Call for Papers

Uncovering and discovering joy in clinical work requires recovering from “joy threatening” and “destructive elements” that press joy into submission, or that do not permit joy to be experienced and expressed. In clinical practice, we aspire to engage with our patients to uncover and decipher deep-seated, developmentally rooted anxieties, survival motives, and states of mind that interfere with interpersonal and personal well-being and growth.

But what about joy?

Joy has been a reoccurring theme in psychoanalytic writing, from Freud’s early work on the pleasure principle to Lacan’s writings on jouissance and Winnicott’s focus on play and creativity. Although joy is often conceptualized as a longed-for experience, many fail to seek out joy or struggle to experience feelings of joy. Against a backdrop of a climate crisis, global conflicts, political divisions, and ongoing health and safety concerns in our post-pandemic world, the pursuit of joy may feel like an unaffordable luxury.

The experience of joy has the potential to be terrifying. Stress, anxiety, isolation, and loss- the sequelae of recent global events- can create a preemptive strike on both our need for and our ability to pursue joy. These factors may create a barrier that prevents us from fully engaging in joyful experiences.

During this conference, we would like to open a dialogue about the importance of joy in our work and our lives, our tendency to avoid joy, and how we might reclaim and/or preserve our capacity to experience joy during difficult times. By examining these themes, we hope to foster a deeper understanding of joy’s significance as well as develop ideas about cultivating it in our clinical practices.

We would like to invite papers on topics such as (but not limited to):

• Finding joy in the analytic relationship
• The cost of abandoning joy
• The factors that prevent and facilitate joy
• The impossibility or limitations to experiencing and sustaining feelings of joy
• Joy and shame
• The joy of sharing and being withJoyless lives in a manic world
• The quest for joy as a manic defense
• Masochism and erotogenic resistances to joy
• Free association, play and creativity in the analytic dyad

Submit the Call for Papers

Deadline for Submission: January 31, 2025