Dear Colleagues,

Another year of tumult and trauma winds down.

All through the year now ending, in our marvelous annual conference (in June) and our two stirring colloquiums (in May and November), as well as in our ongoing Collective (throughout the year), we’ve concerned ourselves with urgent questions about similarities and differences, us and them, love and hate. These themes, sometimes bringing us closer together, sometimes exposing rifts and chasms, challenge us again and again, in our world, our work, and our community.

Dwelling on the span of these communal reflections has evoked in me the following, something of a waking-dream prose-poem, perhaps an elegy of sorts to IARPP 2024.

* * *

Why war?, we’ve wondered. Why hate?, we’ve asked.

Can we ever transcend our differences? Can we instead abide them? Can our differences be a place from which to start? How do I hate thee? Can we learn to hate better?

If we’ve met the enemy and he is us, why do we continue to other the other?

Whom do we love, and what happens when we start to hate them? Winnicott said we hate from the start, from the word go. Can we hate hate? Can we hate Winnicott?

Can love last? How do we love? How ought we to love? Whom ought we to love?

Do we love our patients? Do they love us? Is the frame a form of love? Of hate?

Do our patients pay for our love? Or do they pay for our attention? The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s disinterest. So if we’re interested, because we’re paid, do we begin to love?

I don’t need your love. I need understanding. I need to understand. Then maybe I will learn to love. And allow myself to be loved.

If you really loved me … I hate it when you …

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.

In which case, what? I hate you? I avoid you? I fight you? Can I win you over, or must I defeat you?

It’s personal for me. It’s political. It’s nothing personal.

Can we talk?

To what end?

That’s all the time we have.

* * *

In their serious, impassioned yet sometimes playful inquiry, their offerings of darkness and light, confessions and wonderings, our conference and our colloquiums represented the best of what IARPP offers its membership: a community of the curious, ever questing for better questions. Our heterodoxies – geographic, linguistic, idiomatic, theoretical, clinical, political – coexist alongside our affinities. The shared values endemic to our Relational family allow us to speak to and with one another across our differences, facilitating a sense of belonging (as well as unbelonging) and allowing us to find or make a home (as well as an unhome) in this community. I’m grateful to be a member of this community; I hope you are as well. And I look forward to the opportunities to hear more of our community’s experiences when we meet again in the new year.

In this month’s Bulletin, you’ll find reports from the chairs of several IARPP committees, including, apropos of the above, a note from Membership, whose timely message is that it is time to renew your membership in our organization. Your dues help us maintain our work, and secure your ongoing place in our community. For further information and specifics, be sure to read Tony Bass’ note herein.

If you would like the next IARPP Bookshelf to include news of your recent publications and/or presentations, please send the following materials to me at Matt Aibel by Sunday, January 26, 2025:

• Title of your recent or upcoming publication(s)/presentation(s) (We do not publish announcements of IARPP Conference presentations.)
• An abstract or brief description of the 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 (city/town in which you practice or work and your email address)
• Book authors, please provide a brief bio of 75-90 words
• Presenters, please spell out organizational acronyms and include the location, if in-person

Happy New Year and best wishes to you all,
Matt Aibel

Matt Aibel, LCSW
New York, NY, USA
Email Matt Aibel