Archives

Notes on the Santiago Conference

 

Juan Francisco Jordan-Moore (Chile)
Conference Co-Chair

JFjordanMooref

Three months after the termination of the 11th International Conference, the title, “Meeting of Traditions: Field, Link and Matrix in Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice” may be a good start to make a remembrance of the event. When we started we had the purpose of a meeting, not only of different theoretical perspectives and approaches to psychoanalytic practice, but also the aspiration to accomplish a reunion of the languages that sustain the Relational and Latin American traditions of psychoanalysis, English and Spanish. As my commentary will address, the experience that finally emerged in the Conference was an emotional meeting that surpassed all of our expectations.

SntgCldsChrswwwIn the Opening Ceremony a chorus and orchestra of children from Santa Cruz sang a variety of songs, among which it was specially moving to hear “Luchín”, a song by Victor Jara, and “Sube a Nacer Conmigo Hermano”, music by “Los Jaivas” of a Neruda’s text from “Las Alturas de Machu-Pichu”. This musical opening was perhaps the announcement of what was going to transpire during the Conference. This orchestra and chorus is now one of a number of children assemblies through Chile and Latin America. It is part of an organization of musical orchestras of children that was founded by Jorge Peña Hen, a Chilean musician who was murdered on October 16, 1973 by the dreadful “Death Caravan”, after the September 11 coup by Pinochet in Chile. So here we had death and trauma flowing from the past to meet the present through life capable of renewing itself in the beauty of songs that do not forget the horrors of the past.

The Opening Panel was dedicated to the indigenous people of Chile. One of the panelists was Pedro Cayuqueo a Mapuche journalist who has written extensively about the oblivion of the Mapuche culture by the dominant culture of the Chileans and the violations of their human rights. He spoke to us in Mapudungun, the language of the Mapuches, making us all aware of the importance of speaking the other´s language as a basis for mutual recognition. To my mind this was a remarkable signal of the place that Relational Psychoanalysis can inhabit in the social tapestry of our time; a remembrance that psychoanalysis lives and thinks mostly in the borders, looking at the disenfranchised and, thus, it is capable of rescuing that which is human and yet is excluded form the speech of power. Wasn’t this the case with sexuality in the beginning?

SntgoPlzCrwdwwwI witnessed during the following days a growing emotional intimacy in the participants that maybe was also facilitated by the fact that the Paper Sessions took place in rooms that surrounded a central plaza in which we all gathered to have coffee and some cookies during the breaks. You could see from the balcony of the second floor all of us people talking to each other and could sense the enthusiasm of something that was unexpected and a surprise. I followed the presentations that spoke of trauma from socio-political causes and people could open their emotional intimacy to others who were really listening. This happened between people who didn´t speak the same language. The experience of emotions as a universal medium of communicating is so compelling. We really could have a bi-lingual Conference a challenge we thought we could not accomplish.

Finally my question is:  Did we really meet? Was there really a meeting of traditions? As I said in the concluding session I think both traditions really met in an absence that was represented in the gap between the different continents gathering as to form again Pangea, the logo of the Conference. This empty space emphasizes the absence of a unified theory that can give a full account of human suffering due to trauma. The Conference could not have seen the light of day had it not been for all the living relational community that contributed to this event for which I am very grateful. In the end all I can say is a humble prayer to life.

“Gracias a la Vida.”

Looking forward to meet many of you again in Toronto,

 

Online Seminars

IPhilipsonwwwIlene Philipson, co-chair, IARPP web seminars

After an enormously successful candidates’ webinar with Donnel Stern in January, our web seminar series continues in February with Barry Magid and Estelle Shane presenting on What Self Psychology and Relationality Can Learn From Each Other.   

Based on an original paper they have co-authored for this seminar, Magid and Shane assert that self psychology should not be seen historically as a precursor to relational theory but rather as a fully separate relational (and intersubjective) model of mind and of therapeutic action.  They wish to argue against the view, present in some circles, that holds that contemporary relationality has nothing more to learn from self psychology.  Instead they paint a picture of two ever-changing, mutually influencing perspectives, wherein self psychology is recognized as being deeper and richer than is often understood.

The webinar began February 24th and will conclude on March 9th, it is being moderated by Roberto D’Angelo, a psychiatrist and psychoanalytic candidate practicing in Sydney, Australia.

From March 24th to April 9th, we will be hosting an IARPP cyber book celebration for Steven Kuchuck’s new edited book, Clinical Implications of the Psychoanalyst’s Life Experience:  When the Personal Becomes Professional (Routledge: 2014). (read the eNews interview with Steven Kuchuck here)

Through examining the ways in which clinicians’ personal life stories affect the tenor of the therapist’s presence in the consulting room, participants in this seminar will have an opportunity to focus on the ways in which our life experiences can affect clinical choices.  Difficulties in understanding how patients experience us that arise when the analyst’s subjectivity becomes bracketed, or even dissociated, will be examined, as will questions of therapist temperament, conflicts around being seen, and struggles with self-care.

Joining Steve in leading this webinar will be some of the contributors to his book:  Galit Atlas, Sally Bjorklund, Hillary Grill, Irwin Hirsch, and Joyce Slochower.  Rachel Sopher will be moderating.

I hope to “see” many of you in both of these webinars as I think each of these will offer important contributions to our field.

 

Meeting the Relational People in Sydney, Australia

Susie Orbach (UK)

I was invited to keynote at the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders in August. With a twenty four hour trip it seemed mad not to meet with the relational therapists there. What a wonderful group. Or perhaps I should say, what wonderful groups of people I met with.

Marianne Kennedy, Annette Conradi, Margie Chodos, Ludmila Kopel, Susie Orbach, Mary Bayles and Louise Hird

Marianne Kennedy, Annette Conradi, Margie Chodos, Ludmila Kopel, Susie Orbach, Mary Bayles and Louise Hird

In Sydney, the Relational People and the Sydney Institute of Psychoanalysis put on two events for me to speak at: the first on new theoretical approaches to the Body and the second on the Politics of the Body. Although notionally the latter was for the relationals and the former for the analysts, the two groups cooperated and worked as one including involving major media – National Radio &, TV for me to talk about psychoanalysis. Mary Bayles, Marianne Kennedy, Annette Conradi from the relational side joined with Louise Hird and Sonia Wechlser from the Institute.

The relational turn is definitely of interest to the younger analysts. This is in part because of the very individual voice of Neville Symington who has made it possible for others to think out of the box. But it is also due to Mary Bayles, Marianne Kennedy,  Annette Conradi  and Margie Chodos who have been energising relational thinking in Sydney.

In Melbourne, I also spoke with the psychoanalysts and psychotherapeutically orientated psychiatrists and found the latter extremely enlightened and enlightening.

At the Anzaed conference, I participated in, inter alia, a case discussion from three perspectives with me representing a relational approach. It was gratifying, again, to see how people are gravitating towards the inter subjective and interpersonal.