EFPP European Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

29/05/2026

IN MEMORIAM - JULIA PESTALOZZI

EFPP HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF JULIA PESTALOZZI
(1934–2026)

We remember with deep gratitude Julia Pestalozzi (16 January 1934
– 18 February 2026), psychoanalyst, pioneer, and long-standing colleague, whose warmth, vision, and dedication profoundly shaped the EFPP and generations of psychotherapists across Europe. We honour her memory with profound respect and gratitude.

Julia Pestalozzi first encountered the EFPP in 1993 at a scientific conference on the topic of “psychotic states” and was inspired by its openness, sincerity, and respectful curiosity. This marked the beginning of her decades-long commitment and the many friendships we remember with deep gratitude on the occasion of her passing.
The European Union had just been founded, internal borders had become permeable to the free movement of people, and psychotherapists from Central and Eastern European countries were increasingly expressing a desire to participate in professional exchanges with their Western colleagues. This new beginning following the years of the Cold War held special, personal significance for Julia Pestalozzi against the backdrop of her own escape from Hungary. With enthusiasm and great diligence, she set about establishing a German-speaking Swiss EFPP section, which was founded in Basel in 1995 with a ceremonial event. Numerous colleagues joined this section and soon formed an active movement with several working groups organising professional conferences, stimulating the emergence of sister organisations in other parts of the country, and ultimately networking within EFPP Switzerland.
In 1996, Julia Pestalozzi initiated the planning of a training institute. After suffering a professional disappointment, she invited a few like-minded individuals to first envision an ideal institution—initially without any constraints of what was feasibl —and then to bring it into concrete form. It was to be a house of diversity, where people would learn, discuss, and debate together, and where the achievement of goals would be celebrated as her cultural background dictated: with music and a lavishly set table. With her forward-looking perspective, she transformed the setback she had experienced through an exemplary creative process. The training institute was founded in 2002 and achieved considerable success and prestige in the 24 years since its inception.
At the European level, Julia Pestalozzi served as EFPP Honorary Secretary from 1999 to 2003 and shaped this essential organisational role through her unique, friendly manner. She welcomed delegates from new member countries in her inimitable way.
Julia Pestalozzi’s personality proved extraordinarily enriching during this pioneering phase. She found common ground even where entrenched positions had developed over the years, and her infectious optimism was a breath of fresh air in the professional landscape. Her interest in others—their cultures and the realities of their lives, her hospitality, her experience with migration, and her multilingualism made enriching personal encounters possible, from which something new and shared could emerge. She was European through and through. She entrusted her colleagues with responsibilities early on. She was an inspiring instigator who passed down her leadership role after just a few years, thereby fostering a vibrant sense of generativity within her sphere of influence.
Even though she repeatedly focused on building organisational structures at th international, national, and local levels, her true, lifelong interest lay in personal encounters with her patients. Through her publications, particularly in “Psychotic Transference as an Opportunity”*, she allowed us to share in this. Her solidarity with the suffering of her fellow human beings touched many of us, even in the online meetings of the EFPP large group, in which she regularly participated in recent years on the topics of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. She continued her own practice until shortly before her 91st birthday, and her intervision group met at her home on the very eve of her death!
We owe her a great deal; her memory will live on in us and in our organisations!
Rudolf Stefan Balmer, Julia Besch, Tibor Klaber, Joachim Küchenhoff, Herbert Lorenz, Peter-Christian Miest

26/05/2026

🍃As AI becomes increasingly present in everyday life, psychoanalytic psychotherapists are here to🧐 ask important questions:

🫨Can a machine truly listen?
What happens to unconscious communication in digital spaces?
Can AI become a new kind of transferential object?
And what remains uniquely human ❤️‍🩹 in the therapeutic encounter?

Contemporary psychoanalytic discussions are not only about technology itself, but about 👫 loneliness, embodiment, desire, intimacy, and the future of human relationships in an increasingly virtual world. What is psychoanalytic psychotherapy today?
👉What can we offer patients who struggle to bond, whose lives are increasingly digitalized and emotionally empty, and who sometimes no longer recognize the value of human warmth and simply being with another person?
👉How can we help people remain human — connected to their needs, desires, vulnerabilities, and feelings — in a world that increasingly pulls them away from themselves and from others?

Perhaps now more than before, we need spaces for reflection nad being rather than immediate reaction - doing.
---
Graphics by Andrea de Santis on Pexels

25/05/2026

🧐About the fact that the psychoanaliytic psychotherapist must never cease searching for meaning!

😎 Zgodnie z tradycją mem na koniec tygodnia.
Dziś o ciekawości analityka od

22/05/2026

📣EFPP PCFP Online Lecture Series 2026

Organised by the 👉Couple and Family Section of the European Federation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, this lecture series invites participants to deepen their understanding of couple and family relationships from a psychoanalytic perspective. The first four lectures will focus on 👉the psychoanalytic assessment of various couple and family structures, highlighting clinical thinking and relational complexity.

We kindly welcome EFPP delegates and colleagues to the next lecture taking place on
📅23 2026 at 20:00-21:45 CET.

📺This lecture series is an open event. You may register for a single lecture
🤑(40 EUR) or choose to sign up in advance for all four lectures for a total of 120 EUR.
We would be grateful if you could share this information with your networks and colleagues.
👉 Register here: https://efpp.org/efpp-pcfp-lecture-series-2026

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at👉 [email protected].
We look forward to your participation.

19/05/2026

In the🌿newest eddition of the EFPP E-journal one may find the summary of the Study Day by Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Section

📘 Ghosts Unheard and Shapes Unformed
by 📌Verity Emanuel

🔥What happens when trauma enters the parent-child relationship so early that it becomes woven into the child’s very sense of self?

In this deeply touching and clinically powerful paper, Verity Emanuel explores how 👉children carry unconscious internal images of their parents — and how parents, in turn, 👉carry unconscious representations of their child, shaped by love, fear, grief, guilt, trauma and hope.

At the heart of the article is the touching story of a boy marked by abandonment, severe medical trauma, separation anxiety and emotional suffering. Through 👉psychoanalytic psychotherapy, 👉symbolic play, and 👉careful work with both child and parents, we witness the slow emergence of trust, connection and psychic integration.

💬 “The openness to the work of mourning in parents, the boy and their therapists, enabled the cries of the child whom they had been haunted by, to fade into the background of their internal worlds. Both him and his parents were now freer to see and know of the vivacious child who said goodbye and parted from his psychotherapist.”

15/05/2026

📣LAST MOMENTS!!

Please find below the Call for Papers for the third issue of the ☂EFPP e-Journal, themed “Migration and Exile.”

We kindly ask you to 🌿share this information with your national networks so it can reach as many members as possible.
Please submit your contribution 👉by 25 May 2026
👉to: [email protected]

⚡Please take the time to read and follow them as closely as possible, as doing so will ensure your paper matches the e-journal's requirements.

1. The EFPP E Journal will publish articles that are related to psychoanalytic psychotherapy in any of its forms, aspects, and applications. The topic can be of clinical as well as of institutional interest.
2. The articles can be written in the author’s language with an abstract in English. Regardless of the language chosen, the article must be proofread by someone else before submission.
3. The work must preferably be unpublished. If not, the author must communicate in which journal and when it has been published, as well as the relevant authorization.
4. The article can be sent to the EFPP E-Journal email address [email protected] to be received by the Editorial Team for consideration.
5. The first page of the work should include the title of the article, the name of the author(s), address, professional affiliation, and details regarding their membership status in the EFPP. If relevant, it should also mention the department, service, centre, or university where the work was done.
6. The papers should be submitted in a Word format. The font type and size will be Times New Roman, 12. Please include a word count for your paper. A paper should be maximum 10 000 words, inclusive of abstract, tables, footnotes, and references.
7. Footnotes can be used to clarify or complete the information that is being given in the text and as a bibliographic reference.
8. Bibliographic references at the end of the article should include all references cited in the text and footnotes. References should be written using the APA format guidelines.
9. Authors whose papers include accounts of clinical work are required to take all necessary measures to ensure that none of the individuals written about can be identified by any third party and to fully minimize the likelihood that the patient(s) will recognize him/her/themselves. It is the author’s responsibility to ensure that all clinical material is Registered Charity Number 1046731 European Federation Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy anonymized and disguised. It is the author's responsibility to obtain the patient's consent before submitting clinical material for publication.
10. The content of the paper is the sole responsibility of the author and not that of the Editorial Team or the EFPP Board.
11. The author must include a disclosure statement confirming that there is no potential conflict of interest.

12/05/2026

🌍Membership in the EFPP Community 🌍

The European Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (EFPP) offers different pathways for organisations that wish to develop, strengthen, and deepen their involvement in psychoanalytic psychotherapy training and professional collaboration across Europe.

EFPP membership is designed to support organisations at different stages of development. Whether a group is just beginning to build its structure or already has an established training programme, there is a place for meaningful participation and growth.

✨ Three Types of Membership ✨

🔹 Observer Status
This category is intended for organisations that are still in the early stages of development. Becoming an observer allows a developing organisation to receive guidance, support, and orientation while exploring whether the EFPP framework and values correspond to its needs and aspirations.

Observer status creates an opportunity to:
• learn about EFPP standards and structure
• connect with colleagues from different countries
• participate in selected professional activities
• receive support in shaping future development

It is often an important first step toward building a sustainable psychoanalytic psychotherapy community.

🔹 Associate Membership
Associate status is designed for organisations that have already established a training programme in line with EFPP standards, but do not yet have a core group of at least six training therapists.

At this stage, organisations are often actively developing their educational and clinical identity. Associate membership offers valuable support in:
• strengthening training programmes
• expanding professional activities
• building institutional stability
• deepening international collaboration
• developing supervision and teaching structures

This status reflects an important transitional phase in becoming a fully established member organisation.

🔹 Full Membership
Full membership is granted to organisations that have developed a training programme according to EFPP standards and have a core group of at least six training therapists.

As full members, organisations become active participants in the wider EFPP community and contribute directly to:
• professional dialogue
• educational standards
• clinical development
• international cooperation
• decision-making processes within the EFPP

Full membership represents both recognition of professional maturity and an ongoing commitment to the development of psychoanalytic psychotherapy across Europe.

🤝 A Community of Development and Collaboration
The EFPP is more than a professional network — it is a collaborative space where organisations can evolve, exchange knowledge, and support one another in promoting high standards of psychoanalytic psychotherapy practice, training, and thinking.
---
Graphics on Pexels

08/05/2026

HAPPENING TODAY!!!
Second EFPP Adult Section Study Day, taking place on 8 May 2026

09.30-09.45 Welcome and Introduction 📌Gianfranco Buonfiglio (EFPP Adult Section Chair)
9.45-10.30 Keynote Speaker 📌Rony Alfandary (Israel, EFPP Adult Section)
“Uncanny Inheritances: a Study of Transgenerational Trauma”
10.30-10.45 First Discussant 📌Alix Vann-Nicollier (Switzerland, EFPP Child & Adolescent Section)
10.45-11.00 Second Discussant 📌Effie Lignos (Greece, EFPP Child & Adolescent Section)
11.15-11.30 Break
11.30-12.30 Discussion in Plenum 📌Keren Amouyal (Adult Section EFPP Board Representative)
12.30- Closing Words 📌María Eugenia Cid Rodriguez (EFPP President)

This is an open event, and we warmly encourage you to share this invitation with colleagues and students within your networks who may be interested.
👉Registration (Fee: €40)
All participants—including EFPP delegates from the Group, Couple & Family, and Child & Adolescent Sections, as well as non-EFPP participants—are kindly asked to register and complete the €40 participation fee using the following link:

👉 https://efpp.org/efpp-adultsectionstudyday-08-05-2026-263420/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=info-group-section-meeting-announcement-and-zoom-link-437