By Maria Tammone (Italy) and Susi Federici-Nebbiosi (Italy)

Dear IARPP Members,

The 2016 IARPP conference is drawing near! As you no doubt know, it will be held in Rome, Italy, taking place from June 9 through 12. On behalf of the Local Committee and the International Steering Committee, it is our pleasure to welcome you to Rome. Our committees have collaborated in a really warm and creative way through all stages of planning our conference, with the conference theme entitled “The Arts of Time: Relational Psychoanalysis and Forms of Vitality in the Clinical Process.”

Rome is wonderful at this time of year, warm, not too hot, and not too crowded (we hope…). Our location, the Teatro Argentina, is in the center of Rome and will amaze you with its architectural and historical beauty. We think that a conference in a theatre is an original and significant way to experience the deep connection between art and psychoanalysis through time.

Forms of vitality are those dynamic forms that permeate daily life, the arts, and psychotherapy. The papers we have received are all about this topic in its various forms. We will have panels about infant research, neuroscience, temporality and timing in the arts, vitality within contexts of destruction, play and improvisation in psychoanalysis as an art of interaction, and more. And all of these subjects will be intertwined with clinical themes.

This is the fourth IARPP conference to be held in Europe. The first was Rome in 2005, followed by Athens in 2007, and then Madrid in 2011. Presenters hail from all over the world, including Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, South America, and Israel, in addition to our European colleagues from Spain, Greece, Germany, Sweden, Norway, England, Slovenia, Switzerland, and of course Italy.

Music will accompany the entire conference as both a topic of our study and a way to share emotional experiences with each other, thus promoting a sense of community among the conference participants. The opening concert will feature big band jazz presented by a group of young Italian musicians, the New Talents Jazz Orchestra. The final concert of the conference will demonstrate the transmodal quality of vitality forms as we experience the extraordinary Manos Blancas Choir, a group comprised of both hearing and deaf musicians. And at the Saturday night party there will be live music for dancing and enjoying being together once again.

We hope you will join us and share this unique experience. We’re all getting excited to welcome you to Rome!

Maria Tammone and Susi Federici-Nebbiosi

Maria Tammone, MD, Local Conference Committee
Via Montegrappa 46
00048 Nettuno/Roma   Italia
Email Maria Tammone

Susanna Federici-Nebbiosi, PhD, Conference Co-chair
Via Tacito 7
Rome 193   Italy
Email Susanna Federici-Nebbiosi