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Beetween body and soul - 2nd EFPP conference (Kyiv, Ukraine 12 – 14 June 2020)

We are pleased to invite you to the II International Conference of the National Network of the European Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, which will be held in Kiev from 12 to 14 June 2020.

European Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (EFPP) is an umbrella organization linking together institutions from over 30 countries in Europe, which share common values and standards of training and practice in the field of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Member institutions of the EFPP in each country form a National Network, joining their forces to enhance development of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and to pursue promotion of its goals and values.

For the upcoming conference we chose the title "Between body and soul" because in the rapidly changing modern world the human body and soul, psychosomatic disorders, mental anguish and physical suffering in different combinations and configurations remain the most important problems and very frequent reasons for seeking medical and psychotherapeutic care.

In the psychoanalytical theory, the interrelation of mental and somatic is denoted by S. Freud: "We imagine that at its limit the Id is open to the somatic, absorbing from there the instinctive needs that find their mental expression in it, but we cannot say in which substratum" (Freud, 1933).

The conference will focus on the fundamental problem of the psychoanalytic approach – the relationship between body and soul in the space of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, establishing links and searching for symbolic meanings. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy tries to express by words complex emotional experiences and unconscious fantasies that contain symbolic meanings, providing an opportunity to eliminate the use of the body to express feelings and unconscious fantasies.

Psychotherapeutic treatment expresses patient's desire to alleviate his or her suffering through a better understanding of himself or herself, as this may allow him or her to no longer feel as a passive victim of the disease, but to recognize that he or she is the one who is actively involved in its construction.

To paraphrase Winnicott "There is no such thing as the body itself, first of all it is a body linked to another body. In the process of psychotherapeutic interaction, a bodily symptom is seen as a message - a call for help. A therapist is challenged to understand that root of a bodily suffering firstly in the present therapeutic relationship from which it is deciphered; and secondly, in the "past that cannot retreat".

The conference will feature plenary lectures, poster presentations, discussions, workshops, masterclasses, round tables, supervisions and large analytic group. Lecture presentations, supervisions and group conducting will be provided by leading European and Ukrainian
psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

Contacts: Tatjana Pushkarova (tnp5577@gmail.com), Taras Levin (taraslevin@gmail.com)