Psychoanalysis Between Catastrophe and Creation: Emerging Perspectives. São Paulo International Sándor Ferenczi Conference 2024

This Special Issue is dedicated to the 14th International Sándor Ferenczi Conference, which was held in the historic MacKenzie Protestant University in the big, bustling metropolis of São Paolo, Brazil. The large campus formed an ideal place for international colleagues to gather, listen to a wide choice of excellent papers, congregate in the courtyard for discussion, and to sample from among the many Brazilian delicacies available at the breaks. The warm Brazilian hospitality facilitated the scholarly discourse among colleagues who gathered from across the globe, and the renewing of friendships that had lain dormant in the interlude between conferences. The atmosphere created by our Brazilian colleagues was pregnant with creative thinking and interchanges among clinicians, scholars, researchers, academicians and students.

The topic of the conference was “Psychoanalysis Between Catastrophe and Creation: Emerging Perspectives.” This is an important field to explore considering that various current catastrophic events represent existential crises facing humankind and our way of life. The climate crisis resulting in global warming; vast forest fires impinging on human habitations; cycles of droughts and torrential rains that wreak havoc in agricultural concerns and farmers' ability to feed the people; rising global temperatures that make living in tropical zones unbearable resulting in mass migrations; rising water levels that threaten coastal habitation; but also, famine, pestilence, genocide and war are causing catastrophes on a regular basis all around the world. In biblical terms, it seems like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are paying the earth a visit. Individuals, families, and society at large are challenged to adapt to dangerous environmental, social, and political instability. During these times of trauma and turmoil, the

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