The 2025 IARPP Conference, “The Paradox of Freedom in Relational Psychoanalysis: Democracy and Tyranny In and Out of Therapy,” will be held Thursday, June 19 – Sunday, June 22, 2025 in Athens, Greece.

Relational psychoanalysis continues to be a democratic endeavor. Since its inception, it has encouraged a dialogue about the paradox of theoretical freedom, technique, and varied areas of psychoanalytic encounter that each clinician in their subjective way brings to the consulting room. While eschewing positivism and rigid rules, Relational psychoanalysis continues to invite ongoing engagement with intrapsychic processes, interpersonal relations, and the outside world’s impact on conscious and unconscious dynamics. As geopolitical, social, and environmental catastrophes mount, it becomes ever more crucial that we at least attempt to track and navigate potential enactments of existential anxieties, aggression, and sequelae of tyranny in the consulting room. How we understand and implement all of this will be a large part of our conference focus. It’s not by coincidence that we plan for this dialogue to take place in historical Athens, the birthplace of democracy.

Online Streaming

If you cannot join us in person, you can join all 5 Plenaries on Zoom!

All but Plenary #4 will be recoded to view for 3 weeks after the event.

Schedule of Plenaries (all times local Athens time):

Thursday, June 19th

4:00pm

PLENARY I: “Freedom of Knowing, Freedom of Being: The Dialectic between Multiplicity and Unicity in Politics and in Psychoanalytic Work”
Presenters: Gianni Nebbiosi, PhD, Italy, and Spyros Orfanos, PhD, ABPP, USA;
Interlocutor: Alkinoi Lala, MSc

6:00pm

Adjournment

Friday, June 20th

9:45am

President’s Welcome
Presenter: Sandra Toribio Caballero, PhD, Spain — IARPP President

10:00am

PLENARY II: “The Dialectics of Clinical and Social Freedom and Tyranny in the Consulting Room”
Presenters: Earl Hopper, PhD, UK; Carlos Rodríguez Sutil, PsyD, Spain; Amir Hossein Jalali Nadoushan, MD, Iran;
Interlocutor: Fotini Doumoura, MSc

3:15pm

PLENARY III: “Caring for a Psychoanalytic Community: Using Social Unconscious and Group Dynamic Theories to Expand our Understanding of Power Dynamics”
Presenters: Gila Ofer, PhD, Israel; Haim Weinberg, PhD, CGP, USA; and Stavros Charalambides, MSc

Saturday, June 21st

9:30am

PLENARY IV: “What is Happening to Us? The Ongoing Impact of Cumulative Trauma and Existential Crisis on the Clinician”
Presenters: Fabia Eleonora Banella, PhD, PsyD, Italy; and Alexander Levchuk, MA, Russia;
Discussant: Steven Kuchuck, DSW, USA

Sunday, June 22nd

10:30am

PLENARY V: “The Psyche Around Us: Relational Psychoanalysis in Engagement with Severely Distressed Communities”
Presenters: Ilana Laor, PhD, Israel; Mehr‐Afarin Kohan, MD, FRCPC, Canada;
Discussant: Victor Doñas, MD, Chile

12:30pm

Conference Closing Remarks

If you have any questions. please contact IARPP Conference Manager Nilou Mostofi at nilou@km-direct.com.

We look forward to seeing you on Zoom!

Warmest wishes,

Alkinoi, Fontini and Stavros
2025 IARPP Conference Co-Chairs

Alkinoi Lala, MSc
Fotini Doumoura, MSc
Stavros Charalambides, CGP, MSc