Dear Friends and Colleagues,
The last time I wrote to you in these pages, many of us were headed to Israel for IARPP’s annual conference. From the huge response to our call for papers to the large number of enthusiastic registrants, our 2019 conference was a resounding success. The plenaries, pre-conference workshops, panels, papers, social events and groups were stimulating and engaging. Perhaps most meaningful to me and many, I believe – especially given the upset and protests around our choice of conference location – were the comments from Palestinian and Arab attendees from Gaza and Arab villages in Israel. A number of them shared how difficult it was (in some cases logistically because of checkpoints), even costly in political, professional and emotional ways, to attend this conference. Most were under huge pressure from colleagues and others within the BDS movement to boycott us. Every one of them made explicit how crucially important it was for them to have this venue to present, listen, network, teach and learn. Their expressions of satisfaction and gratitude were incredibly enlightening and moving.
Because my “President’s Welcome” at the conference served in part as a “state of the union” of both the conference and IARPP itself, a comment on Relational psychoanalysis in Israel and an opportunity to thank the conference planners, I want to share with you here an abridged version of my Tel Aviv remarks.
We are a large group of over 500 people, with presenters and attendees from 25 countries. And overall, IARPP continues to grow. As of today, we have well over 2000 members from a total of 42 nations. We have 12 international chapters with several more in the process of being formed under the leadership of International Conference Committee co-chairs Juan Francisco Jordan from Chile and Marianne Kennedy from Australia.
And we are thriving as an organization. Our online Webinar and colloquia series each continue to provide a unique opportunity for our members to study together with cutting edge Relational authors, panelists and colleagues. In mentioning our Colloquia, I want to take a moment to pay tribute to Rina Lazar from Israel and Adrienne Harris from the United States. After close to 3 years in the demanding role of Colloquium Committee co-chairs, they recently stepped down from these pivotal positions. We will miss their talented leadership and sensitive holding of our online community. I’m very grateful for their service. I’m excited to announce that Cathy Hix from Australia and Amy Schwartz-Cooney from the US will be our new Colloquium series co-chairs. They are already busy planning the next colloquium, which will be held in November. And under their leadership, we will continue a policy that I put in place for the first time last year. All colloquium papers are now translated into Spanish under the guidance of Peru chapter president Marie Saba and, as of our last Colloquium, into Greek as well, thanks to Board member Stavros Charalambides. I would love to be able to provide translations in other languages, too. If any of our members want to help with that, please contact me.
As you all know by now, this has been a very sad period for many of us, for IARPP as a whole, and for psychoanalysis in general. On February 28th, after a long and difficult struggle, we lost our beloved Lew Aron. Lew was a founding president of IARPP, an early contributor to Relational psychoanalysis alongside his dear friend Steve Mitchell and other first generation Relational thinkers, and a constant guiding presence for many of us as teacher, administrator, writer, editor, mentor and friend. We will be holding a memorial service for Lew this afternoon. Lew loved IARPP, and his connections to Israel and to his Israeli colleagues and friends were particularly meaningful to him. He had of course been hoping to be here, but it became increasingly clear to him last winter that this would be highly unlikely. His visit here last summer to attend Galit’s twins’ bar and bat mitzvah and to teach was a highlight of the last several years for Lew and for those of us who were lucky enough to spend time with him here in Israel.
On a personal note, this week marks the 40th anniversary of my first visit to Israel. Because of my vanity, I’d like to tell you that I was a newborn baby at the time of my first visit. But I was, in fact, a teenager. And like many teenagers, I was in love – first with the idea of an idealized community and home – the communal experience of the kibbutz. Then with the beauty of the northern part of this country and the Sea of Galilee – the whole country really. Then with the friends I made – most of whom are still my friends – and the people who asked me when I’d be moving here, as Israelis did in those days when they met a teenager from abroad, who was searching.
I came back the following summer and then again, a few years later, but eventually, life happened. I began to fall a little bit out of love as political realities and disagreements took hold for me. As I learned more about what was happening, my heart broke for the Palestinians and traumatized Israelis—adolescent romanticism yielded to disillusionment. These days, I’m aware, of course, of perpetrators and suffering on both sides. But for a period of time just after my initial romance, Israel became more like the family I had been running from, and less like the idealized one I longed for. Some things never change, though. The people, food, coffee, music, smells and sights could still make me cry. They still do.
Decades passed, I became a therapist, then a psychoanalyst, and something interesting happened. I began to meet colleagues from Israel, came here to the IARPP conference a decade ago, came back to teach a few times, and stumbled into a wonderful realization. It seems that as I continued to grow up – in New York City – and began asking different questions, searching for different kinds of answers and satisfactions than my teenage self had, there was a parallel process happening in this country. It seems that I and Israel both fell in love not only with psychoanalysis but, in particular, with Relational psychoanalysis. And so I discovered myself in relation to this country a second time, this time as an adult and with less idealization on the one hand or absolute disappointment on the other. Of course, there are many Kleinians here too, so I can talk about shifting out of the paranoid-schizoid and into more of a depressive position in my relationship with Israel.
But whatever the terminology, I have always felt very much at home here. It doesn’t surprise me that psychoanalysis found a welcoming home here too. And within the context of a nation built on trauma, loss, immigration, displacement, and other sociological and cultural complexities that we will be exploring this week, it shouldn’t surprise us that Relational psychoanalysis found particularly fertile land upon which to flourish.
From our earliest days, the largest numbers of IARPP members outside of the US were here in Israel. Israel has always been the largest or second largest chapter. And some of IARPP’s most generative thinkers, writers, political activists – past President Chana Ullman to name just one – have emerged from our Israeli chapter. It makes so much sense to me that we are gathered here for this conference, even as I respect the voices who protested this decision, some of whom decided not to come but support those who are here, some who could not accept that any of us would agree to gather here, some who both protested and will also be presenting here, some who were eager to come and support our left-wing and activist colleagues trying to make a difference in the region, some who identify more conservatively. Relational psychoanalysis has been called a big tent – there is room for all. And hopefully all of us as individuals can reckon with multiplicity – ours, our neighbors’, our patients’, our colleagues’. American poet Walt Whitman asked, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”
Still, I had trouble writing this address. How can I admit my love affair with such a very imperfect country? As a United States citizen, how can I even ask that question? How can I enthusiastically plan, support, promote a conference that some tell me they would not even be allowed to attend? And yet, how do we refuse to join our IARPP colleagues struggling to make a difference in their consultation rooms, in their communities, in their country? How do we single out one country for criticism when none of us live under blameless regimes? How, as Relational analysts –as human beings – do we justify shutting down dialogue, debate, support for our colleagues and friends, opportunities to imagine, learn, and grow? We are large. We contain multitudes.
Speaking of multitudes – conference co-chairs Ilana Laor, Dan Friedlander and Tammy Dror Scheiber, along with special consultant Noga Guggenheim, have done an incredible job with the planning and implementation of this conference. Cathy Hix, Rina Lazar and Sharon Beiman have gone above and beyond to offer their help and expertise. Sharon has been working on behalf of IARPP for many years – she is tireless and loyal. This is true for Chana Ullman, Rina, and the local conference planning committee too – you have all been wonderful. Our international conference committee under the leadership of Gianni Nebiossi who, sadly, is not able to be here – we so miss Gianni and Susi, who also put a great deal of time, thought and effort into this event, as has our hard working IARPP Board of Directors.
We of course rely on our volunteers to keep running, and I’d like to help anyone with an interest to figure out how you might contribute. Most of all, have fun learning and playing in this beautiful country and as part of an organization that teaches and promotes a way of thinking and practice that has touched – well – multitudes. Thank you.
As I close this lengthier than usual column, I am happy to announce that planning for our next conference is well under way, as you will read about elsewhere in this issue of the newsletter. Please consider joining us in Los Angeles from June 18th-21st 2020, when we will explore: “Expanding Our Clinical Experiences: The Spoken, Unspoken, and Unspeakable in Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.”
Warm regards,
Steve
Steven Kuchuck, DSW
New York City
Email Steven Kuchuck
