Dear Colleagues,

I hope this finds all of you well and, for those who celebrated, that you enjoyed the holidays and possibly some time off as well. I wish each of you a happy, healthy and gratifying 2019.

As you likely know, our last online colloquium, based on Avgi Saketopoulou’s paper, “The Draw to Overwhelm: Consent, Risk and the Re-Translation of Enigma” drew a great deal of interest, some controversy, and was the first time we translated the colloquium paper into another language – Spanish, thanks to Peru chapter president Marie Saba and her colleagues. As always, you can find the full transcript of the panelists’ and author’s posts in the online archive. Also as always, I want to give my great thanks to our current colloquium moderators, Adrienne Harris and Rina Lazar, who worked around the clock and across time zones to generously and skillfully manage the rich and complex online dialogue. Thanks are also due to our expert panelists, of course Avgi herself, and all of the members who joined in our community-wide event by reading and/or posting your comments and questions.

Stay tuned for our next online colloquium, based on Robert Grossmark’s paper, “Psychoanalytic Companioning,” coming in May. You will receive directions for how to access the paper and participate. We are again planning to make this paper available in Spanish. If by chance anyone is available to translate this or future paper(s) into additional languages, please contact me.

Before closing, I want to let you know that either just before or very shortly after you receive this current issue of the IARPP Bulletin (thanks to our new editor Matt Aibel’s updated title for the former eNews), we will be posting the upcoming conference schedule for our 2019 annual conference, “Imagining with Eyes Wide Open: Relational Journeys,” in Tel Aviv. The conference/hotel registration portal will be opened shortly. We were overwhelmed by the large number of strong submissions, and we are excited to be presenting what we believe you will agree is an exciting roster of presentations and events. As you will see, despite the political complexities, we have been able to create a program of diverse voices from within Israel, the surrounding region, and internationally.

We are aware that due to past political activities and/or citizenship and other related issues, some IARPP members are concerned about potential travel difficulties or restrictions that they might encounter. We now have written assurances from the Israeli Ministry that anyone who wishes to attend the IARPP conference in Tel Aviv will be allowed to do so. We will be posting that letter and/or distributing it to those members who wish to carry a copy with them on their travels. We will also be announcing an exciting pre-conference program being held outside of Jerusalem in Palestinian territory, consisting of a dialogue with Palestinian colleagues who will be joining us to present and discuss their work. The details will appear on the conference site along with the conference program.

And finally, for the fouth year in a row, we were able to make a limited number of stipends available to help those IARPP members who would not otherwise be able to afford to attend our international conference. I will soon be announcing IARPP’s first fundraising initiative for the purpose of expanding our stipends, translations, and other programs designed to expand and extend IARPP’s reach.

As always, if there are areas of IARPP/psychoanalytic interest or concern that you would like to discuss with me, please do be in touch directly.

With warm regards,

Steven Kuchuck (USA), President

Steven Kuchuck
Email Steven Kuchuck