Welcome

Dear Colleagues:

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you this month in the wake of the state sanctioned violence taking place in Minneapolis and Minnesota, as well as elsewhere in our country. I want to start by letting our colleagues in Minnesota know that you are supported and appreciated during this terrible time for your state, only a few years after the reckoning following the murder of George Floyd. We stand with you, and hope that the occupation taking place there ends as soon and as peacefully as possible. It is hard to read and watch the unfolding of events, and yet we must not become desensitized or oblivious to the chaos and the despair. 

Over the last decade, our organization has become increasingly polarized and divided, as has the population at large. While of course we are a large group that cannot possibly all hold the same ideas and beliefs, it has been painful to watch just how divisive the splitting has become. As psychoanalytic clinicians, we understand that splitting is a less mature defense against experiencing the self or a beloved attachment figure as malevolent. As climate change and late-stage capitalism wreak their havoc, factionalism has become an understandable and yet maladaptive way to manage the intense anxiety so many of us experience about the state of the world. And yet, the more we cling to our clannishness, the more we Other those who see the world differently from us, the more insulated and isolated we become. This has also led to the seemingly alternate realities that the left and the right each embrace.

This dynamic has played out within our community along familiar fault lines. Whether it be clinical focus versus social justice lens, ego psychology versus the relational school, or pro-Israel versus pro-Palestine, our organization has been grappling with conflict around group identity for a long time. What is new, however, is the intensity and the venom with which our membership seems to struggle with who does and does not belong. There is no doubt that as our Society has become younger and more diverse, we have had to confront the fact that different groups have different perspectives, needs, and desires. What once could be explained away as the narcissism of minor differences has now exploded into a full-blown organizational crisis. These divergences have led to vitriol on our listserv, people feeling disaffected and leaving the organization, and a real debate about what the role of SPPP should and should not be when it comes to sociopolitical issues. Minoritized individuals have been vocal, when they have felt able to do so, about being Othered and discriminated against, while others who identify strongly as pro-Israel have expressed having similar experiences. Alternatively, our pro-Palestine members believe we have not done enough to address the atrocity unfolding in real time on smartphones. In truth, it is embedded in the history of psychoanalysis to be exclusionary, elitist, and pathologizing; we must also acknowledge this fact. And yet, it is also a field that strives toward populism, inclusion, and healing. 

In this moment we need to collectively decide what kind of an organization we want to be. For some, that means grieving the way that things were when our Society was more homogenous, more focused on theoretical disagreements, and less politically focused. For others, it means feeling excitement and hope that we are engaging with issues relevant to the world at large, hope from the way in which we are diversifying, and relief that they can attend our Spring Meetings without feeling as ostracized for the color of their skin. There is no making Division 39 “great again;” our Society is a different entity than it was even just a few years ago, thankfully. We have seen the price paid when a society clings to its past instead of embracing its future.

I personally believe that the only possible antidotes to fascism are community and love. The only thing that has made it feasible for me to pay attention to what is going on in Minnesota is to see the extraordinary acts of kindness and kinship that ordinary citizens are extending to one another; it reminds me of living in NYC in the aftermath of the 9/11 where New Yorkers came together in a way that I had never seen before. At the same time, I am not a Pollyanna and do not believe that we must merely find a way to “all just get along.” But, we can come together and try to recognize and acknowledge the goodness in each other. On that note, our upcoming Spring Meeting is an opportunity for such a gathering, which this year will take place at the Hilton Midtown Hotel in New York City from April 22-25. The theme is Institutional Life/Reclaiming Life from Institutions, and we will wrestle together with the ambivalent relationships with which we each have with our institutions. Registration opens this week, so please check out the programming, which promises to be engaging, thought-provoking, playful, and life-affirming. I hope to see as many of you there as possible!

Dana Charatan, PsyD
SPPP President