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Dear members,
At the end of a very successful AM 25 in Philadelphia, I took over the presidency of ISPSO from Irena Izotova. I feel honoured, excited and ready to fulfil the role. It was great to share this moment of transition with many of you online and in person. I have felt yet again what a valuable, intriguing, and warm society we are, and how much learning and pleasure we find in working together. I am looking forward to the next two years!
In the two years with Irena Izotova as president, much has been achieved: we worked successfully on governance and finance, and thanks to Irena, ISPSO was anchored firmly in psychoanalysis again. I plan to continue this.
At the same time, Brigid Nossal stepped into her role of president-elect. We have started well together, and I am pleased to have her at my side as a close colleague with whom I can think, reflect and work, as I will with my other board colleagues.
My values and my plans
ISPSO is in transition in many ways. To name a few themes: generational issues, such as long-standing members getting older and dying; a changing view on our Annual Meetings due to financial issues, climate warming, and the consequences of Covid; the changing membership regarding professional background and place of origin. Not to forget the context: we live in a fragmenting world with conflicts and wicked challenges.
Transitions are difficult, and they are opportunities. Where doors close, others open. When old ideas start to be boring, new ideas emerge. When people leave, other people come in. When things change, creativity becomes alive.
This situation, the dynamics and my valencies lead me to emphasise some values which, I believe, are needed now in the Society and on the board: openness, transparency, and collaboration, all of which require holding and containment.
I believe that it is important to place the difficult and painful on the table, to talk about the good and the bad as openly as possible. The same goes for working with different opinions, viewpoints and cultural backgrounds: I believe in acknowledging it and trying to work with it. I do all I can to ask myself the question, ‘how is the other right?’. I believe that openness and transparency, when managed well, increase the likelihood of good decisions.
The art lies in finding the balance: reflection needs to be a useful tool to further our ability to work on our purpose (the psychoanalytic study of organisations) and not an aim in itself. Another balance is the one between activity and negative capability. Both are needed.
ISPSO originated in a group of friends who wanted to study organisations psychoanalytically and looked for people with whom they could do that. Much has changed since then, but this purpose still lies at the heart of our Society. I believe that it is important to stimulate members to be even more involved in organizing and sharing offerings for us all, whatever shape those events take.
The role of the president and the board is to keep the overview, take care of financial, governance and strategic issues, support, stimulate, sometimes initiate and co-organise events.
The future of the Annual Meeting (AM)
A few days after the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 10 May 2025 the Montreux AM26 team with Voytek Chelkowski as its chair withdrew their proposal following worries about the financial implications. They felt that, even though they believed (and I with them) that the proposal took care of the financial risk, going forward would mean a split in ISPSO. To prevent that from happening, they withdrew, so there will be no AM 26 in Switzerland. I believe this was a wise decision.
The question remained whether there would be an AM in an alternative location. At the board meeting in Philadelphia the board decided unanimously that there will be no in-person AM in 2026 at all.
It has been a tough process to get there. However, I believe that we can turn this situation into an opportunity for ISPSO. Questions about a yearly in-person AM had been going on for a long time. Members started doubting a yearly global gathering because of global warming and the fact that travelling to an AM is costly.
Now it is time to think, experiment, and build. The board is clear that there will be alternatives. Ideas range from a series of regional meetings maybe on the same theme to an online AM and others. We need your thinking and your desires on this matter. Please share your thoughts with us as the board continues to work on this question. (You can send suggestions to every member of the board or to president@ispso.net)
The focal points for the next year
The board and I will concentrate on 3 focal points:
- Create value with and for our members: initiating and sometimes co-organizing events. We are thinking of a variety of online offerings throughout the year. This ranges from forums, PDWs, (reading) groups who work on a specific question, regional meetings, the blog and more.
- Continue the road to healthy finances. That involves continuing to save money. For this reason, we will have no in-person board meeting around December 25/January 26 as it had been a custom for many years. It also involves looking at new ways to earn money for the Society.
- Focusing on holding and containment on the board and in ISPSO. The board and I will do all we can to create a board that works well together, manages its disagreements well and is constructive and full of libido (this desire for ISPSO had been voiced regularly during the AM in Philadelphia).
We will share more information on offerings and how AM-alternatives might look once we are further along in the process. We also need your voice in this: please contact us with your thoughts!
Coffee with the president
In the past years it has been hard to cross the boundary between president/the board and members, from both sides.
This is one important reason why I start with a “Coffee with the president”: roughly once a month I will be present on zoom for an hour to have coffee with you. The space is open for whoever turns up, hopefully also some board members.
Another reason is my intent to fulfill my role as well as I can. To be able to do this, the board and I need to know where you are, what you think, feel and hope. The “coffee with the president” is intended to serve as an open space in which we get to know each other better and talk about what is important at the moment, be that ISPSO-business or something else.
The first Coffee will take place on Thursday 21 August at the following times:
6.30-7.30am Chicago,USA 7.30- 8.30am New York, USA 12.30-1.30pm London, UK 1.30-2.30 pm Amsterdam, Berlin 1.30-2.30pm Johannesburg, South Africa 2.30-3.30pm Moscow, Russia 5-6 pm India 7.30-8.30pm Singapore 9.30-10.30pm Melbourne, Australia
The zoom-link will follow.
The new board
Starting from 29 June 2025 the board roles and tasks are taken up by the following people:
President Alexandra Gerny (president@ispso.net)
President-elect Brigid Nossal (president-elect@ispso.net)
Past president Irena Izotova (past-president@ispso.net)
Admin director Rica Viljoen (admin-director@ispso.net)
Treasurer Fiona Martin (treasurer@ispso.net)
Interorganisational collaboration Ajeet Mathur (anmathur@iima.ac.in)
Regional Meetings Moritz Senarclens de Grancy (moritzsenarclensdegrancy@gmx.de)
Technology & User Experience Jeremy Vine (jeremy.vine@ispso.net)
Pearl Tran (pearl.tran@ispso.net), James Walker (james@jameswalker.net.au) and Niels van Steenbergen (niels@stressvrijleiderschap.nl) will not have one specific role. They are responsible for various tasks connected to learning and development. This includes marketing and communications around those offerings.
Your feedback
We need your feedback. Tell us what you hope for and what you can or want to contribute. Please let us also know when you experience a problem or see an issue. Let us also know when we do it well. We need that, too!
We are all volunteers on the board. Most of us have a full-time job, family and friends. We are doing the best we can, we all invest a lot of time. But still, sometimes it will take longer than you wish, or it will be less perfect than you hope for. Let us know and be forgiving.
Last but not least
If there is one thing I have seen in the past years in ISPSO it is its impressive resilience. It can be a rocky resilience, but it is there all the same. We have so many people who want to contribute (so many people offered their help to me and us). Members who feel at home and want to connect. We have an enormous wealth of knowledge and experience, of amazing people who enjoy being together. Yes, we are sometimes difficult. I guess that makes us human, and it provides space for learning. In the end this is what we are all looking for.
I am very much looking forward to a stimulating year in ISPSO with all of us!
Warm regards,
Alexandra Gerny, President ISPSO
president@ispso.net, +31 6 81 88 33 37