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Saturday October 25, 2025
An in-person Event
On October 25, 2025, ISPSO and The New York Center for the Study of Groups, Organizations, and Social Systems (TNYC) https://www.nycgrouprelations.org/ will co-host the Northeast North American Regional Event 2025.
Eventbrite: Click here for Registration and Payment
In a world undergoing profound transformation we will gather around the theme: “Exploring the Unimaginable” in group life.
The unimaginable is not simply the unknown; it includes what has been defended against, split off, or rendered unspeakable. In exploring it, we may encounter realms of pain, fear, trauma, taboo, and the deep losses that shape our collective experiences. These might be hard-won achievements now under threat. Yet the unimaginable also includes what has not yet been dreamed. It invites us into the generative space of the unconscious—where meaning can emerge, be symbolized, and transformed. In this space, new vitality, hope, and imagination can take root.
Intention
The event offers an inviting space for all with an interest in a psychoanalytic approach on organizational systems. We will come together,
- to engage in dialogues with each other
- to think together and to allow for clarity to take form
- for new insights to emerge
- for new connections to emerge as well as develop existing ones
Program
Through social dreaming, reflective dialogue, and presentations designed to invite associative exploration—offered by Tom Hennes and Dr. Leo Wilton—we will engage with the theme. By allowing the unimaginable to surface, we may find new pathways to growth, freedom, eros, aliveness—toward joy, intimacy, pleasure, and creative expansion
| Time | Headline |
| 8:30-9:00 | Arrival Check in and enjoy a light breakfast |
| 9:00-9:15 | Welcome Hear welcoming and framing remarks |
| 9:15-10:15 | Social Dreaming Matrix We will share dreams and freely associate to their content as a way to connect across visible and invisible divides, moving beyond what is already known into what is waiting to be discovered. Joanne Bowman, Susan Convery and Dr. Martin Walker will host the matrix. |
| 10:15-10:30 | Break |
| 10:30- 12:30 | Stretching the Boundaries of the Imaginable In this session, Tom Hennes will invite us to explore the creation of liminal, ‘safe-enough’ zones that stretch what we are capable of imagining—what we can tolerate imagining—up to or beyond the edge of the unconscious precipice of the unimaginable. Under what circumstances—and with what forms of leadership and authority—can the group make use of the varied capacities and experience of its members to generate a facilitating environment that enables it to step beyond its individual boundaries of imagination? And how can it live with—or work with—the consequences of what it has allowed itself to imagine? |
| 12:30-1:30 | Lunch |
| 1:30-3:30 |
The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action: Talking About Structural Inequalities in Everyday Life In this session, Dr. Leo Wilton will invite us to explore the multi-layered complexities of racialized structural inequalities, in connection to the psychodynamics of groups, organizations, communities, and systems, as we experience them in everyday life. A key emphasis will be placed on how structural inequalities that facilitate exclusion and marginalization are embedded within our collective vulnerabilities, uncertainties, and resiliencies. |
| 3:30-4:00 |
Closing plenary |
| 4:00-5:00 | Reception Network and continue the conversations |
CE Credits Information
We are partnering with the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology for Continuing Education credits.
Registration & Pricing
ISPSO & TNYC Members: 130.00 USD (students: 90.00 USD)
Non-members: 150.00 USD (students: 90.00 USD)
Prices include a light breakfast, lunch, tea/coffee break and a refreshment at the closing reception.
Refund Policy: A full refund is available up until 16 October (end-of-day EDT). No refunds are available after this time.
We encourage those who are able to donate. Your contributions will help us provide a respectable honorarium for our presenters.
We look forward to welcoming you!
Mette Charis Buchman
Joanne Bowman
Patricia Kummel
Aaron Nurick
If you have any questions, please contact Mette Charis Buchman email: mettecharisbuchman@gmail.com