IARPP’s 18^th Annual Conference in Los Angeles this June 2020 involves our association’s return to the Golden State of California for the third time in our history. Our 2004 conference was held in Santa Monica, and in 2010 we met in San Francisco. The absence since then of our conference out West has clearly stirred extraordinary interest, as this year’s Call for Papers resulted in over 400 persons making individual paper and panel submissions.

As we are winding up our massive organizational effort for the 2020 program, we are looking at having 72 papers and panel sessions, five plenaries, and five pre-conference programs, along with breakout discussion groups. There appears to be lots to say about our chosen theme, “Expanding Our Clinical Experiences: The Spoken, Unspoken, and Unspeakable in Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.”

The 18^th Annual Conference will be held June 18^th – 21^st at the state-of-the-art Luskin Conference Center in the middle of the UCLA campus. The top three floors of the Center house sizable, modern “hotel” rooms. The Center’s restaurant and bar have spacious indoor and outdoor seating.

The rest of the building features conference meeting rooms, ranging from small ones for more intimate meetings, such as committees and breakout groups, on up to plenary-size meeting rooms, and everything in between. As the Center hosts conferences from all over the world, its Audio Video facilities are top-notch. There is also a rooftop patio for our receptions and our Saturday night gala which will feature a live band.