Amy Cohen is a psychoanalyst working in Paris. She pursued graduate studies in comparative literature at Columbia University and completed her training in clinical psychology at the University of Paris VII[amyc@ccr.jussieu.fr].

Patrizia Cupelloni, psychoanalyst, “membro ordinario” of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society and of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), lives and works in Rome. Formed as a Freudian and Bionian analyst, for a long time she dealt with the psychoanalytic theory of the Group and she was co-editor of the Italian journal "Koinos- Gruppo e funzione analitica", at that time edited by Francesco Corrao. From many years she is interested to the topic of feminine identity and she is researching on undifferentiated psychic levels. During these latest ten years her work is focused on the topic of mourning and melancholia. She is co-author of various collective books and she published many articles on Italian and foreign journals. She is the editor of a volume on the melancholic states of mind which will be published soon in Italian (publisher: Franco Angeli)
[cupcup@tiscalinet.it].

Peter Hildebrand was born in England in 1928 and educated there and in the US. He took his first degree in Psychology at the Sorbonne in 1951 and then went to the Institute of Psychiatry in London where he took a Ph.D. with Hans Eysenck. He worked at the Tavistock Clinic from 1953-93 and was for many years Chief Psychologist. He was also Professor Associate of Psychology at Brunel University He became a Psychoanalyst in 1958 and has been a training analyst for the British Psychoanalytic Society since 1967. He founded the Bulletin of the EPF in 1971 and the Colloques Franco-Britanniques with René Major in the same year. He has written on Brief Psychotherapy, “Ageing” in Beyond Mid Life Crisis, Training Therapists (with Michael and Enid Balint) and Psychotherapy with patients with HIV and Aids. At present, he is preparing a book on Shakespeare and Psychoanalysis. [hph@easynet.co.uk].

Catherina Koltai (born in Budapest, Hungary) is a Brazilian psychoanalyst. After having studied sociology, she works actually as analyst in São Paulo. She teaches sociology and psychoanalytical theory at Pontificia Universidade Catolica of São Paulo. She is a translator from French to Portuguese, a author of some articles in Brazilian newsletters and of the book Pol’tica e Psicanálise: o Estrangeiro (São Paulo: Escuta).
[Address: Rua Piaui 335 pat. 112, São Paulo 01242-001 SP
Brazil - Caty@Osite.com.br].

Giorgio Landoni, M.D., is a psychiatrist who formed himself in Lausanne, Switzerland. Since 1975 he has been working in Milan as a psychoanalyst, first of the Swiss Psychoanalytical Society. Nowadays he is member of the I.P.A. He has participated in the foundation of the Italian Group-Analytical Society (SGAI). Some essays of him appeared on L’Evolution Psychiatrique, Social Psychiatry, Rivista Italiana di Psicoanalisi and Rivista Italiana di Gruppoanalisi. [Via G. Boccaccio 35
20123 Milano - Italy].

René Major, M.D., is a specialist in Psychiatry. He was trained in psychoanalysis at the Paris Psychoanalytical Society and became a Training Analyst in the early 1970s. During that time he also followed Lacan's teaching at Sainte-Anne Hospital and at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. After having been Director of the Paris Psychoanalytic Institute in 1973, he founded in 1979 the journal Confrontation. In 1983, he was appointed Program Director at the newly created International College of Philosophy in Paris. He is also President of the International Society for the History of Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis. In 1995 he has created the journal Contretemps. Among his books: Rêver l' autre (Paris: Aubier, 1977); L' agonie du jour (Paris: Aubier, 1979); Le discernement (Paris: Aubier, 1984); De l' élection (Paris: Aubier, 1986); Lacan avec Derrida (Paris: Mentha, 1991). For July 2000, he organized in Paris the Estates General of Psychoanalysis [renemajor@aol.com].

Diego Napolitani, M.D., was a member of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society from 1963 until he left the Society in 1999. He founded and directed the first “therapeutic communities” for psychotic patients in Italy, inspired by therapeutic communities directed by Maxwell Jones at Melrose Hospital in Scotland, and Thomas Main at Cassel Hospital in London. This experience led him to an ever greater interest in group analysis, and in historicist-relational psychoanalysis. He was a member of the Group Analytic Society founded by S.H. Foulkes in London, and based on this theoretical principle, he founded in 1980 the Italian Society of Group Analysis. By "group analysis", he means the substitution of the “monadic” representation of the mind (psyche) with its structurally relational representation (relation between inner groupings, the idem, and reorganizative or creative disposition, the autos). He has published two books in Italian: Di palo in frasca (Milan: Corpo 10, 1986) and Individualità e gruppalità (Turin: Boringhieri, 1987). Most of his work has been published in the Italian Journal of Group Analysis (Rivista Italiana di GruppoAnalisi), edited by SGAI and two other group-analytic associations. [dinapol@tin.it]

Elisabeth Roudinesco, historian, psychoanalyst and writer, was born in 1944. She was a member of the Ecole Freudienne de Paris (1969-1981). She teaches History at the University of Paris VII, and at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She is Vice-president of the International Society of History of Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis. Her published works include: L' Inconscient et ses Lettres (Paris: Mame, 1975); Jacques Lacan & Co. A History of Psychoanalysis in France (London: Free Association, 1990; Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press, 1990); Théroigne de Méricourt. Une femme mélancolique sous la Révolution (Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1989; Engl.transl., London: Verso 1991); Jacques Lacan. Esquisse d' une vie, histoire d' un système de pensée (Paris: Fayard, 1993; Engl.transl., New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1996); Généalogies (Paris: Fayard, 1994); with Michel Plon, Dictionnaire de la Psychanalyse (Paris: Fayard, 1999)[89, Avenue Denfert-Rochereau Ð 75014 Paris].

Jacqueline Rousseau-Dujardin, M.D., French psychoanalyst and writer. She practiced as psychiatrist (interne) in psychiatric hospitals until 1964, after which she entered into private psychoanalytic practice. She was a member of the Société Psychanalytique de Paris until 1976, when she resigned. Among her books: Couché par écrit (Paris: Galilée, 1980); Tu as changé (Paris: Aubier, 1987); Ce qui vient à l’esprit (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1995); with Françoise Escal, Musique et différence des sexes (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999); and a novel, L’excursion (Paris: Aubier, 1984). She co-authored: Psychanalyse et Musique (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982); A la musique (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1993); L’exercice du savoir et la différence des sexes (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1990) [rousseaudujardin@wanadoo.fr].

Janet Thormann, obtained her Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and currently teaches English Literature at the College of Marin, Kentfield, California. She is also on the Faculty of the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis, Berkeley, California. She is editor of the journal Anamorphosis (journal of the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis and the San Francisco Society for Lacanian Studies) and associate editor of the journal Literature and Psychoanalysis. She is the author of three books of poetry and of numerous articles on Old and Middle English poetry, Shakespeare, and modern literature. [JanetThormann@aol.com]

Francisco J. Varela holds a doctoral degree in biological sciences from Harvard University (1970). His interests have centered on the biological mechanisms of cognitive phenomena and human consciousness, both at the level of experimental research and conceptual foundations. Currently he is Director of Research at CNRS (National Council for Scientific research) and a member of CREA (Cognitive and Epistemological Sciences) at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris [LENA - (Neurosciences Cognitives et Imagerie Cérébrale) - CNRS UPR 640 - Hôpital de la Salpètriere, 47 Blvd. de l'Hôpital 75651 Paris Cedex 13 - fv@ccr.jussieu.fr]

Silvia Vegetti Finzi is professor of psychoanalysis in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pavia, Italy. She has played an important intellectual role within the Italian feminist movement, in particular through her contributions to the activities of the Cultural Center Virginia Woolf in Rome and to the Centro Documentazione Donna in Florence. Her published works include: Storia della psicoanalisi (Milan: Mondadori, 1990); Mothering (New York: Guilford Press, 1996); Ein Versprechen auf Ewig (Berlin: Rowohlt, 1995); Volere un figlio (Milan: Mondadori, 1997). With others: Beyond Equality and Difference (London: Routledge, 1992); The Lonely Mirror. Italian Perspectives on Feminist Theory (London: Routledge, 1993); Freud and Judaism (London: Karnac Books, 1993); Le souffle des femmes (Paris: ACGF, 1996)[svf@galactica.it].