Given the current situation in so many parts of the world and the ways in which the lives of so many are impacted, Shlomit and I, in consultation with the Colloquium Committee and the ECC, decided that we needed to do something that acknowledges our reality at the moment, rather than a purely academic paper.

Reconfiguring (Pardon the Expression) the Negative Oedipus Complex and the Disowned Erotics of Disowned Sexualities.
In this paper, as the title implies, Jody attempts to complicate and “complexify” some of the dynamics of human sexuality. Despite its publication in 2015, in many places the world over we are still battling stereotyped binary perceptions of sexual identity and the restrictive and punitive policies employed to enforce them.   Jody is also hoping to use this forthcoming colloquium to bring some new theorizing on the issue, so there is much scope for conversation and dialogue regarding different understandings of the concepts.

This paper acknowledges and discusses the analyst’s sleepiness as a defense against affect in the patient and analyst. It explores the phenomenon as an enactment of parental unavailability and abandonment and a primitive communication from the patient about early states of psychological deadness and unintegration. In the context of relational literature that celebrates engaged and enlivened registers, this article considers the problems and potentials of dwelling in a distanced and deadened intersubjective field.

The Analyst’s Self-Revelation: Not Just Permissible but Necessary In this colloquium, we intend to have conversations about relational technique in general, with specific focus on Bromberg’s proposal that ‘self-revelation is not only permissible but necessary’. While perhaps a well-worn trope, we are of the opinion that it is still a […]

This eloquent paper takes on the difficult but therapeutically essential topic of the language of the incestuous encounter, and the ways in which what purports to contain attachment and meaning in fact attacks precisely those qualities. We believe that the discussion of this paper will offer rich opportunity for both clinical and theoretical exploration, and will provide a much-needed opportunity for us to think together even while we cannot meet in person as yet.

This eloquent paper takes on a state of grief and loss beyond mourning and melancholia, and “makes a case for acknowledging a third category of loss: psychic devastation … that turns out to be an impediment to the process of mourning.”

Steven Stern interweaves a variety of theoretical strands into his own unique integration, extending his self-psychologically informed ideas about “needed” relationships. The article is intellectually challenging and clinically accessible; we are hoping it will engage broad participation across the IARPP community.

Working During the Coronavirus Health Crisis: An Open Forum We invite all IARPP members to join in our online project: Working During the Corona Virus Health Crisis: An Open Forum to discuss reactions, thoughts and concerns, whether theoretical, clinical, or personal about the crisis that we are coping with around […]

Death of a Parent: Openings at an Ending As the new co-chairs of the IARPP Colloquium Committee, we’re pleased to announce the forthcoming colloquium. We will be discussing Mary Joan Gerson’s 2018 paper from Psychoanalytic Perspectives, “Death of a Parent: Openings at an Ending”.  This beautiful article explores the way […]

Psychoanalytic Companioning This paper will be a wonderful introduction to Robert Grossmark’s book, also called The Unobtrusive Relational Analyst. In that book, his perspective on treatment and on work with trauma is very clearly developed and clinically illuminated. Here in this essay, we are asked to consider subtle but deep […]

Saketopoulou’s  work advances an alternative exegesis of perverse sexuality that permits an analyst to regard it not from within a state of alarm but with the capacity to recognize perversity’s generative potential. Relying on Laplanche’s theory of infantile sexuality, she suggests that the sexualization of suffering is developmentally installed in sexuality’s very ontology. Although frequently and reflexively conceptualized in psychoanalysis as a demise of the sexual function, perversion can be oftentimes sexuality’s aspiration.

Esprey argues that race, as it presents itself within the clinical dyad as an aspect of the relationship between therapist and patient, has scarcely been written about from an experience-near perspective within the South African context. This paper focuses on the difficulty of speaking and writing about race. It contends that race as a construct and as an aspect of subjectivity has the potential to interrupt the therapist’s capacity to think, in Bionian terms, and to prevent entry into the reverie that is crucial to…

Shalgi sees the most basic endeavor therapists and their patients are struggling with as that of entering into the realm of death with open eyes. In his paper, the term ‘death’ means both psychic death and actual death, both the cessation of psychic life and of actual life.

CE Credits: 3 The program is free of cost to all IARPP members. For psychologists: IARPP is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. IARPP maintains responsibility for this program and its content. This program is valid for 3 CE Credits. For social workers:
 IARPP has […]

We are excited to have Dr. Grand as our next featured author. Her work has been a very influential source of relational thinking over the last decade and we look forward to another rich and creative two weeks of dialogue with an international panel and all of you.