Announcement of the 14th International Sándor Ferenczi Conference

Psychoanalysis between Catastrophe and Creation: Emerging Perspectives

May 29 – June 1, 2024

Hosted by the GBPSF in São Paulo, Brazil

Official languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish

Proposal Submission Deadline: October 15th 2023

Ours is a time of trauma. After centuries of destruction through slavery, war and genocide, there is rising nationalism, fear, and hatred, mixed with violence, all around the world. Existential threats—climate change, ecological disasters, and the pandemic—intensify inequality, racism, fanaticism, terrorism, and worse. Sándor Ferenczi’s contributions are exceptionally helpful in our understanding of current global challenges.

Throughout his working life, Ferenczi consistently showed deep understanding of the complex and traumatizing social, political dynamics of power and human vulnerability. His explorations of finding ways of connecting with others–the themes of disavowal, fragmentation, identification with the aggressor, confusion of languages, as well as his progressive clinical work in responding to traumatic experiences–reflect contemporary egalitarian ideals and may enhance our capacity to think and act with others.

The Four Themes of the Conference show the rich and fertile basis for a creative and critical understanding of the catastrophes in our time, using Ferenczi’s contributions and how those contributions enrich our psychoanalytic perspectives to respond to the destabilizing upheavals in our world.

  1. Emerging from Catastrophes. Social and Environmental Transformations.
  2. The Clinical and the Sociopolitical. Challenges for Psychoanalysis in Times of Trauma.
  3. Fragmentation and its Consequences on Psychic Life.
  4. Confusion of Languages. Tenderness, Trauma and Toxicity.

The 14th International Sándor Ferenczi Conference in São Paulo, Brazil, will be a forum for clinicians, scholars, researchers, students, and colleagues from other fields of knowledge for open, and collegial discussions about the disruptive personal, social, political, environmental, and clinical situations that we are facing today.

We invite proposals to be considered in the sessions of the São Paulo conference. Both clinical and theoretical papers are encouraged, and students, if they prefer, may also submit a poster presentation. Presenters, as all participants, have to register for the conference.

The Deadline for Proposal Submissions is Sunday, October 15th, 2023.

Please go to www.ferencziconference14.com for more detailed information and guidelines of proposal submissions.

Download Call for Proposals Information (PDF)