Colloquium

Our latest colloquium discussed Matt Aibel’s (2021) paper “The Sleepy Analyst Struggles to Awaken: Dissociation, Enactment, Regression, and Altered States with Trauma Patients.”

We were fortunate to have an erudite, engaging and above all generous author in Matt Aibel (USA), who devoted endless hours to the process and contributed greatly to the success of this discussion. Our panel too, were active and responsive, and we are indebted to them for their wisdom and willingness to share throughout the 11 days of discussion: Maria Eugenia Boetsch (Chile); Adriano Bugliani (Italy); Richard Chefetz (USA); Peter Cox (Australia); Robert Grossmark (USA); Ilana Laor (Israel); Hilary Offman (Canada); Andrea Rihm (Chile); and Neetu Sarin (India).

In every colloquium we view a process, often one that enacts the article’s subject matter. This time, maybe more than ever before, the subject matter of the article and the author coalesced, in a way that made this process highly personal, and therefore both incredibly accessible and highly vulnerable. Members were generous in their engagement with Matt, freely addressed each other, many joined, in various styles and modes, coming forth with personal experiences, theory, unique and newly formulated thoughts. Gradually we began having voices of dissent, and this perhaps is when some of the article’s questions were explored in vivo, touching upon the many burning issues that may paradoxically create sleepy states.

Do we go somnolent when we experience insults, rejection, critical judgement and aggression? And wanting to face, rather than to shrink away, from conflict and dissent — how do we go about it and yet sustain a safe environment? We encountered these questions in real time, doing our best to achieve the balances that are forever only good-enough, as we struggle through the complexities of human communication — stumbling, learning, trying always to do better.

As often happens, we discover in one gathering what begs to be discussed in a future one, guiding us in the choice of articles for future discussions. In this colloquium we came upon the need to discuss patriarchal culture and misogyny, marking them clearly as an issue for a future colloquium.

We have begun already working towards our May 2023 offering. We will be discussing Francisco González’s (USA) “Trump Cards and Klein Bottles: On the Collective of the Individual” (2020). The article touches upon the intersecting of the subjective and intersubjective, the personal and the political, in a context of living under a government with which one does not identify. We thought it might be relevant to many across the globe now. We have an excellent panel of discussants lined up: Victor Donas (Chile); Juan Tubert Oklander (Mexico); Afarin Kohan (Canada); Sally Swartz (South Africa); Alexander Levchuk (Russia/Georgia); Susi Federici (Italy); Gila Ofer (Israel); Jill Gentile (USA); Orna Guralnik (USA); and Eyal Rozmarin (USA). The colloquium will run from May 10th to 21st, and we will look forward to our conversation with you all.

Until then, we wish you all the best.

Cathy Hicks (Australia) and Shlomit Yadlin Gadot (Israel),
Colloquium Co-Chairs

Cathy Hicks, Ph.D.
Sydney, Australia
Email Cathy Hicks