It’s hard to put into words everything that’s happened during the last five months – so many unthinkable events and corresponding hard feelings. Russia started the war. Repressions intensified inside the country. Half of the nascent and still young Russian Relational community decided to emigrate. So did we. One of us (Alexander) wrote at length about it in his emails to the IARPP community.
As to the current activity of IARPP-Russia, we continue to unite and support Russian colleagues interested in the Relational approach. Luckily, since Covid all our activities were online, so they were a point of stability both for those who decided to leave the country and for those who have stayed.
We (Alexander and Elina) continue to be active on our Facebook group (IARPP-Russia) and our Telegram channel. We are pleased that not only are psychoanalytic therapists interested in Relational ideas, but also colleagues from other psychotherapeutic areas. Most of these are gestalt therapists, but existential and CBT therapists as well.
For more than a year, we have held a weekly study group with Matt Aibel (USA). After the war began, for a couple of months it switched from a study group to a support group. Participants said that it was very important for them to have someone from outside Russia to contain all the pain and horror they were going through.
Alexander has continued his Relational reading groups, which he has been leading for the last three years. Usually he offers fundamental Relational papers, but after the outbreak of the war, the group read articles about working amidst shared trauma (like 9/11 in New York) and in situations when political polarization reigns in society (and therapy).
In addition, we continue our theoretical/supervision Relational groups. One is continuing from last year, and we will also have a new enrollment this autumn.
Some of our colleagues (Irina Zolotareva, Denis Kargaltsev and Tatyana Panchenko) remained in Russia and will conduct their own Relational education program.
Despite the war and all the horrors, we do not stop, and it seems that interest in Relational psychoanalysis among Russian-speaking specialists continues to increase.
Alexander Levchuk and Elina Ryzhenkova
Alexander Levchuk, MA
Elina Ryzhenkova, MSc
Tbilisi, Georgia
formerly of Saint Petersburg, Russia
Email Alexander Levchuk
