Psychoanalysis in the Community
Call For Papers
Special issue of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis guest edited by Dr James Barron and Prof Georg Bruns
Deadline: 1 June
We carry the community in our internal worlds. We all feel a sense of identity and belonging to different groups, and our identifications, conscious or unconscious, affect how the outer world becomes internal. As psychoanalysts working with individuals or with wider groups and organisations, we are challenged to think about how our psychic realities (our communities within) and our external social realities (our communities without) shape each other. Since the boundary between the internal psyche and the external world is porous, and since our clinical work is affected by wider society, can we say that psychoanalysis is hermetically sealed from the outside world? How far is the outside community active and alive within the analytic frame?
In recent times, the twin pandemics of Covid-19 and systemic racism have forced psychoanalysts to take a second look at the complex social field in which we are embedded. The interaction between our inner objects and constellations and the community outside has become ever more manifest. Psychoanalysis can provide important insights into issues like racism, othering, gender identities, and exile. It has been used in community work like mental health centres and prisons. For those psychoanalysts working within community or social organisations, how effective and collaborative is this relationship? What are the obstacles to working psychoanalytically in community-based projects? How far should psychoanalytic technique and setting adapt to external factors? For some members of the community, face-to-face interactions with psychoanalysts can enhance awareness of what psychoanalysis has to offer outside the consulting room, dispelling negative stereotypes and helping to create a social world in which psychoanalysis can flourish.
For this Special Issue of the IJP, we welcome all submissions written within a psychoanalytic conceptual lens on any area of Psychoanalysis in the Community. Papers are not limited to but may include the following areas:
Interactions of external realities with our internal worlds, as in:
· racism and racialization in its various forms
· poverty
· othering
· gender identity and sexual preference
· unconscious transgenerational transmission
· war trauma
· exile and forced displacement
Exploration of community-based organizations in which psychoanalysts have multiple roles, as in:
· hospitals and clinics
· community mental health centers serving marginalized patient populations
· foundations and think tanks in the not-for-profit sector
· police departments, prisons, and courts
· sports teams, arts, media, entertainment, and other organisations in the for-profit sector
· educational institutions at all levels
Development of theoretical concepts and innovative psychoanalytic educational programs, as in:
· elaboration of the complex ways our internal and external worlds constitute each other
· concepts of community, healthy and dysfunctional communities
· innovations of community psychoanalysis training tracks in our psychoanalytic institutes
Please submit here
https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijp and specify Psychoanalysis in the Community special issue in the cover letter. Please see instructions for authors
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ripa20/current
Papers are welcome in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese. For non-English papers, please include an English abstract of 1000 words.
Word limit: 10,000
Dr James Barron is from the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and chair of the Section of the Psychoanalyst in the Community, APsA
Prof Georg Bruns is Associate Editor of the International Journal, training analyst of the German Psychoanalytic Association, and Professor of Medical Sociology at the University of Bremen