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The International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy  |
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Past Events:
June 24 - June 27, 2009
| Event: | IARPP Annual Conference 2009 |
| Location: | Tel Aviv, Israel |
| Venue: | The David Intercontinental Hotel (on the Tel Aviv beach) |
| Co-Chairs: | Hazel Ipp, Rina Lazar, Chana Ullman |
4th International Conference of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
- presents -
The Shadow of Memory: "Relational Perspectives on Remembering and Forgetting"
REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED.
PLEASE NOTE: UPDATE 15 April 2009: The early registration fee for the Israel 2009 conference is relevant through April 15, 2009 - although the Israel registration site says early registration has already closed. The registration fee will be adjusted asap for those who pay by midnight, April 15, 2009 (EST).
Stipends:
The IARPP is very pleased to announce the availability of three stipends at the sum of $400 each to cover registration costs for the international conference:"The Shadow of memory: Relational perspectives on remembering and forgetting" which will be held in Tel-Aviv Israel, June 24-27 . The stipends will be given to mental health professionals or students involved in facilitating dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, who are in need of financial assistance in order to attend the conference. If you are eligible please write to Chana Ullman chanaullman@gmail.com no later than April 15, 2009, with a statement of your qualifications. Only applicants who fulfill the above criteria will be considered.
Please keep checking this site for upcoming updates for the program, participants, cultural events and more.
A very partial list of our speakers in invited panels in this conference includes: Neil Altman, Lewis Aron, Jessica Benjamin, Emanuel Berman, Jody Davies, Muriel Dimen, Darlene Ehrenberg, Susannah Federici Nebbiosi, Sam Gerson, Sue Grand, Adrienne Harris , Rina Lazar, Avishai Margalit, Gianni Nebbiosi, Mustafa Qossoqsi, Stephen Seligman, Malcolm Slavin, Ruth Stein, Donnel Stern, Efi Ziv.
Save the date for this unique conference. We look forward to seeing all of you.
The interplay of remembering and forgetting, of dissociation and integration, lies at the heart of the psyche's dynamics and the analytic encounter. It is also central to Israel's existential dilemma, because our nation was born in the shadow of memory-the memories of both nations that live on this land; the shadow of history that has brought the Jews here; and the shadows of history, politics, and passion that do not let the Palestinians and Jews live together in peace.
As long as these memories continue to cast their shadows in blinding and binding ways, we are doomed to live in eternal strife. This theme is written in blood. The Relational perspective can enlighten us in these areas of our life, since it deals extensively with the complex dialectics between the human psyche and its sociopolitical and cultural context.
Many questions come to mind as we think of the interplay between remembering and forgetting. How do we deal with our past, both personal and political? How do we deal with what was possible but missed? How can we mourn what has been lost to us? Can we forgive ourselves and others? In Freud's (1914) language, do we aim at "curbing the patient's [and nations'] compulsion to repeat and … turning it into a motive for remembering?" Or do we try to enlarge the scope of our "implicit relational knowledge," enriching those modes of dealing with human [and political] relations we are embedded in? How do we reread canonical texts such as Freud's "Remembering, Repeating and Working Through" and "Mourning and Melancholia" or Bion's "Notes on Memory and Desire"? How do we deal with our anxiety of influence when it relates to our cherished beliefs and theories?
We hope that this conference will enable us to learn more about shadows of memories and forgetting both as treasures and traps. We hope the conference will enable us to experience the burden of memories and dissociations and help us discover new ways to integrate them in the clinical context, in the Israeli context, and beyond. These questions and more guided our thinking as we suggested the following major panels for the conference:
- The Ethics of Memory
- Meeting of Minds: The Need to Remember, the Wish to Forget
- Mourning and Melancholia Revisited
- Multiple Perspectives Traumatized Memory and Dissociation
- Memory and Hope
These panels as well as many other invited and submitted panels will feature speakers from the international Relational community, including new voices as well as our world-renown speakers.
We realize that many of our guests will have complex and conflicting feelings and beliefs about the politics of Israeli-Palestinian relations, just as Israeli society as a whole does. For this reason we will begin each morning with an open discussion group (led by experienced facilitators) entitled "Memory in Context: Processing Being in Israel." Our hope is that this group will create a space that recognizes and holds the inherent complexity of the ethical and political issues involved and that fosters a spirit of nuanced and open dialogue.
The Israeli Forum was established three years ago at the IARPP Conference in Rome. The idea of holding the next IARPP conference in Israel was then in the air, but we had to wait until we became better organized. That time has come. For us, the Israeli chapter of IARPP, this conference is a very exciting event, a landmark in our functioning as a local chapter and as part of the Israeli psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic community. We feel that this conference represents the relevance of Relational thinking to the therapeutic community in Israel and will strengthen our ties to the international Relational community.
As in all international IARPP conferences, we will offer cultural events that we are certain will be both intellectually stimulating and fun. The conference organizers are planning pre- and post-conference tours of the unique sites Israel has to offer. We hope that having this rich and integrative event in our burdened yet intriguing and beautiful country will be a very satisfying and pleasurable experience, and we invite all of you, our relational friends and colleagues, to participate.