both are required to be successful but both must be transferred into the (new) reality, whereby the analyst, even against internal self-resistance, must offer help because the analysand will only gradually be freed from the fascination and allure and be able to mourn and also in time welcome this loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If one enters a museum nowadays, one is soon confronted with a glass barrier. Mona Lisa is in the Louvre behind bullet-proof glass, Nofretete found her place in the Neues Museum in Berlin in a glass case standing on a spring-mounted fundament. They are art objects, admired, adored, loved, hated and sometimes destroyed. We may be touched by them, but they are not to touch (any more) for us. But the more the art objects recede the more assassination attempts on art are to be observed. What if anything have visits of museums with psychoanalytic sessions in common? Is there anything we can learn from assassination attempts on art or is it right to put them down as incomprehensible acts of seriously disturbed personalities? Art objects just as psychoanalysts have the power to allow aesthetic, e.g. sensual experiences which are able to change the person but in contrast to the notion of beauty linked repeatedly to aesthetics, these changes may also be disturbing. Entering a psychoanalytic practice just as entering a museum creates a tension between the sensual presence of the objects, their seductive potency, their invitation to be assimilated sensually on the one side and the simultaneous sensual deprivation, the imperative of distance and the prohibition of touching. Considering this aspect one seldom hears about attacks on psychoanalysts or on their inventory but it happens. Margaret Little informs about such attacks during her analysis with Winnicott. What is destroyed if a picture is destroyed? Are such assassination attempts attempts to provoke a sensual reaction, confirming the existence and the effectivity of the subject? Searching for answers to this question is a possible substantiation for endless new theories about who might have been the real model for Mona Lisa. This approach tends to see a picture purely as a sign referring to a signifié, perhaps to be protected against the sensual presence of the picture. Accordingly, psychoanalytic theories could also be considered as far as they are really above the ethically necessary imperative of the continuous reflection, to serve as glass plates behind which the analyst can seek shelter but which can also trigger in the patient an enormous desperation and destructiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]