Chapters Committee

A Note on Presence, Distance, and Solidarity

IARPP Chapters Meeting – Toronto 2026

“My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity.”
— Wilfred Owen (1918)

At this year’s IARPP Chapters Meeting in Toronto, several absences were deeply felt: our colleagues from Iran, Israel and Ukraine were not among us. Their empty chairs were not simply logistical gaps – they were a reminder of the weight that war places on the most ordinary things, including the act of gathering together as a professional community.

We missed them. We missed their voices, their clinical thinking, their perspectives, and their presence. A community is shaped not only by who is there, but also by those who are absent, and why.

We also want to acknowledge something that has since been brought to our attention: that, for some of our members – particularly colleagues in Iran – the absence of an earlier, explicit message of solidarity has been felt as a painful omission. We regret this and take it to heart.

Our colleagues in Iran have faced prolonged disruption, isolation, and repeated barriers to participation over the past years, including difficulty traveling to recent conferences. At the same time, colleagues in Israel are currently living under the immediate conditions of war and profound uncertainty. Ukraine also remains in our thoughts. We hold in mind the differing, yet deeply challenging realities our members are living through. We stand in solidarity with our colleagues there as they continue to endure the profound challenges and hardships brought about by years of armed conflict. We hope for their safety, well-being, and for the possibility of a just and lasting peace.

And yet, in the midst of these extraordinarily difficult circumstances, some of our Iranian, Israeli, and Ukrainian colleagues found ways to remain present from a distance – participating in discussions and presenting their work despite the weight of everything they are living through. This commitment moved us. It speaks to something essential about who we are as an organization: that the relational thread that binds us does not break easily, even under the most severe conditions.

IARPP wishes to express its most sincere solidarity with all members in Iran, in Israel, in Ukraine who are living through this period of war, disruption, and constraint. We are aware that words from a distance carry only so much weight. But we want them to know that they are not forgotten, that their situations are present in our minds and in our conversations, and that they are held with deep respect and affection by this community.

We also wish to formally recognize those who, in spite of everything, chose to engage – who prepared work, who showed up virtually, who kept the conversation alive from across a distance made wider by conflict. That takes courage and generosity. It does not go unnoticed.

We look forward to the day when we can all be in the same room again, without absence forced upon us by violence or by the constraints of war. Until then, we remain connected – across borders, across conflict, across distance – by the shared conviction that human bonds matter, and that the work of understanding one another is always worth doing.

Berta Loret de Mola (Mexico) and Hilary Offman (Canada)
Chapters Committee Co-Chairs

Berta Loret de Mola