5th International
ANALYSIS AND ACTIVISM
Conference

1. – 3. September 2023
Ljubljana, Slovenia

DO WE REALLY HAVE
THE ANSWER?

A PSYCHO-POLITICAL AGENDA
FOR INTERDEPENDENCE:
BRIDGING WISH AND ACTUALITY
IN AN UNHINGED WORLD

Conference organized by
ANALYSIS & ACTIVISM

in cooperation with
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
SLOVENIAN ASSOCIATION FOR ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY

A&A
プリント
SZAP

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1ST

9:30 – 3:00
Check-in

10:00 – 12:00
Eva Pattis & Caterina Vezzoli (Italy)
Self-Experience: Playing with Sand/Witnessing in Silence

Emma Wong (Hong Kong / UK)
Mindfulness Self-Experience: It is difficult. We are different. How can we connect?

Tristan Troudart (Israel)
Workshop: Understanding Human Rights Activism Through Feeling, Symbolic Language, Self-Reflection and Group discussion

The above are dedicated for those in Ljubljana only and for 25 people maximum (each workshop).

2:30 – 3.30
Conference Opening Address: A&A Committee + IAAP President Misser Berg

3:30 – 4.30
Jožef Magdič (Slovenia)
Navigating the Waters of Identity: Jungian? Politician? Yourself?

4:30 – 5:00
Coffee break

5:00 – 5:30
Manca Švara and Katja Hrobat Virloget (Slovenia)
My Silent Story

5:30 – 6:00
Carolyn Bates (U.S.A.)
There’s Something about Uvalde: American Patriarchy and the Slaughter of Innocents

6:00 – 6:30
Stefano Carta (Italy)
History, Paranoia and Fragmentation

6:30 – 7:30
General Discussion / Break Out Session

7:30 – 9:30
Cocktail Reception

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2ND

8:00 – 9:00
Social Dreaming Matrix (conducted by Caterina Vezzoli)

9:30 – 10:00
John M. Hayes (U.S.A.)
The Whiteness Complex: Breaking the Spell

10:00 – 10:30
Valeria Kierbel (Argentina)
To(o) Queer the Analyst – Lesbiana, Junguiana y Sudamericana. Contributions from Queer Epistemologies to Tell Other Stories in Psychology and Psychoanalysis

10.30 – 11.00
Andrew Samuels (U.K.)
MEN: Political, Psychological and Professional Perspectives – On Male Behaviours in Society, Family and Relationships; On Political Leadership; On Fatherhood; and On Sexual Misconduct by Male Psychotherapists.

11:00 – 11:30
Coffee break

11:30 – 1:00
Chiara Giaccardi & Mauro Magatti (Italy)
Co-Individuation and Contemporary Supersociety

1.00 – 2:30
Lunch Break

2:30 – 3:00
Ferdoos Alissa (Palestine)
Ethical Breach and Dual Loyalties: Psychological Theories as a Tool of Torture of Palestinian Detainees in Israeli Prisons

3:00 – 3:30
Iryna Semkiv (Ukraine)
War: Mentalization and the Totalitarian State of Mind

3:30 – 4:00
Dmytro Zaleskyi (Ukraine)
A Time for War – A Time for Individuation?

4:30 – 5:15
General Discussion / Break Out Session

5:15 – 5:30
Coffee break

5:30 –7:00
Marcel Mettelsifen & Maite Carrasco (Germany/Spain)
Watani: My Homeland

8:00 – 11:00
Community Dinner

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 3RD

8:00 – 9:00
Social Dreaming Matrix (conducted by Caterina Vezzoli)

9:30 – 10:00
Dmitry Kotenko (Russia)
Russian Identity: Painful Way of Transformation and Global Challenges

10:00 – 10:30
Moshe Alon (Israel)
Lod: A Malcontent City with a Malcontent Group

10.30 – 11.00
Tiffany Houck-Loomis (U.S.A)
Unhinged: A Prospective Perspective on Being Unsafe

11:00 – 11:30
Coffee break

11:30 – 1:00
Verena Kast (Switzerland)
The Culture of Care in its Importance in Dealing with Today´s Crisis

1:00 – 2:30
Lunch break

2:30 – 3:00
Huan Wang (China)
Collective Trauma and Political Paranoia During the COVID-19 Pandemic

3:00 – 3:30
Julien-François Gerber (Belgium)
Ensouling the Critique of Capitalism: From Marx and Jung to Degrowth

3:30 – 4:00
Alex Sierck (USA)
Toward a Geneology of “Analyzability” in Analytical Psychology

4:00 – 4:15
Coffee break

4:15 – 5:15
Round Table with Verena Kast, Andrew Samuels, Lynn Alicia Franco, Monica Luci, Tine Papič, Stefano Carpani

5:15 – 6:00
General Discussion / Break Out Session

6:00
Closing

CONFERENCE MANIFESTO

In the first twenty years of this 21st century, we have experienced major global events with unprecedented condensation and speed – terrorist attacks, wars, global financial crisis, and a still-ongoing pandemic, just to name a few – all of which have had a dramatic impact on the way we live.

In 1946, Albert Camus noted that the century in which he was writing presented itself as the “century of fear.”

How will the twenty-first century present itself and be experienced, especially given that, more than any other pressing issue, the reality and the manifestations of climate change permeates all aspects of our lives? Moreover, and unlike other pressing concerns, the very ubiquity and vastness of the dangers to, and compromising of, our shared ground of being, has resulted in a shared sense of overwhelmedness (that, for some, might result in a collusive non engagement).

In 2015, at the conclusion of the UN summit in New York, 196 countries signed the 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development. Its ambitious program was organized around five P’s: Planet, People, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership – themes to inform the political agenda of signatory countries in the hopes of transforming the world.

This UN-endorsed agenda strongly emphasized the promotion of human rights and the empowerment of women and other marginalized groups. However, in the more than seven years since the adoption of this agenda, by all accounts the signatory countries have all fallen woefully short of their stated aspirations and goals. What to make of this situation and what lessons can be learned going forward?

We, the organizers of the Analysis and Activism Ljubljana 2023 Conference, believe – following Boris Groys that “there are conflicts that the intellectual cannot escape, that force him into politics whether he wants this or not” – that social change on the scale contemplated by the UN Agenda calls for the conscious adoption and integration of two other, seemingly opposite, P’s: Psyche and Politics.

Jung wrote that “the world hangs on a thin thread, and that thread is the psyche of man.” Given this, what is our role as psychoanalysts and activists? Is psychoanalysis in and of itself an activist practice? What do we have to offer to today’s unhinged world? Can psychoanalysis be an active part for, and of, change? What can psychoanalysis achieve or realize, in the individual and in the collective, alone or with allies? And above all, is psychoanalysis an agent of change, and if so, in what way? How can the practice of psychoanalysis affect the socio-political-economical realm?

The German sociologist Ulrich Beck describes our current world as unhinged and out of joint and characterizes our current economic and social model of capitalism as “suicidal modernity.” In this context, he underscores that “[the] principle of nation sovereignty, independence and autonomy is an obstacle to the ‘survival of humankind’ and, as such, the ‘declaration of independence’ must be transformed into the ‘declaration of interdependence’: cooperate or die!”

Do the insights of analytic psychology and the practice of psychoanalysis have a role to play in facilitating the transformation, or transmutation, of separation, separatism and independence into interdependence, connection, and mutuality? Does individuation lead to an experience of the reality of interdependence?

In his Manifesto (2021), Andrew Samuels provides some ingredients for psycho-political activism: do not dwell in safe space, do not try to prove our theories right, and we need partnership!

We welcome submissions on the following themes, broad in scope yet grounded in the perspective of the union of psyche and politics:

  • People – rights, identity, migration, marginalized populations, etc.
  • Planet – climate change, the natural world, the environment, etc.
  • Peace – war, conflict, resolution, national identity, authoritarianism, etc.
  • Prosperity – neoliberalism, alternative economic models, alternative metrics for evaluating well-being, etc.
  • Partnership – interdisciplinary models and projects, etc.
  • Prevention – pandemics, global health, natural disasters, etc.


The aim of this conference is to present and share best practices about our private and collective work as analysts and activists, and specifically to look at where these two meet. We seek contributors to present their understanding of being a psychoanalyst and an activist, hopefully with more emphasis on the actuality than on mere wish.

Please note that the conference will be held in person and in English.

Ljubljana was elected best places to travel in Europe 2022 →
https://www.europeanbestdestinations.com/european-best-destinations-2022/.
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