About the Conference Thinking on the Border

The international conference Thinking on the Border is a joint event of the societies from nine neighbouring countries from South East and Central Europe: Belgrade Psychoanalytical Society, Bulgarian Psychoanalytical Society, Croatian Psychoanalytical Society, Hellenic Psychoanalytical Society, Hungarian Psychoanalytical Society, Istanbul Psychoanalytical Association, Psike Istanbul Psychoanalytic Association, Italian Psychoanalytical Association, Italian Psychoanalytical Society, Psychoanalytical Society of Serbia, Romanian Society of Psychoanalysis, Vienna Psychoanalytic Association, and Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.

This project was initiated in 2017, by Jasminka Šuljagić, the president of the Psychoanalytic Society of Serbia at that time.

‘The topic of borders has multifaceted references in the field of psychoanalysis; it diverges and spreads into many territories and brings out their peculiarities. We can situate it in the realm of development, the first constitution of who we are, the land of me and the other, radical aloneness and infinite interrelatedness. It can be traced further to relations with all differences – seeing these as strange, alien, uncanny or as intriguing and rewarding.

We are now in position to re-think the borders between body and mind, past and present, knowing and not-knowing, consciousness and unconsciousness, inside and outside, as well as the concept of drives that relate to and define the boundary, or the frontier, between the mental and the somatic. Freud told us about the necessity of translating psychic material at the boundary of successive epochs of life, about our psychic mechanism that came into being by a process of stratification. We may ask further about the borders of those strata of our mental life, about the process of differentiation and unification, about the transformation of borders into passages and the finding of gates, about movement and permeability. It might also be possible to follow the topographical point of view, the evolution of Freud’s thought about the flexibility of borders, the necessity of internal borders and differentiations; or take into account clinical disorders /borderline pathology; transitional space and phenomena, notes about an autistic-contiguous position and the skin as a boundary. Our history and our discipline, on the border with many others, enable us to consider various concepts and their relational lines.

Living on the boundary of epochs, we are witnesses of a continuous refugee crisis – the movement from chaos, though extreme danger, into limbo as the border in every sense. Migration, language migration, the rise of ethnic hatred, totalitarianism, virtual versus actual, digital addictions, changes in the process of thinking itself – are all characteristic of contemporary times. Is this a polarized world, with divided parties, national borders, distances and gaps between cultures, languages, professions, classes, religions, but with a blurred border between terrorism and freedom of speech, the press and information, or a one-world society, globalized and homogenized?

In Medieval times the madman had the privilege of being confined within the city gates, as we heard: in the interior of the exterior and inversely, at the point of passage, the threshold itself, enclosed and excluded.

As analysts, we live simultaneously on many borders, both inside our therapy rooms and outside of them, often in no-man's-land, thinking both sides together.’

(From the argument of the first Thinking on the Border Conference, Belgrade, 2017)

The first conference was organized in Belgrade by the Psychoanalytic Society of Serbia, and was recognized as a unique opportunity for joint work and exchanges. Since then, it has continued to be organized biannually, hosted by different societies and countries. The main title, Thinking on the Border, remains unchanged, while each edition has a different accompanying subtitle.

This idea was supported and realized by Giovanna Ambrosio and the Italian Psychoanalytical Association (AIPsi), and the second conference Thinking on the Border. Internal and External was organized in Rome in June 2019. The beautiful venue at the Academy of Fine Arts, the unforgettably lecture by Simona Argentieri and closing remarks by Jorge Canestri, together with the theoretical and clinical contributions of the representatives of included countries, formed an impetus for the continuation of future sharing and implementation.

The next conference had been planned for June 2021, but due to the pandemic it was moved to 2023, and then wonderfully prepared by Istanbul Psychoanalytical Association (IPD) and Istanbul Psychoanalytic Association for Training, Research and Development (Psike İstanbul), chaired by Ferhan Özenen and Yeşim Korkut. With the tittle Thinking on the Border. Out of Place, this event encompassed enriching lectures, discussions, a contribution by the artists, and social events, discussing “being out of place” in terms of internal and external exiles, the feeling of an internal home and lack of it, homelessness, immigration, and the trauma of refugees.

During the Conference in Istanbul, the organizing committee was renewed, with the representatives of all included societies. Sarantis Thanopulos, on behalf of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society, proposed Trieste as the venue for 2025, and Sotiris Manolopoulos proposed Athens for the conference in 2027.

Organizers are looking forward to our next gathering in Trieste and the further spreading of this invitation!