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At the end of the 1950s there were two psychoanalysts in Caracas: Hernán Quijada, trained in Paris, and Guillermo Teruel, analyzed in London. The first reactions of associated groups (psychiatrists, psychologists) were varied, ranging from an attitude of refusal for some to curiosity and affiliation for others. Quijada's important position in the Ministry for Health made it easier to receive state support.

Quijada, Teruel, Manuel Kizer, Antonio García, Fernando Acuña, Cesar Augusto Ottalagano, Julio Aray, Antonio Briceño, Nicolás Cupello, Hugo Domínguez, Juan Antonio Olivares, Hans Voss, and W. Hobaica formed a work group that was officially recognized by the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) at the Copenhagen congress in 1965. Between 1966 and 1969 an IPA committee comprising León Grinberg and Maria Langer from Buenos Aires, Alfredo Nannum from Mexico, Luiz Guimarães Dalheim and Adelheid Lucy Koch from Brazil, worked at improving the group's training by revising theory and conducting group controls.

In 1969 the international committee appointed Teruel as the first training analyst. That same year, at the international Congress in Rome, the work group was transformed into a definitive association (Asociación Venezolana de Psicoanálisis; ASOVEP), prior to being affiliated to the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1971, at the Vienna Congress. The first group of candidates commenced training in 1969.

In May 1975 power struggles and exclusion anxiety gave rise to conflicts within the association between the oldest analysts and new arrivals. Two groups were formed with their respective orientations, calling for the intervention of the International Psychoanalytical Association at the London Congress in the same year. In 1976 a committee directed by Maxwell Gitelson and comprising Serge Lebovici, Daniel Widlöcher, Edward Joseph, and David Zimmermann went to Caracas to visit the association. Thanks to their intervention, the dissensions were soothed and a joint agreement was signed in 1977.

In 1983 Manuel Kizer, one of the founding members, left the ASOVEP to create a Lacanian group. In May 1989, after more quarrels, fifteen other members decided to constitute a separate group and received recognition as a work group from the International Psychoanalytical Association. This group went on to be recognized at the San Francisco Congress of 1995 as the Caracas Psychoanalytic Association.

The most noteworthy contributions from the ASOVEP includes J. Aray's work on the fetal psychism and abortion; Hugo Domínguez's study of the dynamics of communication; Alfonso Gisbert's work on the identity of the psychoanalyst; Rafael E. López-Corvo's study of femininity, addictions, and auto-envidia ("self-envy"); and Guillermo Teruel's work on the interaction between couples and the death instinct. From the Caracas Psychoanalytic Association, Addys Attías stands out for work on adolescent pathology, and A. Torres for work on feminine identification and neurosis.

There are therefore two associations in Caracas, each equipped with a training institute. In terms of publications, the ASOVEP review Psicoanálisis appears at irregular intervals, as well as a few monographs. The Caracas Association publishes a twice-yearly review, Trópicos.

RAFAEL E. LÓPEZ-CORVO