elected for two year terms. The most important scientific meeting is the annual “Congress of French speaking Psychoanalysts” in which French speaking I.P.A. analysts from the world over participate. Analysts trained at one of the Institutes of the S.P.P. work throughout France and abroad. In several regions of France, S.P.P. analysts have constituted groups for local members and students as well as proposing scientific activities open to the public. In Lyon, the local group counts more than 100 members and houses its own training facility: The Lyon Institute of Psychoanalysis. The Centre for Research and Psychoanalytic Information (C.R.I.P.) receives individuals seeking information about psychoanalysis. The other Regional associations of the S.P.P. are the: Toulouse Group of Psychoanalysis, which has a training centre, Mediterranean Group, Aquitaine Group, Brittany-Loire Country Group, Burgundy – Franche-Comté Group, Normandy Group and the Northern Group. Perspectives Analysts trained at the S.P.P. have a profound connection to Freud’s teaching. Well versed in post-Freudian theories, no other theory is considered to offer an understanding of the human psyche which is as complete. Many French theoreticians have made contributions which complement Freud’s theory and delve into what were hitherto unexplored regions of the mind and body. Until about 1970, psychoanalytic questions and reflections were primarily focussed on dreams and desire; issues which were rooted in Freud’s topographical theory. For some time now, Freud’s second, structural theory has been at the heart of clinical research and questions regarding destructivity (Jean Bergeret, Paul Denis, André Green), masochism (Benno Rosenberg), negative therapeutic reaction, narcissism (André Green, Bela Grunberger), object relations (Maurice Bouvet), perversion (Michel De M’Uzan, Joyce McDougall, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel), psychosomatic problems (Pierre Marty, Michel Fain, Christian David, and Michel de M’Uzan), the third (A. Green), psychic figurability (Sára Botella and Cesar Botella), child analysis (René Diatkine, Evelyne Kestemberg and Jean Kestemberg, Serge Lebovici, Superego (Jean-Luc Donnet) have been explored by SPP analysts. Goals In his 1922 Encyclopaedia article (S.E. XVIII pp. 235–259), Freud states: "Psychoanalysis" is the name: of a procedure for the investigation of mental processes which are almost inaccessible in any other way, of a method (based upon that investigation) for the treatment of neurotic disorders and of a collection of psychological information obtained along those lines, which is gradually being accumulated into a new scientific discipline. In accordance with the I.P.A., of which it is a component member, the SPP considers that the transmission of Psychoanalysis can only