Antonio Andreoli
I am glad to recommend Dr Giovanni Foresti for nomination to the IPA bureau. This is a well-informed advice I can provide since I know Dr Foresti from more than 20 years. Within this time, he was clinically trained during one year in Geneva under my direct supervision, we were involved in a number of common research, clinical and editorial projects and we established thereafter a continuous psychoanalytical relationship and collaboration.
Let me first stress that Dr Foresti is a fellow of such famous Italian psychoanalysts as Dario De Martis, who pioneered the field of applied psychoanalysis in Italy, and Antonino Ferro a master of psychoanalytic theory and technique. According to such filiation, Dr Foresti has become a gifted clinician with wide expertise in the various aspects of mental disease, a wise connoisseur of the psychoanalytical theory, and its relationship to both human science and neuroscience, a recognized teacher and a distinguished scientist. The excellence of its works and personal qualities has been widely acknowledged: over the last several years, he has been appointed scientific secretary in the Società Psicoanalitica Italiana, has been the general director of an important psychiatric hospital and has served, after his fellowship, as faculty in the University of Pavia. Finally he has published an impressive list of psychoanalytical and psychiatric papers and was the editor of successful books.
A second point I would like to stress is in keeping with the main aspects of Dr Foresti program. No doubt to me that bringing a focus on a pluralistic conception of psychoanalysis, structured support to new research, outreach activities and group dynamics he pointed to the several most significant points the international psychoanalysis confronted to and the future work of IPA will be as well. It is also of note that Dr Foresti is one of the best qualified psychoanalysts in his generation to respond this challenge. A man of outstanding culture and exquisite psychoanalytic scholarship, he will be able to focus on the diversity of the psychoanalytical work without wasting its very own specificity. By his academic and clinical background, he will be able to select and promote innovative studies and to support them. By his interdisciplinary expertise he will be able to identify new issues at the frontiers of contemporary psychoanalysis and to hold the controversies psychoanalysis has to face to survive and do well.
Finally, let me stress on the personality of Dr Foresti, namely as a leader, an expert conflict negotiator and a reliable partner. Together with his expertise in group dynamics, and the other point I discussed above, such personal gifts as work potential, sensitivity, diplomacy make him an excellent candidate to the IPA bureau and I strongly hope he will appointed to.
Antonio Andreoli