and News from other IARPP Chapters:

Israel
Greece
Mexico
New Zealand
Portugal
United Kingdom

Mexico Chapter

by Alejandra Plaza Espinosa
aplazaespinosa@yahoo.com

We are a group of therapists from different associations and different ways of thinking, but we all agree in the relational approach as a way of working and understanding life.

We are starting with 20 members and we are 6 in the main planning group, which consists in:

Alejandra Plaza, José Ángel Aguilar, Anne Marie Maxwell, Adriana Dávila, Patricia Minjares, Lucía Chávez.

We are very enthusiastic to create a platform for the dissemination of Relational Psychoanalysis and to consolidate an academic group with our own identity.

During 2013 we organized a course of Relational Psychoanalysis that had two parts: A series of 6 Videoconferences. The speakers were Alejandro Ávila, Joan Coderch, Carlos Rodríguez Sutil, Ariel Liberman and Margaret Crastnopol. The other part of the course consisted of a Study Group that discussed the topics presented by the experts.

The videoconferences gave us the opportunity to discuss, analyze and reflect about theoretical and clinical topics with psychoanalysts that are very far from Mexico and that have a lot of experience and knowledge. We have read papers by these authors and, by this means, we have had feedback about our reflections. It was very motivating to realize that are different points of view, within the relational approach. We had the chance to share our thoughts with authors from a new generation that are creating a new psychoanalytical frame. It was a great experience to meet  people who have the courage to question classical psychoanalysis.

For 2014 we plan to continue with the videoconferences and the Study Group. We are going to organize a program of film discussion, with the aim of spreading our activities to the public interested in these topics.

We are building a website, where people can be in contact with us to learn about our events, and where we can post our papers, conferences, presentations. We already have a Facebook page, that is less formal, the address is https://www.facebook.com/AmigosRelacionales?ref=profile.

We are going to organize a National Conference, to present papers from Mexican Psychoanalysts. We know that it’s a very big responsibility and commitment, but our motivation is as big as the challenges.

We want to thank Chana and Neil for their kindness and support, and we are especially grateful with Alejandro Ávila for his encouragement and friendly advice.

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ISRAEL CHAPTER REPORT

by Sharon Ziv Beiman

In the last issue of IARPP eNews, we shared with you the strong impact of the conference Individuals and Groups – Mutual Vulnerability: A Unique International Conference
with Professor Lew Aron that took place on July 4th and 5th 2013 IN Tel Aviv.

During the seven months that passed from July, the Israeli chapter of IARPP organized and operated the following events:

A clinical meeting  centered around the relational aspects of art therapy as seen in the therapy of an 8 years old boy  – case presenter: Yoni Schur, discussant: Ester Bamberger, chair: Tamar Barnea.

A seminar called,  “Face to Face-couple-relations and Couple Therapy from Relational Perspectives: Theory and Clinical Demonstrations” – presenters: Irit Kliener-Paz and Orna Schur

An evening with Joyce Slochower moderated by Mitchel Becker in which she presented her paper “Witnessing and Participating: Sexual Boundary Violations and the Psychoanalytic Community”

A one day conference organized in cooperation with the Israeli Association for Family and Couple Therapy: “Contributions and Innovations of the Relational Approach to Family and Couple Therapy” – Presenters: Irit Kliener –Paz, Orna Schur, Sharon Ziv Beiman, Aviva Mazor and Elinor-Gurion-Bashan.

On March 6th-7th 2014 our annual conference, “Relational Circles 2014” will take place. The vision of the conference is to create the space needed for co-learning, developing and exploring relational ideas as they relate to theory and practice. Twenty-one workshops and 16 original papers will allow the participants to intimately investigate ,experience and discuss relational concepts concerning :  trauma, dissociation, gender and sexuality, cultural contexts and the therapeutic arena, ethics and psychoanalytic process, therapeutic stories, self-disclosure as manifestation of the therapist’s subjectivity, spontaneity and rituals in the psychoanalytic process,  supervision as dreaming, therapeutic narratives from relational perspectives, the influence of therapeutic processes on the therapist’s personal life, relational aspects of couple-relations on individual and couple therapy, the relational body of the therapist, femininity and masculinity and their inter-relations, relational oriented supervision groups, implementing playback theatre techniques into relational therapy, the “dance” of patient’s and therapist’s relational patterns in psychotherapy, learning and reflecting group on treating parents, and more.  An estimated  400 participants will take part in the conference.

In May 2014:
Together with “Amcha” ( An Israeli mental health-care organization for Holocaust survivors and their families) we will host Ghislaine Boulanger who will discuss, together with Irit Kliener-Paz, a case presented by Offer Dubretzky – the chief psychologist of “Amcha”.

We will be hosting Steven Kuchuck who will participate in 2 events:

1) Together with the Tel Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, a half day conference to celebrate the publication of the book he edited: Clinical Implications of the Psychoanalyst’s Life Experience: When the Personal Becomes Professional. We will focus on Chana Ullman’s chapter:

“The personal is political, the political is personal: On the subjectivity of an Israeli psychoanalyst

2)Together with the Gay-Friendly Psychotherapy Group, an evening to discuss Steve’s paper The Therapeutic Action of Male Sexual Desire in the Treatment of Heterosexual Men

Most importantly, on October 2013 the forum had a special meeting dedicated to re-evaluating the Forum’s vision and goals. The essence of the discussion centered on the tension between those who wish the forum would invest in deepening and expanding the conceptualization of relational thought in the field of psychoanalysis and those   who wish to promote the integration of the relational thought with other therapeutic schools or its assimilation and implementation in a variety of contexts. There was an agreement that the mission is to maintain the dialectical tension between these two visions.

We look forward to continued sharing of our activities with you.

On Behalf of the Israeli Forum for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy,

Sharon Ziv Beiman

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United Kingdom Chapter

by Aaron Balick

This year has seen some big changes in the UK chapter of IARPP. Most notably, our Chair, Susie Orbach has decided to step down after more than a decade of service. Joining her, founding and executive member Jane Haberlin has also stepped down. Both Susie and Jane carry a great deal of history for relational thinking in the UK, having both been members of the original relational study group that later developed into IARPP UK and The Relational School (TRS), which is the organisation responsible for our relational community and events. Their departure was announced at our annual general meeting in December, where Aaron Balick (who previously served as vice chair) was appointed Chair and Marsha Nodelman (also a member of the original grouping) was appointed vice chair. Susie and Jane will be greatly missed.

Both Susie and Jane, among others, were responsible for the founding event in 2002 “What is Relational Psychoanalysis” — a “teach-in” that garnered a great deal of enthusiasm for relational thinking here in the UK and instigated IARPP UK and TRS. A lot has changed in the UK since that event, with relational thinking now a staple of many psychotherapy trainings throughout the country. The remaining executive committee is now meeting regularly to discuss the next steps for IARPP UK and TRS in this context.

We are currently engaged in other groupings with a relational interest and are exploring creative alliances with them. We made a start by co-organising with the International Association of Relational Transactional Analysis (IARTA), an intimate discussion at at The Freud Museum with Lewis Aron on the limits of relationality; we are having a follow up meeting with them to see where else we can build bridges.  In an effort to exploit the talents and experience of our membership, we had a presentation from Robert Downes on photography and relationality which was followed by a very engaging discussion. This year also saw the publication of Aaron Balick’s relationally inspired book, The Psychodynamics of Social Networking: Connected-up Instantaneous Culture and The Self for which there was a launch event followed a few days later by a discussion with Susie Orbach at The Freud Museum London.

Our next event in March, “Meeting What Can’t Be Met” will look at the limits of working relationally with regard to situations where therapists may feel impotent in relation to their patients’ despair. Following this we will have a members’ forum to discuss new directions for The Relational School which will include relationships with other UK organisations interested in relational thinking, and developing our discussion list and website. We hope to use technology to enable greater community relating within the membership including members’ events, study and supervision groups. We very much hope to build upon our very engaged community of relational thinkers and clinicians.

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News from the New Zealand Chapter

Andrew Duncan,Chairperson
(Andrew@donnache.co.nz) and

Gavin Stansfield, Secretary
(GavinStansfield@gmail.com)

Since you last heard from us, we are pleased to say that we held a successful weekend Symposium – called “Thinking Clinically” – in Auckland last September.

Numbers at this fully subscribed event were limited to sixty, so that everyone could participate in the rich group conversations that followed each keynote presentation and the accompanying response from a discussant.

Auckland psychotherapist, Bill Farrell used a captivating description of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ to illustrate how the work of Bion and Matte-Blanco informs his understanding of the unconscious and shapes his clinical work. Marianne Quinn, from Dunedin, generously shared some deeply affecting personal experiences about having the limits of her ‘therapeutic hospitality’ transgressed. Suzanne Johnson, a psychotherapist from Wellington, challenged our traditional thinking about gender in clinical practice and described the kind of non-judgmental, containing, ‘identity space’ she cultivates in her work. In the fourth session, Louise de Lambert (ably assisted by Jennifer Howarth) introduced, and then bravely undertook, a live demonstration of group work based on the method developed by Michael Balint.

People who attended have said they enjoyed and appreciated the space to think together as a group, as well as gaining much from the individual presentations.

We plan to run another symposium, along similar lines, in August this year. We’re excited that an overseas speaker who is well known within IARPP may join us this time.

Please contact either of us if you are interested in the Symposium or in making contact with our local New Zealand chapter of IARPP.

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Portugal Chapter

(qui para Português)

IARPP’s Portuguese Chapter is, after only two years of existence, an essential reference in the field of psychoanalytic thought in Portugal. This was shown recently by the great flow of audiences at IARPP’s open events and in the manifested interest in the training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy that IARPP-P promotes through its partner APPSI.

This is greatly due to the intense activity developed by the relational group: in the last few months we launched a new website – www.psi-relacional.pt– which has proven essential in improving our envolvement with the psi community, as well as in promoting our events to new audiences.

At the end of November we organized the conference “Violence and Evil”, in collaboration with the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Lisbon. In the words of Professor Frederico Pereira, it was “a serious, demanding, rigorous and enjoyable event, where the analytic “thing” was in dialogue with all other areas of thought”. The structure, processes and expressions of Violence and Evil were thoroughly discussed. In addition to having a top panel of speakers, with Eduardo Lourenço (Philosophy), Nuno Miguel Proença (Philosophy), Miguel Esteves Cardoso (Political Science), Adriano Moreira (Political Science), Sérgio Niza (Pedogogy) and Frei Bento Domingues (Theology), we also had the presence of Neil Altman and a large contribution from several Portuguese relational psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, such as Frederico Pereira, Manuel Matos, Maria José Vidigal, Miguel Moita, David Figueirôa, Madalena Paiva Gomes and Filipe Baptista-Bastos. At the end of the third day we counted more than 170 attendants and several – and emotional – standing ovations.

First Iberian Congress of Relational Psychoanalysis. We are preparing the First Iberian Congress of Relational Psychoanalysis, which will take place on the 9th and 10th of May and which is a result of a close partnership that has been gainning strenth between IARPP-Portugal and IARPP-España. The Congress will take place in the beautiful and medieval city of Cáceres, Spain, on the subject of TRANFORMATIONS SPACES. The presence of Michael Eigen, Alejandro Ávila Espada, Frederico Pereira, Manuel Matos, Joan Cordech, Juan José Martínez Ibáñez, Ramon Riera i Alibés, Carlos Rodríguez Sutil, Rosa velasco Fraile have already been confirmed.

We would like to invite all members of IARPP International to come to our Congress. To get to know the program and other general informations you can explore IARPP-Portugal and IARPP-España’s websites.

Guilt. We will be hosting our Annual Congress on the 30th and 31st of October and on the 1st of November. The theme for this year will be GUILT. We will be opening a call for papers soon.

Training. The Relational Training Program developed by IARPP for APPSI has just started a new four-year cycle, having APPSI just accepted a new class in January 2014. The number of students whose main training in psychotherapy will be one of a relational orientation is now of 66 in total, which raises high hopes for us on the de-dogmatization of the analytic space in Portugal.

It has been with great pleasure that we have witnessed and encouraged the formation of work groups proposed directly by the trainees. We have a group dedicated to Film and Psychoanalysis that is now on it’s third Annual Cycle and that has been attended  by more than 150 people; also a new work on Violence and Relational Ethics was formed this month.

The Center for Comparatist Studies of the Humanities Faculty of the University of Lisbon is organizing, during the month of February, a series of talks on the Holocaust. In order to bring a psychoanalytic point of view to this – today, as ever – very actual subject, Professors Frederico Pereira (President of the Board) and Manuel Matos (Vice-President of the Board) have been invited to present talks.

We hope to bring you more news soon.

Warm regards,

Miguel Moita
Secretary of the Board

Translation by Inês Evangelista

IARPP Portugal

(aqui para Inglês)

A Secção Portuguesa da IARPP é já, ao fim de apenas dois anos de actividade, uma incontornável referência no panorama do pensamento psicanalítico em Portugal. O mesmo se verifica pela grande afluência de público quer nos eventos abertos da IARPP quer no interesse continuado na formação em psicoterapia psicanalítica que a IARPP-Portugal promove através da sua parceira APPSI (Associação Portuguesa de Psicoterapia Psicanalítica).

Para tal muito contribui a intensa actividade que o grupo relacional desenvolve: ao longo dos últimos meses lançámos o nosso novo site – www.psi-relacional.pt-, um instrumento que se tem revelado essencial na proximidade com a comunidade psi, bem como na divulgação das nossas actividades a novos públicos.

No final de Novembro realizámos o  Colóquio “A Violência e o Mal”, em colaboração com a Faculdade de Psicologia da Universidade de Lisboa, que, nas palavras do Prof. Doutor Frederico Pereira foi “um encontro sério, exigente, rigoroso, simpático, no qual a coisa analítica esteve em diálogo activo com todas as outras áreas do pensamento.” Discutiram-se profundamente a estrutura, os processos e expressões da Violência e do Mal. Para além da participação de um painel de topo da cena intelectual portuguesa, com Eduardo Lourenço (Filosofia), Nuno Miguel Proênça (Filosofia), Miguel Esteves Cardoso (Ciência Política), Adriano Moreira (Ciência Política), Sérgio Niza (Pedagogia) e Frei Bento Domingues (Teologia) contámos ainda com a presença de Neil Altman e do largo contributo de vários psicanalistas e psicoterapeutas relacionais portugueses como Frederico Pereira, Manuel Matos, Maria José Vidigal, Miguel Moita, David Figueirôa, Madalena Paiva Gomes, Filipe Baptista-Bastos. No final dos três dias contámos com mais de 170 pessoas e várias e emocionadas ovações em pé.

1º Congresso Ibérico de Psicanálise Relacional. Estamos a preparar para 9 e 10 de Maio o 1º Congresso Ibérico de Psicanálise Relacional que resulta da estreita parceria que tem sido desenvolvida entre a IARPP-Portugal e a IARPP-España. O mesmo decorrerá na bela cidade medieval de Cáceres sobre o tema ESPAÇOS DE TRANSFORMAÇÃO. Está já confirmada a participação de Michael Eigen, Alejandro Ávila Espada, Frederico Pereira, Manuel Matos, Joan Cordech, Juan José Martínez Ibáñez, Ramon Riera i Alibés, Carlos Rodríguez Sutil, e de Rosa Velasco Fraile.

Convidamos todos os membros da IARPP a estar presentes neste encontro. Para conhecer o programa e outras informações poderão consultar os sites da IARPP-Portugal e da IARPP-España.

A Culpa. Nos dias 30 e 31 de Outubro e 1 de Novembro realizaremos o nosso Colóquio Anual sob o tema da CULPA. O call for papers será lançado em breve.

Formação. O Programa de Formação Relacional concebido pela IARPP para a APPSI abriu um novo ciclo de formação de quatro anos tendo sido admitida uma nova turma em Janeiro de 2014. São já 66 o número de formandos  cuja formação base em psicoterapia assenta no pensamento relacional o que nos deixa muito esperançados quanto à desdogmatização do espaço analítico português.

Tem sido com prazer que temos presenciado e apoiado o aparecimento de grupos de trabalho propostos pelos formandos, existindo um grupo dedicado ao Filme e Psicanálise – que se encontra já no seu terceiro ciclo anual e cujas sessões forma já frequentadas por mais de 150 pessoas; está a nascer este mês grupo de estudo sobre a Violência e a Ética Relaciona

O Centro de Estudos Comparatistas da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa está a organizar uma série de palestras (talks) em torno do Holocausto para as quais foram convidados o Prof. Doutor Frederico Pereira (Presidente da Direcção) e o Prof. Doutor Manuel-Matos (Vice-Presidente da Direcção) para contribuirem com um olhar psicanalítico nesta discussão que é hoje, como sempre, tão actual.

Contamos poder trazer-vos mais notícias em breve.

Saudações calorosas,

Miguel Moita
Secretário da Direcção

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Greek Chapter

by Alexis Mordoh, Chair
alexismordoh@gmail.com

The financial crisis is making everything difficult for all of us, on a personal, professional and organizational level.  We are persevering, nevertheless, both with our work and with our chapter, and we believe we have created a small, but viable relational group that will grow over time. We have about twenty registered chapter members at the moment and about fifty more people directly interested in our activities.

For the academic year 2013-14, we have continued the weekly teleconferencing seminar “An Introduction to Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy”, with Jody Davies . It is based on her NYU course and provides an overview of relational theory and practice, interspersed  with discussion of clinical cases presented by group members. In the near future, we will be transitioning to case presentations on a weekly basis. We are hoping that Jody will be able to come to Athens in the spring to conduct a workshop on the treatment of sexual abuse survivors.

Last October, we had the pleasure of hosting Barbara and Stuart Pizer in Athens for a two-day workshop ,“The Therapist’s Use of Self: Theory and Practice” (see attached photos of the presenters and participants in one of the experiential exercises led by Barbara). We are planning to start a weekly teleconference seminar with the Pizers next fall, in order to introduce a new cohort to relational theory and practice.

Finally, we have been in contact with the Israeli chapter and agreed to plan some joint educational activities in the future.

Hope to see you all soon,

 

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Clinical Implications of the Psychoanalyst’s Life Experience: When the Personal Becomes Professional
(Routledge Relational Perspectives Book Series, 2014),
edited by Steven Kuchuck and available at www.amazon.com/author/stevenkuchuck.

Book Synopsis:
The book explores how leaders and newer contributors in the fields of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy address the phenomena of the clinician’s personal life and psychology. In this edited book, each author describes pivotal childhood and adult life events and crises that have contributed to personality formation, personal and professional functioning, choices of theoretical positions, and clinical technique.

About Steven Kuchuck:
Steven Kuchuck is a psychoanalyst and supervisor in private practice in New York City. He is the Editor in Chief of Psychoanalytic Perspectives: An International Journal of Integration and Innovation and Associate Editor of the Relational Perspectives Book Series from Routledge.

Steven is on the Board of Directors, supervisor, and faculty at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP),where he is also Co-Director of Curriculum for the four year training program in adult psychoanalysis, faculty member at the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies, the Institute for Expressive Analysis, and the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy in New York City, and a supervisor at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. From 2011-2013, he co-moderated and organized the IARPP online colloquium series.

Steven’s professional writing appears in Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Studies in Gender and Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, and The Psychoanalytic Review, among other publications.  He lectures throughout the United States and internationally.

We interviewed Steven Kuchuck about his role as editor and contributor to the book.

Steve, how was the idea of editing a book about the implications of the analyst’s life experience born?  When and how did you decide to create the book?

I set out to do this book as a correction to my earliest, formative experiences in psychoanalytic training at a Freudian institute.  The lessons in training were loud, clear and consistent, and they were echoed in the classroom, supervision, and in my first analysis.  Candidates were taught that no matter what, we mustn’t allow anything of our own subjectivity to interfere with the treatment.  Actually, my sense is that in one form or another, this is a lesson that still permeates some graduate and postgraduate programs regardless of stated theoretical orientation, and one that exists as a professional ethos or ghost for many psychotherapists and psychoanalysts.  In this way of thinking, neutrality (and therefore burying, hiding) is believed to be the only valid option, and is to be pursued at any price.

For many of us in training and working in the field during this period, that price was high, as key aspects of our developmental histories and personalities were sent underground. The inevitable byproducts of shame, repression, and dissociation were left in their wake. By about the mid 1990’s, I began hearing about a psychoanalytic metapsychology and treatment approaches in which homosexuality and other aspects of the therapist’s psyche were not pathologized or automatically hidden, and in which straight and gay analysts were not afraid to share—or at least refrain from hiding—select biographical or countertransference data with colleagues and even with patients.

Some years after that, following September 11th and the resulting shared trauma for patients and analysts working together in New York City, I joined a brand new group that had formed out of the still new IARPP for purposes of studying the psychological effects of 9/11. “Psychotherapists for Social Responsibility” was formed and led by some of the founders of the relational movement. I now had a language and conceptual framework to more fully process the deleterious effects of earlier training and life events that had been exacerbated by my experiences at the institute.  It was during this period of the mid to late 1990’s and especially, the early 2000’s, that my idea for this book began to germinate. When I approached Lew Aron and Adrienne Harris, co-editors of the Relational Perspectives Book Series at Routledge, they were most supportive.

What is the main message that you hope your book will send?

Actually, I believe that the book title really says it all–in psychoanalysis, the personal and professional necessarily converge.  Moreover the subjectivity of the analyst, rather than being problematic, is a crucial part of the treatment process.

We relational psychoanalysts have sometimes been criticized for going too far in the opposite direction of classical theory and privileging the analyst’s subjectivity over the patient’s. While I assume that most of us  do still believe in providing as protected a space as possible for the patient, not the analyst, to exist as the focus of attention, I—we—have learned in recent decades that when we try to stifle our subjectivity, we make inaccessible (often dissociating from) vital parts of ourselves. These potentially lost cognitions and affects are ones that we need contact with in order to feel and better understand our patients’ dissociated material, who we are to each of them, and how our subjectivity colors the way we experience their content.  This process of hiding and inadvertently dissociating from key elements of ourselves leads to experiences of shame layered on top of earlier developmental experiences of shame that many analysts come into the field with. Additionally, when we inevitably fail to eliminate subjective feelings or behaviors in order to achieve the stringent dictates of neutrality and abstinence still sometimes presented (or remembered internally) as true psychoanalysis, this can add to a further sense of shame and disappointment in ourselves.

A central objective for the book, then, is to create as much space as possible for bringing into the room those subjective elements which had been banished for many psychoanalytically informed psychotherapists.  In my experience, introducing these formerly “forbidden” contents of the analyst’s psyche greatly enhances the therapeutic action. The myth of the always even-keeled, “healthy” healer of the “sick” patient, even when consciously repudiated, not only leads to the aforementioned loss of clinical data and feelings of shame, but also weighs heavily in ways that can even, over time, contribute to a loss of passion and professional burnout.

What is the outline of your own chapter in the book?

In my introduction and more specifically in my chapter, I trace the evolution of my thinking about the relationship between the analyst’s subjectivity and therapeutic action by examining certain early historical and later life events and how they have influenced the way I work.  I share a situation in which a patient shocks me with a disclosure that threatens to cross the line between my personal and professional lives. This event sets me reeling, and it highlights the circular, interpenetrating nature of our life in and outside of the office. I present the story as a framework for how we might think about issues related to the clinician’s subjectivity and the many ways in which who we are leads to theoretical predilections and choices of technique.

What is your perspective regarding therapist self-disclosure in light of your understanding that the therapist’s life experience has implications for therapeutic process and outcome?

This is a very interesting question to me, in large part because when I invited contributions, wrote my own sections, and edited the book, I didn’t consciously think about (deliberate) self disclosure as something that was directly related to the book’s thesis.  Certainly, I’ve given a great deal of thought to the role of inadvertent disclosure as it relates to the theme of my book, and a number of the contributors address this dynamic.   Since publication, however, I’ve found that readers do in fact link the two—deliberate self disclosure and the impact of the therapist’s life experience on the therapeutic process– and audiences at book events almost always raise a version of this question for discussion. This has led me to give further thought to the issue. I feel grateful to be working from a theoretical framework that does propose occasional self disclosure as a possible treatment option. Having said that, perhaps because of the lingering influence of my strong and early Freudian training or a particular sensitivity to privacy and boundaries (as related to self and role differentiation that I write about in the book), it’s a tool that I rarely call on.  Most of us would agree that whether or not to disclose is almost always a potentially complicated choice. Popular misconceptions aside, I suspect this selective and limited use is true for many of my relational colleagues as well, although some people are more comfortable working this way than I am.

I do, however, want to underline the importance of the analyst’s disclosure to her or himself, rather than to the patient. That might speak even more to the point of your question. In my book, the contributors and I are primarily concerned with the problems that arise when the therapist ignores rather than “discloses” to oneself aspects and implications of history, life events, and psychology. Margaret Black (in a personal communication) articulated a point that I have been thinking about for some time. Perhaps the very act of silently weighing whether or not to disclose something to a patient opens up material that the analyst might otherwise have dissociated.  This is a fascinating area that relates directly to the importance of making more room for the analyst’s subjective life, even if not always spoken out loud to the patient.

Can you share a meaningful experience or challenge around editing the book?

There were so many of each.  My plan for the book was to create something different than the kind of writing that most of us are used to doing or reading in a psychoanalytic book.  As therapists, we are of course more familiar and comfortable with actively exploring other people’s stories – this project left most of us, I think, feeling more vulnerable and exposed than we are used to feeling in our professional lives. But while I actively sought compelling personal stories, my primary interest was in exploring the specific, particular ways in which these stories impacted development of theory and practice technique. This involved striking a delicate and sometimes elusive balance between memoir and more scholarly, theoretical writing.

While it was quite meaningful to me in various, specific ways to work with each of these talented authors, there was something particularly poignant about working with Martin Bergmann on “Psychoanalysis in Old Age”.  At almost 100 when we worked on his chapter, I found his comments about changes in the field and the specter of death that hovered over him and his patients very moving. He passed away less than three months after the book’s release, still practicing and writing just shy of his 101^st birthday.

What is the next writing project you are involved in?

Currently, Adrienne Harris and I are co-editing “The Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi: From Ghost to Ancestor”, a follow up to the monumental book that she and Lew Aron co-edited, “The Legacy of Sandor Ferenczi”. The book will contain exciting new work by a select group of international Ferenczi scholars. Continuing the theme of the analyst’s subjectivity, the contributions reveal brand new information about Ferenczi, his patients, and some of the personal origins of his technique. A number of the chapters also explore the direct link between Ferenczi’s work and contemporary ways of thinking and working psychoanalytically. The book will be published by Routledge’s Relational Perspectives Book Series.  I am also working on a collection of my own writing about the analyst’s subjectivity.

 

Susanna Federici-Nebbiosi – President IARPP (Italy)
Cynthia Chalker (USA)
Alejandra Plaza Espinosa  and Anne Marie Maxwell (Mexico)
María Alejandra Rey (Argentina)
Carlos Nemirovsky (Argentina)
Iglis Nancy Rodrigo (Argentina)
John A. Sloane  (Canada)

 

Meeting in person allows us a sense of lively community, a community in development. Meeting in person offers us the opportunity of knowing each other better and to exchange our ideas and experiences.  At the end of the Santiago conference I felt so proud and astonished considering how far we have come in the process to grow as an international community.

This conference created a context for development at many levels:the discussion of  theoretical comparison, the sharing of clinical practices, and the sharing of  aesthetic experiences of art, photography, music, and cinema.

All this has been exciting, thought provoking and rich.
But, I also had a feeling of even “something more,”  as Daniel Stern would have said. And that is:   a sort of ongoing witnessing process for the painful experiences that many of our Chilean colleagues went through both in their professional and personal lives.

The experience of having shared such a deep and collective process is the most valuable memory to bring back home.

A special thanks to all the IARPP members who participated in this conference.

Very warmly,
Susi Federici-Nebbiosi
President, IARPP

Cynthia Chalker
(USA)

I attended the IARPP International Conference 2013 held in Santiago, Chile as a candidate chosen to present on a panel: Working Interculturally: Unique Challenges And Possibilities for Intercultural Treatment.

A third year Candidate at Manhattan Institute of Psychoanalysis and part-time therapist from New York City, I arrived at the IARPP International Conference having attended only one other major psychoanalytic conference earlier in the spring, where I knew no one. I knew the Candidates Committee members only, through email exchanges.

What a wonderful introduction to the IARPP organization! Thursday evening, after attending workshops and the opening plenary, IARPP Board and members warmly welcomed the candidates with a reception and art exhibition of works by two artists in the IARPP community.

Prior to our Friday session, my fellow panelists and I were treated to lunch at a local restaurant with the Candidates Committee and the President of IARPP.  The lunch was an excellent opportunity to build camaraderie as we transitioned to the panel presentations.

I left Santiago with a full heart. Every day of the conference I met new colleagues, learned new things, laughed, cried and enjoyed many meals. Most of all, I felt welcomed into a vibrant community of practitioners.

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Anita Maxwell, co-Chair, Juan Francisco Jordan, Alejandra Plaza Espinosa, co-Chair

Alejandra Plaza Espinosa  and Anne Marie Maxwell (Mexico)

Mexico Chapter

The Santiago Conference was a very special event for many different reasons. It was truly a meeting of traditions, because apart from having a wide array of different psychoanalytical perspectives represented, it was possible to reflect about the deep mixture of cultures which shape Latin America.

In a similar way, Relational Psychoanalysis is the result of a combination of factors: theoretical advances in different areas of knowledge, including; cultural topics, infant research, neuroscience, and new clinical and technical advances. Within the cultural topics, it was very interesting to include the analysis of different aspects of sociopolitical issues in modern Chile.

The Conference was embedded in a very warm atmosphere, with an open mind to expose, listen and discuss different ideas with profound respect. This environment is coherent with the relational spirit. Important point of integration was the possibility to listen the papers in Spanish and English, so the local people could be part of the event.

As people who speak Spanish, we had more opportunity to participate in the discussions and presenting our ideas.

Particularly, as the Mexican Group, we were thrilled to receive the notice of acceptance of the IARPP Mexican Chapter. So, we were very happy and with a lot of enthusiasm and energy to strengthen the Relational point of view in Mexico.

It was a great experience, very enriching, that gave us the opportunity to reflect the theoretical and clinical issues of our practice.

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Carlos Nemirovsky (Argentina)
cnemirovsky22@gmail.com

(para Español)

I am proud and content to have participated in the marvelous IARPP Conference in Chile, especially the shared panel with Don and Steve.  There we were able to plant a central question that we all face in our practices: Are drive theory and intersubjectivity theory compatible?   The experience was passionate and very different from other meetings: it had space, time, and over all respect for argument of diverse opinions.  The occasional differences were very interesting in this sense as the divergent formulations followed the different geographic origins.

One important question we have in the future, as I challenged at the conference,  is to achieve the interest of colleagues that have an affinity of thought with the intersubjective authors (those colleagues that  are acquainted with the work of Ferenczi, Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Kohut) but find difficulties — probably a certain mistrust — approaching the proposals we have made at the Relational Conference with relational thought.  In Argentina even though we have not been able to convene a sufficient number of colleagues to constitute an IARPP chapter,  we are working on it.

I am happy that the opinion of Latin American colleagues has been sought and I hope that these international exchanges continue.

 

Carlos Nemirovsky (Argentina)
cnemirovsky22@gmail.com

(for English)

Estoy orgulloso y contento de haber participado en el maravilloso congreso IARPP en Chile, especialmente del panel compartido con Don y Steve. Allí pudimos plantear una cuestión central que todos los días enfrentamos en nuestra práctica: ¿Son compatibles la teoría pulsional y la intersubjetividad? La experiencia fue apasionante, y muy diferente a otros encuentros: había espacio, tiempo y sobre todo respeto para discutir diversas opiniones. Fueron muy interesantes en este sentido las divergencias ocasionadas por las diversas formaciones según los diferentes orígenes geográficos.

Una importante cuestión que tenemos en el futuro como desafío es lograr el interés de colegas que tienen un pensamiento afín a los autores intersubjetivos (que conocen la obra de Ferenczi, Fairbairn, Winnicott o Kohut) pero que encuentran dificultades –probablemente cierta desconfianza- para acercarse a los planteos que hemos hecho en el Congreso relacionados con el pensamiento relacional. En Argentina aún no hemos podido reunir un número suficiente de colegar para constituir un filial de IARPP pero estamos trabajando para ello.

Me alegra que soliciten la opinión de los colegas latinoamericanos y espero que prosigan los intercambios.

(Carlos Nemirovsky paper presented at Santiago 2014)

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María Alejandra Rey (Argentina)
malejarey@yahoo.com.ar

(para español)

Attached are  photographs from The IARPP Conference in Chile 2013.  They are of a panel in which I shared clinical experiences together with Irene Dukes of Chile (in the center) and Frederico Pereira of Portugal (on the left).  It was an extremely enriching experience at the highest level of emotional engagement with the attendees and the mutual respect  for differences.  In the other other photograph, María Eugenia Boetch  is seen announcing one of the artistic events that we shared.

María Alejandra Rey (Argentina)

(for English)

Adjunto fotografías del Encuentro IARPP Chile 2013, de un panel en el que compartí experiencias clínicas junto a Irene Dukes de Chile (en el centro) y Frederico Pereira de Portugal (a la izquierda). Fue una experiencia sumament enriquecedora, por el alto nivel de compromiso emocional de los asistentes y el respeto mutuo por las diferencias. En la otra fotografía se ve a María Eugenia Boetch anunciando uno de los eventos artísticos que compartimos.

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Iglis Nancy Rodrigo (Argentina) en español
iglis.rodrigo@gmail.com

(for English)

Realmente fue una gran alegría y complacencia poder asistir al Congreso de la IARPP, esta vez de manera doble al ser en castellano y en un país hermano. Esto me permitió elegir la temática y/o ponencias a las que quería asistir, aunque generalmente toda elección se torna difícil más aún cuando hay tantos temas de interés en los que se pueden encontrar respuestas y/o coincidencias referidas al trabajo diario en la clínica. Espero que esta modalidad se mantenga porque es mi deseo seguir participando de los Congresos.

Considero que el psicoanálisis relacional aún no ha alcanzado su máximo desarrollo en latinoamérica, a raíz de no estar lo suficientemente difundido. Los eventos científicos como los Congresos contribuyen a difundir y compartir los conocimientos de forma masiva –verdad ampliamente conocida pero no por ello menos cierta-.

En cuanto a las ponencias: conocer la riqueza de los casos que nos permitieron continuar debatiendo aún después del Congreso; también corroborar que en trabajos estadísticos se mantenía la mirada relacional, el enfoque analítico para comprender los fenómenos.

Por último deseo plantear una inquietud en cuanto a la posibilidad de acceso a diversos trabajos a modo de consulta posterior al Congreso. Entiendo que la dificultad mayor radica en la necesidad de preservar la seguridad de la autoría, pero tal vez se pueda encontrar un modo de resolver esto.

Un abrazo fraterno para ustedes y espero que podamos conversar en el próximo congreso

Iglis Nancy Rodrigo (Argentina)

(para Español)

Really it was a great happiness and satisfying exprience to be able to attend the the Congress of  IARPP, this time in a double way being a Castilian and in a brother country. This allowed me to choose the subject matter and/or presentations which I wanted to attend. However generally any choice becomes difficult even more when there are so many topics of interest in which one can find answers and/or coincidences that reference the daily work in the clinical setting. I hope that this modality is kept because it is my desire to continue taking part in the Congress.

I think that  Relational Psychoanalysis still has not reached its maximum development in Latin America, because it has not been sufficiently disseminated. The scientific events like the Congresses help to spread and share the knowledge in a  massive form.

As for the presentations: They helped us to know the wealth of the cases that then allowed us to continue debating still after the Congress; also they allowed us to corroborate in statistical works, the relational point of view, the analytical focus in order to understand the phenomena.

Finally I want to raise a concern as to the possibility of access to diverse works like consultation after the Congress. I understand that the major difficulty is rooted in the need to preserve the safety of the authorship, but maybe a way could be found to solve this.

A fraternal embrace to you and I hope that we can converse at the next congress.

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John A. Sloane  (Canada)

john.sloane@rogers.com

What a conference! I have always been impressed by the quality of presentations and discussions at the IARPP conferences, and by the spirit of openness to different personal and theoretical points of view – but this one had a whole new dimension, at least for me. The fact that it was hosted by those who have recently been through such unspeakable historical trauma was both deeply disturbing and inspiring! As a whole, it was a gathering that provided a remarkable holding environment or “Third” for the formulation and transformation of what one person called the “social unconscious”, co-creating a more benign social and professional conscience, gradually emerging into collective consciousness. It seems to me that what is evolving is a genuinely caring, truly human capacity to hear and bear the trans-generational pain and passion of both victims and perpetrators, bystanders and witnesses – as well as that of fallible, wounded, would-be healers who are willing to come face-to-face with what we do to one another. Amazing!

There was a Spirit in the air, not only at the conference, itself, but in the testimony provided by the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, and by the excellent analytic work we glimpsed taking place all around the world in the aftermath of ‘humanicide’. As one person put it after a deeply moving panel on “dissociation, enactment and the healing of collective trauma”, “we were in the presence of the Holy”!

Whether we think of it as human resilience or divine resurrection, I agree.

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