Most of us will remember 2023 with devastation and pain caused by the Kahramanmaraş-Hatay earthquakes.
Besides, 2023 is the twentieth anniversary of Psike Istanbul, the hundredth anniversary of one of the fundamental articles of psychoanalysis, Ego and Id, and the hundredth anniversary of our Republic as well.
Devastation of a tragedy coincided with our own evolution, growing in passing years, getting stronger and rooting...
Life begins with the settling of the embryo in the womb and continues along with holding onto someplace else. The body needs an environment to settle safely and live while the mind is developing within the body. In Ego and Id, Freud points out that the mind is rooted in the body: “The ego is a bodily ego in the first place”. On the other hand, the balance between reality and the psyche has long been a major discussion in psychoanalytic theory.
Freud’s first thesis that childhood sexual abuse was the issue underlying the neurotic problems versus the centralization of childhood sexual fantasy later in his theory stands for the two sides of this discussion.
The current neuroscience enables new horizons for psychoanalysis in this sense.
The psychoanalytic theory seems to be corresponding to the new neuropsychological paradigm that connects our views about the body, the brain, and the mind, that considers the mind in a more temporal, spacial, social context gradually, “embodied” in the physical being, growing out of it or meeting its needs.
From this broader perspective, we face the unpleasant truth that our ongoing relationship with our Earth is in a dilemma. We come to realize that the environment we live in is a living “thing” with constrains that react upon what we do, not just a background. Therefore, we need to realize the “power of our destructiveness” or “the destructiveness of our power” as human beings. What kind of environmental problems do we face as humans? Is it an ecological crisis, a disaster, or a war that we are in?
We hope you will join us at Psychoanalytic Views Symposium to reflect on these together on the 9-10 December 2023.

PSİKE İstanbul

Please click for the program:
9th December 2023, Saturday
10th December 2023, Sunday