The Forum aspires to be a space of dialogue, creativity, and hospitality among colleagues, clinicians, researchers, and professionals engaged with psychoanalysis, within a context of interdisciplinary openness and ethical commitment. It warmly invites all those interested to participate, contribute their perspectives, and join the shared reflection on the challenges and transformations shaping psychoanalytic thought and practice today.
Main Topics
01
The Foreign Within
Reflections on the experience of strangeness inside oneself: the repressed, the unassimilable, the traumatic, the unrepresentable. Theoretical and clinical explorations around the uncanny and the unprecedented in psychic life.
02
Boundaries of the Body:
strangeness, embodiment, and the limits of representation.The body as a frontier between the psychic and the other: meaning and otherness, belonging and estrangement.
03
Reconsidering the Bond
Relationality nowadays: transformations, resistances, and new modes of encounter. The disintegration of traditional bonds, the loss of meaning, and the pathologies of connection in a fragmented world.
04
Sexuality and Difference in the Contemporary Era
Sexuality as an experience of foreignness within oneself and as a terrain for encountering difference. The tension between identity, desire, and alterity in contemporary configurations of human bonds. Love, the body, and intimacy in the face of new forms of discomfort and disconnection.
05
The Contemporary Challenges of the Analytic Encounter
Current forms of hospitality and care in clinical work. The ethics and practice of psychoanalysis in the face of contemporary estrangement.
06
Technologies, New Forms of Alterity and Foreignness
Artificial intelligences, digital environments, and the new configurations of alterity (otherness). Psychic effects of a life crossed by immediacy and the simulation of alterity.
07
The Erasure of the Other
Psychic and social processes involved in dehumanization, intolerance, symbolic violence, and collective prejudice. The normalization of exclusion and the silencing of difference.
Dates and venue
The Forum will take place from 11 to 14 November 2026 in Santiago, Chile, at Diego Portales University, one of the country’s most prestigious academic institutions, located in the heart of the capital. Activities will be distributed across several university buildings, with a special focus on the Nicanor Parra Library, a renowned cultural and academic venue that has previously hosted major international scientific gatherings.
The Forum will offer not only a rich programme of scientific and clinical exchanges but also opportunities to discover different corners of Santiago – a vibrant, cosmopolitan city where tradition and modernity meet at the foot of The Andes.
Submission guidelines
Proposals should be submitted as abstracts of 300–500 words, accompanied by 3–5 keywords and a brief biographical note including —if applicable— your institutional affiliation (maximum 100 words). For presentations that include clinical material, please also specify whether authorization for its presentation at the event has been obtained or describe the measures of treatment and de-identification that ethically enable its inclusion.
For the purposes of review by the Local Scientific Committee, the abstract may be submitted in either English or Spanish. The final paper must be provided both in its original language and in an English translation.
Contributions will be accepted in the following formats:
Free Paper Sessions
Individual presentations of 15–20 minutes each, which will be grouped thematically by the Scientific Committee.
Panel Discussions
Proposals integrating 3–4 thematically connected papers. In addition to the general submission guidelines, each panel proposal must include: (a) an overall title, (b) one abstract per paper, (c) the names and affiliations of all participants, and (d) a brief statement describing what conceptually links the papers and who will act as the panel coordinator.
Poster Presentations
Visual displays of conceptual or clinical work, research, or exploratory projects, to be presented during special poster sessions in the Forum’s communal and social spaces. Posters should fit within a standard poster board format.
Other Presentations
We start from the premise that there are multiple ways of expressing, communicating, and sharing psychoanalytic ideas. We welcome proposals that explore alternative modes of making psychoanalytic thought present — including, but not limited to, group supervision sessions, video-based presentations, hybrid tangible-digital participations, workshops, and presentations integrating artistic or performative components related to the Forum’s main themes. In addition to the general submission guidelines, participants must indicate the conditions, equipment, and materials required for their presentation, specifying which of these should be provided by the organizing committee.
Each proposal must indicate the type of contribution (free paper, thematic panel, poster, or other) and the main theme under which it could be classified.
Abstracts should clearly express the focus, originality, and format of the proposal, indicating whether it is a theoretical, clinical, or empirical research paper. Presentations that encourage productive dialogue with the audience rather than a traditional exposition of ideas are especially encouraged.
Participants may submit their proposals by either of the following methods:
Online Submission Form
(recommended), if you have a Google account, you may fill out the official online submission form.
Email Submission
If you prefer, you may send your proposal as a Word or PDF attachment to papers@ifpsforum.com, with the subject line: Call for Proposals Forum IFPS.
All submissions will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee. Notification of acceptance and presentation format will be sent by email. Further details regarding registration, scheduling, and accommodation will be available on the Forum’s official website. The deadline for all proposals is 15 February 2025. The deadline for submitting the final version of the paper will be communicated at a later date.
XXIV IFPS Forum
Benedetti–Conci award
The Benedetti–Conci Award is granted to the best paper presented by a candidate / analyst-in-training belonging to an IFPS Society. The prize, amounting to 1,000 USD, will be awarded at the closing session of the XXIV IFPS Forum in Santiago, Chile. Eligible papers must be directly related to the Forum’s overarching theme and will be evaluated by a committee specially appointed for this purpose. The winning paper will be published in the International Forum of Psychoanalysis, the official IFPS journal.
Candidates wishing to submit their work for consideration must send their abstract clearly indicating “Submission for the Benedetti–Conci Award for IFPS Candidates 2026” before the title of the abstract.