Dear IARPP Members,

I write these lines with respect and friendship towards each of you, even if we do not know each other personally. We share belonging to the large IARPP community which has been in my thoughts daily in these years in which I have had the honor of a leadership role. At the end of 2023 my mandate as president will be completed, and from next month this responsibility and honor will pass to Sandra Toribio Caballero (Spain), a person I trust and respect very much and whom I am sure will offer an important contribution to our organization.

My growth path in the various roles I have taken on within the IARPP over the years has been long and full of complex and stimulating experiences. Since 2007, when I was elected to the Board in Athens, taking over from my friend Spyros Orfanos (USA), I have shared exciting experiences and commitments with the members of the Executive Committee and the Board, and also with many members from different parts of the world. In 2013 I was president for the first time; in 2016 I was co-chair of the Rome conference; and in 2021 I was elected president for the second time. If I think back, these last sixteen years have been very intense, but I would like to say that my commitment has always been – and still is – rewarded by the deep experiences through which IARPP maintains the vitality, the passion, and the sense of community which were the core motivations of Steve Mitchell and the founding members who, along with him, started the wonderful adventure of the ‘relational movement.’

Today we live in an increasingly polarized world full of contradictions that are often inexplicably and dramatically destructive, so it seems very difficult to continue believing in psychoanalytic reflection. Yet in my opinion this is precisely our most precious social role: to maintain in a ‘stubborn and contrary’ way the faith that a complex thought can be translated into good clinical practice that helps people find a meaning of being in such a difficult world.

Engaging in institutional aspects can sometimes be difficult, but the quality of the colleagues on the Executive Committee and the Board, and in general the atmosphere that continues to characterize the IARPP community has always left room for creativity and generative exchange of ideas and initiatives.

I will continue to be an active member as past-president and in the various enterprises that will be carried forward.

I wish you all a New Year full of possibilities and creativity,

THANK YOU ALL, with friendship,

Susanna Federici

Susanna Federici, Ph.D.
Rome, Italy
Email Susanna Federici