Dear Colleagues,

Our annual conference is now just days away.

Over 400 people from six continents are expected to convene in Athens, the birthplace of democracy, to explore “The Paradox of Freedom in Relational Psychoanalysis: Democracy and Tyranny In and Out of Therapy.” What could be a more timely conference theme than this reckoning with the challenges of establishing and maintaining the shared power structure that pulses through the democratic process, whether in our treatment rooms and analytic institutions or in our communities and nations?

For those of you who do not plan to attend the conference, please know that there is still time to register for online access to the five plenaries. See the Conference Page for details on our livestream package.

Our deepest concern goes to all IARPP members currently threatened by war. The outbreak of bombing in Iran and Israel means that a number of people from both countries are suddenly unable to attend our conference as they contend with calamity. They and all their fellow countrymen and women will be foremost in our thoughts.

This IARPP Bookshelf  issue features another insightful author interview conducted by Berta Loret de Mola (Mexico) who here discusses the relational system of traumatizing narcissism with Daniel Shaw (USA). Once again a very timely topic, as the pair discuss a wide range of situations, from the clinical to the national, where it behooves us, in Berta’s words, to “rethink narcissism from an intersubjective and ethical perspective.” While Dan focuses his clinical attention on individual patients traumatized by traumatizing narcissists, the descriptive formulations he offers of the mindsets of both authoritarians and their followers are deft and illuminating.

The relationship between the system of subjugation described by Shaw and the current perils of many nations’ current politics couldn’t be plainer.

I have in mind my own country, one among many whose democratic structures increasingly appear to be in-name-only. As I pack my bag for Athens, I prepare to leave the horrors currently unfolding in my native democracy, seeking succor and understanding in the cradle of democracy, and not a moment too soon – for “each new day brings us fresh evidence of a deeply troubling trend: America is no longer a stable country, and it is growing less stable by the day,” as New York Times columnist David French wrote last week. Days later the National Guard as well as 700 military troops were deployed to the streets of Los Angeles, prompting California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, to give a speech describing the many ways that “Trump is destroying American democracy.”

I look forward to seeing many of you in Athens as we together parse these important conference themes, and I hope even more of you will join us online.

Here is the latest publication news from our membership:

Jeanne Wolff Bernstein (Austria) analyzes the relationships between artist, painting, and viewer in The Lure of the Gaze and the Past: A Psychoanalytic View of the Works of Édouard Manet,  demonstrating how Manet both expresses the contradictions inherent in his era and subtly criticizes his social milieu. In combining three distinct perspectives – the personal, the historical and the viewers’ own identificatory processes – a new understanding of Manet’s work is offered.

Barbara Holifield’s (USA) Being with the Body in Depth Psychology: Development, Trauma, and Transformation in the Unspoken Realm  synthesizes somatic work into a relationally based psychoanalytic approach to developmental trauma. Peter A. Levine writes, “In giving the body its due, this book serves as an important and relevant dialogue between Depth Psychology and those working in the fields of Body Psychotherapy.”

Roy E. Barsness (USA) has written Psychodynamic Supervision Theory and Practices: In a New Key,  centering on the development of the self of the therapist, directly working with the emergent therapeutic relationship, and privileging affect over cognition. One supervisee notes, “The model encourages me to access parts of myself that I longed for but never thought could be useful in the therapy room. It not only helps me access those parts of myself but goes further in teaching me how  to use them in a way that benefits the client.”

Alessandro Cavelzani (Italy) has co-authored Clinical Research and Practices to Support Families at Risk of Child Neglect and Maltreatment  which offers research-based best practices guidance in support of the prevention of child and adolescent neglect and maltreatment across a number of settings.

Beth Feldman (USA) has written Case Studies in Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: If I Could Turn Back Time  in which she highlights misattunements, ruptures, and enactments, exploring what she might have done differently. Danielle Knafo writes, “’While it is often said that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes, few analysts dare to revisit what went wrong. Beth Feldman boldly steps into that space, with rare transparency.”

Elisabeth Hanscombe (Australia) has written a memoir entitled The Museum of Failure  which weaves together three significant institutions that shaped her experiences – the family, the church, and the psychoanalytic – offering reflections on healing, identity, and transformation. Brenda Rowlandson writes, “It is a beautifully crafted book, candid and unswervingly honest; Hanscombe rivets the reader’s attention.”

Andrew Samuels’ (UK) latest book is Reflecting Critically on the Political Psyche: Therapy, Testament and Trouble in Psychoanalysis and Jungian Analysis,  a capstone to more than 50 years of bringing therapy thinking to bear on politics. Monica Luci writes, “Each chapter is a gemstone, elaborating freshly, authentically and thought-provokingly on a variety of themes in the political psyche that Samuels has explored over a lifetime.”

Noel Jeffs (Australia) has published two poems, Ode to Warrigal Creek,  which resonates with the shame for the massacre of an Australian Aboriginal people in the mid-nineteenth century, and Roads to Stroud,  representing the journey to himself and to his religious community. Poet Phillip Hall has remarked, “I love Noel’s work – terrific and underrated; a quiet superstar.”

Steven Kuchuck’s (USA) The Relational Revolution in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy   (2021), his concise Relational primer, has just been published in Portuguese as A Revolução Relacional em Psicoterapia e Psicanálise.  Jessica Benjamin has noted, “Kuchuck’s highly nuanced account offers as many questions as answers, staying true to the revolutionary project of replacing absolutist views of technique with recognition of the complexity that arises when we envision therapy as a meeting of minds, a co-creation in which the analyst is a full participant.”

And as for recent and forthcoming papers, chapters, and presentations:

Alexander Levchuk (Georgia) has written a preface to the Russian-language translation of Bromberg’s Awaking the Dreamer: Clinical Journeys, the first book on relational psychoanalysis published in Russian. Janine de Peyer (USA) offers a paper that further develops her interest in clinical cases depicting varying types of telepathic transmission. Adam Blum (USA) hosts a discussion between an analyst and an actor exploring their kindred disciplines in the realm of the deeply responsive art of listening.

Shir Shanun (USA) has made several presentations, including her discussion of the relationship between analytic freedom and the loving gaze. Ruth Lijtmaer (USA) presented on the dehumanization process to which immigrants are subjected. Christine Vickers (Australia) wrote a paper centering on a lecture on the child’s experiences of migration that the Hungarian-trained analyst Klára Lázár Geroe gave several years after arriving in Australia.

Simone Drichel (New Zealand) has utilized a Levinasian ethics to explore the psychosocial conditions of possibility for social justice. Adam Shechter (USA) considers the lowered fee in terms of an overdetermined socialistic emotion as and beyond the binary of capitalism/socialism. Elizabeth Allured (USA) has penned a chapter discussing the theory and practice of climate-informed therapy with children and adolescents.

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If you would like the next IARPP Bookshelf to include news of your recent publications and/or presentations (“recent” should be understood as occurring within the past year), please send the following materials to me at mattaibel@gmail.com by Sunday, September 28, 2025:

• Title of your recent or upcoming publication(s)/presentation(s) (We do not include 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 (75-90 words)
• Presenters, please spell out organizational acronyms and include the location, if in-person

Best wishes,

Matt Aibel, LCSW
IARPP Bookshelf Editor

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