On August 19th, 1973, it was exactly 2 pm Swiss time, when the meeting started. Jorge Burmeister, IAGP Former President, invited all IAGP Community to make a toast together – a real or an imaginary one – on behalf of our dear founder, the wonderful JL Moreno, the other co-founders, Zerka Moreno, Malcolm Pines, Anne Ancelin Schützenberger, Adolf Friedemann, Raymond Battegay, Sam Hadden, Jay Fidler, Raoul Schindler, Anneliese Heigl-Evers, Grete Leutz and Heika Straub. and their inspiration on which we can still build!
It was the Salon Triton at the Grand Hotel Dolder in Zurich where they met 50 years ago after having rearranged the room. It does not exist anymore as this part of the Grand Hotel was rebuilt but the photo at least can give us an idea how it could have been. Triton, the god of the sea, a god of transition being half dolphin and half man seems to be a perfect genius locus as he has been always helpful to men and could orchestrate the sea, the symbol of emotions and motherhood. Where else should have been born IAGP?
With the words of Raymond Battegay “it was a wonderful feeling after years of preparatory work to finally have a formal organization unifying group psychotherapists and the theoretical workers in this field all over the world: The International Association of Group Psychotherapy (IAGP)”. And with the words of JL Moreno, IAGP´s honorary president, written just one month before his death in 4.1974: “now that we have finally after 22 years been able to concretize our efforts by blowing the breath of life into an International Association of Group Psychotherapy, let us carrying forward its growth with continuing zest.”
So we do! Thank you dear founder and co-founders: cheers
Jorge Burmeister
