Dear colleagues,

The autumn leaves have just begun their glorious rite of transformation, reds, ochres, yellows, maroons and burgundies popping up aside their green siblings as I look out my New York window. The IARPP calendar finds us in a liminal state as well, memories of this past June’s conference still in mind as proposals for next June’s conference are collected and collated. The academic year is underway in the northern hemisphere, and with it our psychoanalytic calendars fill up once more with classes, study groups, presentations, talks, workshops, conferences and the like.

Here are the latest books, presentations and publications from some of our members.

In his fourth book, Playing and Becoming in Psychoanalysis, Steven Cooper (USA) builds on Winnicott’s theory to elaborate an “ethic of play” that helps patients productively engage with their bad objects and allows analysts to usefully reflect on the transference-countertransference. Cooper explores a range of implications, including play’s capacity to transform unrepresented experience, the paradox of play in mourning, and an elaboration of Winnicott’s view of interpretation in ontological and epistemological psychoanalysis.

Floriana Irtelli (Italy) has co-authored an analysis of corporeality and its pathological offshoots, specifically eating disorders, entitled Body Image and Eating Disorders: An Anthropological and Psychological Overview. This study contextualizes our contemporary relationship with food by inserting current body image and eating disorders into a broader historical overview informed by the combined knowledge of psychoanalysis and anthropology with scientific research and clinical experience.

Also from Italy comes a book co-edited by Alessandro Cavelzani, Preventing Child Maltreatments and Traumas: Examples from Italy and Japan. Featuring clinical examples, traumas typologies and new tools for early diagnosis and treatments, this volume draws on cases from a public children’s hospital, a private clinic, and private psychotherapeutic and paediatrician practices.

Edward T. Novak (USA) has just published Physical Touch in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: Transforming Trauma through Embodied Practice, a groundbreaking book presenting a new model for incorporating the human body, and specifically physical touch, into psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, particularly for patients who have experienced trauma. Sandra Kiersky remarks, “Novak offers us, finally, a safe, systematic and developmentally grounded theory that integrates physical touch with psychoanalytic therapy.”

Steven Kuchuck (USA) is co-editor of a fascinating collection of journal entries from “eminent and, ultimately, scandalous British psychoanalyst” Masud Khan. Diary of a Fallen Psychoanalyst: The Work Books of Masud Khan, 1967-1972 presents never-before published, annotated diary entries on a wide range of topics, from self reflections to observations on mentor Donald Winnicott and other well-known analysts of the period, including Anna Freud.

Haim Weinberg (USA) has written a chapter, Adjusting Group Therapy to Asian Cultures, examining tacit individualistic Western assumptions in group therapy modalities that ill-suit some collectivist cultures typical of the East and describing the adjustments he made in theory and leadership style with his group participants.

Antonios Poulios (Greece) is co-recipient of the 2022 Symonds Prize, awarded by Studies in Gender and Sexuality, for his paper on treating a patient’s “chemsex” addiction, in the context of what he cites as the rising phenomenon of recreational drug use during sex among queer people patient.

Ruth Lijtmaer (USA) continues developing her work on the trauma of immigration and exile with a paper focusing on the complex components of nostalgia. Claire Steinberger (USA) continues presenting on various aspects of couples therapy. And I (Matt Aibel, USA) recently wrote a discussion responding to a pair of papers that examine some non-interpretive aspects of psychoanalytic treatment: at-one-ment and the “transformative act” of the analyst.

If you care to share news of your latest books, papers and/or presentations with the IARPP community – and I encourage you to do so – please email me by Sunday, January 29, 2023, the deadline for the next (February) issue of The IARPP Bookshelf. Kindly include the following with your submission:

• Title of your recent or upcoming publication or presentation
• An abstract or brief description of its content (around 150 words)
• Link to a publisher (if applicable) so that members might access or purchase a copy
• Book cover photo or artwork (if applicable)
• Digital photograph of yourself (jpeg format)
• Professional contact information as you would like it to appear publicly for our readers (city/town in which you practice or work; email address)
• Book authors: please provide a brief bio of 75-90 words.
• Presenters: please include location (if in-person) and spell out organizational acronyms.
• Note: The Bookshelf does not include announcements of IARPP Conference presentations.

Best wishes to you all as we head into the final months of 2022.

Yours,

Matt Aibel, LCSW
Northport and New York, NY