Deepening Explorations in Psychoanalysis
The American Psychoanalytic Association’s Department of Psychoanalytic Education (DPE) and the Psychoanalyst in the Community working group are excited to announce an upcoming conference called The Unseen: Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Community Psychoanalysis into the Future. The conference will take place on March 16 and 17, 2024, in Washington, DC. It will be a hybrid in-person and online gathering.
Our featured speakers–Daniel Gaztambide, Psy.D., Francisco Gonzalez, MD, and Kimberlyn Leary, Ph.D.–will together explore the intersection of the personal and social unconscious and how psychoanalysts can be engaged in the socio-political world. The overarching objective of the conference is to facilitate a liminal space for participants to consider moving from the solitude of their consulting rooms, where the individual unconscious holds sway, to a space where the individual and communal unconscious are in dialogue about contemporary societal crises. Throughout the conference, we aim to build a collective consciousness, both intellectually and experientially, thereby expanding the horizons of psychoanalytic possibilities.
Utilizing small-group and large-group experiences, we will create a framework for personal and interpersonal learning. We will screen “We Are Human First,” a film produced by psychoanalyst Paula Kliger, Ph.D. The film presents a collection of human atrocities and suffering, serving as a catalyst for deeper conversations about the potential of psychoanalytic applications to contribute beyond the consulting room. Throughout the conference, participants will have the opportunity to share personal reflections about pressing mental-health and public-health challenges.
The conference is co-sponsored by several collaborating institutions, including the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, the Contemporary Freudian Society, the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (Community Psychoanalysis Track), the Oregon Psychoanalytic Center, and the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis.
Generous support from DPE and other sponsors has enabled us to create a joint event that deepens the connections between institutes, institute-affiliated analysts, and community-based clinicians and agencies. We hope that the conference will foster inspiration to establish more community projects in the US and abroad. US psychoanalysts who have been working in community settings nationally and internationally (Paola Contreras, Francisco Gonzalez, Jany Keat, Paula Kliger, Lizbeth Moses, Rachel Peltz and Lee Slome) joined with Colombian community psychoanalysts Camila Gutierrez Cardosa, Silvia Rivera and Maria Cecilia Sanchez to establish a working group that developed an intimate two-day workshop called Collaborations for Working Under Fire: A Community Psychoanalysis International Working Group. We hope this group will expand and flourish by welcoming interested conference attendees.
Our ultimate goal is to extend the reach of psychoanalytic thought beyond traditional institutional and individual psychoanalytic therapy. We aim to nurture a national and international hub for creative engagement among diverse clinical practitioners, administrators, activists, artists and all those dedicated to strengthening the application of psychoanalytic thinking in the community. We also aim to encourage the establishment of new local centers and networks. We are building our new community to help heal our separate and shared socio-political worlds.
Conference Planners: Paula Kliger, Karol Kullberg, Lizbeth Moses, Lee Slome, Thomas Veeder.
Lizbeth Moses, Ph.D.