Letter from Beirut by Rosemarie Nassif
I am a candidate from the Lebanese association. As you may know, the last six months have been very hectic in Lebanon: first, the revolution movement…
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Letter from Birmingham by Lee Ascherman
There is much to be disturbed about. We are socially isolated while surrounded by reports of death, risk to life by an invisible assailant, and countless tragedies compounded by mismanagement and blame. We are not sure our hospitals will be…
Letter from Genoa by Cosimo Schinaia
Some days ago, I received a phone call from a friend of mine who is a doctor of general medicine. He wrote that he appreciated my essay on coronavirus posted on IPA´s website but that it is not too useful…
Letter from Toronto by Stefania Baresic
As we do the holding for our clients in this time of confinement, accelerated changes, tragic losses, and fear, someone must hold us as well, being a loving partner who offers a hug at the end of day; or we…
Letter from New York by Joseph A. Cancelmo
The coronavirus pandemic has rocked our world as we knew it, bringing visceral waves of anxiety and fear and unspeakable, unbearable loss in its wake. For many of us, our way of life, our livelihood, our intimacies, and our social…
Letters from Italy and New York by Manuela Tosti and Elizabeth Goren
I feel very blessed about the possibility of hearing your voices coming from all over the world. This is connection, containment, intimate sharing, and deep support in a harsh and uncertain time…
A BIRD by Enrique Enriquez
It is important to make the distinction between the languages of contemplation and those of action. The language of the birds is a contemplative language. It delivers its messages directly, the meaning of which disappears, it ceases to be understood,…
Letter from Birmingham by Elizabeth Trawick
My thinking has been simpler, less developed. Yesterday morning, I did three sessions: one phone, two FaceTime. At the end, I was overwhelmed with emotion, struggling to hold myself together. My last patient had her own version of “I’m not…
Letter from New York by Dinah Mendes
Indulging the hope that we’ll be returning to psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in person and in office in the not too distant future, I wonder what, if anything, I will take away from this new and enforced remote arrangement. Although by…
THE PLANTS ARE HAPPY by Kate Angus
Kate Angus’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, Indiana Review, Court Green, Gulf Coast, The Atlantic´s online Object Lessons series, The Washington Post, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day feature. She is the recipient of an…
TREMORS by Hattie Myers
“To be stupefied,” Jared Russell explains in his provocative essay Stupidity, “is to regress in the face of the unexpected, to have one’s critical faculties paralyzed.” The contributors to Room 2.20 may be terrified and even heartbroken in the face…
DIVING INTO THE STREAM by Daniel S. Benveniste
I relocated from San Francisco to Caracas, Venezuela, in March 1999, just one month after Hugo Chávez assumed the presidency. He presented himself as a socialist intent on helping the underclasses and ending corruption, and I was ready to sign…
TRUMP’S WALL by Sheldon Bach
In the Anglo-American world, men are brought up to value a body image that is hard, flat, and impermeable, more like a wall, whereas women are taught to value or at least be content with one that might be softer…
PROJECTION AS A POLITICAL WEAPON by Chris Bell and Gary Senecal
Donald Trump’s penchant for attacking his opponents by projecting onto them his own disavowed personal attributes and apparent self-assessments has been a consistent feature of his rhetorical style and remarked upon by many observers. For instance, in her recent book…
STUPIDITY by Jared Russell
In explicating the thought of Socrates, Nietzsche wrote that philosophy was an effort “to harm stupidity” (The Gay Science, §328). According to Nietzsche, humanism teaches us that it is our egotism that is to blame for our misery. Socrates taught…
THE FISSURE by Michael A. Diamond
There is a psychic fissure in America’s exceedingly fragile democratic body politic. In the face of political tribalism and an awakened and reinvigorated far-right white nationalist movement in America, civil servants (nonelected career public servants) from the Departments of State,…
REASSEMBLING FRAGMENTS by Zak Mucha
When I was a little kid, I thought my uncle was hysterical. He told no jokes, but he didn’t treat me like a kid, either. He was always a problem for the rest of the family. At one point, my…
ARNOLD RICHARDS: A SPIRIT OF ACTIVISM by Aneta Stojnić
In the lead up to our anniversary issue, I’ve had the pleasure of talking to Arnold Richards. A recipient of the 2000 Mary S. Sigourney Award and the 2013 Hans W. Loewald Memorial Award, Dr. Richards is a leading figure…
