NAPsaC | North American Psychoanalytic Confederation

Sustaining and fostering the growth of psychoanalysis within the North American Geographical Region.
Fostering dialogue and interchange among the various organizations within the region.
Providing a forum for organizing and promoting scientific conferences, meetings and personal interchange among psychoanalysts within the region.
Furthering psychoanalytic research by providing a forum for coordination and implementation of research projects.

Providing an interface between North American psychoanalysis and the IPA, as well as other regional psychoanalytic organizations in Europe and Latin America.
Encouraging and facilitating outreach to allied professional groups and other organizations by providing a common North American psychoanalytic voice.
Providing information about psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic services to the public.

NAPsaC Projects

Video from our Mothering Alone conference now available!

NAPsaC hosted two videoconferences in 2024

Mothering Alone took place on April 13, 2024, featuring panelists Mary Kay O’Neil, Katy Bogliatto, Alexandra Billinghurst, and Teresa Mei-Jang Pai, and Moderator Susan Baxt.
The title of this Presentation came from a study conducted by Mary Kay O’Neilz; “We are all aware that single motherhood is not a new phenomenon, nor is mothering restricted to women. Mothering is not gender related; men parent alone, same- gender- parents mother, non-binary people mother, as do parents of surrogate and in-vitro children. Our focus today is on women mothering alone (whether they are married or not). Much of what we will discuss may apply to different family constellations, however, ‘mothers’ in these different constellations have different strengths and dilemmas and are not our focus.”

The second was Chaos Unleashed: Global Turmoil in the Consulting Room, which took place November 16, 2024. The panelists were Claudio Eizirik, Jeanne Wolff Bernstein and Drew Tillotson. The interlocutor was Maureen Murphy. The program featured the increasing influence of the external world--global terrorism, climate change, politics and racism--are now seeping into the consulting room, evoking some of the deepest anxieties within the internal worlds of our patients and ourselves, and inevitably impacting modern analytic work. The sense of safety that the analytic room and sessions have often offered, even in fantasy, is increasingly challenged.

Upcoming Projects

Future meetings will feature a “Meet the Candidates” video conference on March 16, 2025, for those interested in hearing from the 10 candidates running for the 7 North American seats on the IPA Board.

NAPsaC, in conjunction with IPA, will also offer a series on Social Dreaming. It will be led by Maria Pia Conte and Carlos Remotte-Breton in four sessions: February 15 and 22, 2025 and March 15 and 22, 2025, all starting at 11:30 Eastern Time.

Social Dreaming provides a space for deep meanings of dreams to emerge, not on an individual level, but at a social collective level. The hosts invite participants to offer dreams and make associations without interpretation. The dreams engage, not the dreamers. Dreams enable new perspectives, unthought knowns, fresh thoughts and meanings.