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This collection of articles is the achievement of both a group, the Global Advisory Committee, and each unique individual. The readers see that the five papers presented here are written from China, Turkey, Israel, Austria, and Japan, and reflect our workshop’s guiding theme: non-tragic dialogues: global voices speak up. Each contribution is situated in a distinct cultural and historical context, yet they converge in demonstrating how self-psychology and the dance with it, such as Koichi Togashi’s paper, can move beyond repetition of tragedy into dialogues and clinical and cultural possibilities. What binds them together is not uniformity of perspective, but a shared conviction that psychoanalysis, as a theory and practice, must be responsive to the fractures of history while also cultivating the capacity for resilience, reflection, and renewal.
Xin Li, from China, uses a metaphor of the legalization and glorification of narcissism in contemporary China, facing the dramatic shifts of the past half-century, moving from collectivist suppression of individuality during the Maoist era to a social as well as economic reform and opening. Through autobiographical narrative and clinical vignettes, Li illustrates how these transformations produced both liberation and alienation. Patients, shaped by hyper-competition and material success, present with depression, anxiety, and a pervasive sense of emptiness. Cartesian individualism becomes popular. At the same time, traditional collectivist values continue to resist subjectivity, generating ambivalence and fear of standing out. Li claims that the search for a “Relational Home” under this context becomes crucial. The emergence of self-psychology and intersubjective practice in China, supported by international collaborations and training projects, is interpreted as a hopeful development. These initiatives create spaces where individuals can reconnect with one another in authent