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.

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