About the Conference

1. The Problem of Acceptance of Unpleasant Ideas. One Hundred Years Later. [Clinical, metapsychology and history]

In “The Problem of Acceptance of Unpleasant Ideas” (1926), Ferenczi seeks to clarify the genesis of mental functioning and the incorporation of the sense of reality into the psychic apparatus, with the development of ego functions and the intrapsychic structure of the object. He positions the feelings of omnipotence and sense of reality as two poles intension. The modification of omnipotence requires the acceptance of unpleasant ideas as a necessary condition for nurturing the sense of reality. Here Ferenczi follows and develops Freud's arguments, the polarity of pleasure/displeasure versus sense of reality allows us to account for the problems of object and subject internal development and access to reality. The thematic arguments around which the central ideas of this work are developed are as follows:

1. Significance of “The Acceptance of Unpleasant Ideas” in the process of transition from the feeling of omnipotence to the sense of reality.
2. Negation and affirmation of displeasure.
3. Drive disentanglement/entanglement, ambivalence, and capacity for objectivity. The development of the object.
4. Psychogenesis, adaptation, and preservation of life. Bioanalytic drifts. Entanglement, destruction, and becoming.
5. Calculating machine, calculation work, and sense of reality. Exogenesis of the drive.

‍2. Disavowal, Violence, and Trauma in Our World. [Clinical, metapsychology and history]

Ferenczi understood complex, multiply occurring disruptions as catastrophic. Terrorism, wars, genocide, racism, political, demographic and ecological disasters fragment the self and the world.  

Ferenczi's recognition of relational trauma (confusion of tongues, catastrophe, identification with the aggressor, terrorism of suffering, alien transplants, strange will, unnecessary compulsion, excessive repression, disavowal, etc.) is significantly intertwined with the question of social trauma. With Ferenczi we can understand and elucidate traumas that catastrophically impact on the sense of safety of the individual, the community and social life in general.

Ferenczi's considerations on the importance of disavowal are particularly significant, and crucial to understanding systematic cover-ups, silencing, and disavowal by the powerful of obvious and widespread negativities that maintain and exacerbate chaos and crises. We face an intense social disavowal  in capitalist societies. Exploitation of the vulnerable, precariousness, structural inequality of workers, racism, gender violence accompanied by vicarious violence towards daughters and sons, social exclusion, lack of rights, lack of protection and security are all being disavowals. This web of aggressive disavowals intensifies a violent social trauma that tears lives apart and dehumanizes the defenseless.  

3. Pain, Suffering, and the Processes of Becoming a Person. Between Omnipotence and Identification with the Aggressor. [Clinical, metapsychology and history]

The “experience of pain” (Freud, 1895) occurs when a quantity of excitement cannot be adequately linked or discharged by the psychic apparatus. For pain to transcend the dimension of a mere bodily sensation, it must be constituted as an experienceof displeasure. Human beings develop into subjects, with an ethical sense in their relationship with others, the world and themselves, from the experience of unpleasure (Ferenczi, 1926). When individual development is predominantly shaped by the dynamics of the identification with the aggressor, ruled by powerful parental, educational, or public figures, displeasure is transformed into an experience of suffering. Subjectivity is not only a result of language or the unconscious, but it develops in a complex web between the psychic apparatus and the material, symbolic, and historical conditions surrounding the subject. It is not only about desire, but also how the subject's place in the family and social fabric is transmitted, how the child is received, seen, named and desired by the Other. In the dynamic process of becoming a person, social and cultural influences often interfere with the process through violence, or abandonment. Opposing and unseen areas of inner psychic structures stay unrepresented. The suffering of trauma persists without words as a vague and difficult experience to convey to others, increasing the aloneness of the silently suffering person. This helplessness often fuels the suffering person’s omnipotent defenses and a greater strengthening of the identification with the aggressor, presenting highly challenging clinical situations.  

4. Tenderness, the Opposite of Hatred and Cruelty, is the Source of a Different Form of Subjectivization. The Creativity of Psychic Fragments. [Clinical, metapsychology and history]

One of Ferenczi's greatest contributions to psychoanalytic theory is the importance he assigns to affection and sincerity in all relational spheres and his advocacy of a metapsychology of affections in the analyst's work in a clinical setting.

In particular, the core of his great contribution to clinical practice and the metapsychology of trauma was his 1933 article "Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child, The Language of Tenderness and Passion”  in which he describes the violent clash between passion [Leidenschaft] and tenderness [Zärtlichkeit]. In his view, while passion, whether erotic or hateful, is an uncontrollable, blind, intrusive and overwhelming emotion, tenderness is a basic vital emotion that is based on trust in others and is therefore more open to the outside world.

For Ferenczi, the fundamental question is how the analyst accesses the sensitivity, vulnerability, and the creativity in the fragmented patient and communicates with them. His answer is clear. Such work is only possible by placing oneself in the same position as the patient, that is, by accessing one's own childlike and tender dimension. Ferenczi’s emphasis of the elasticity of psychoanalytic technique (1928), rather than frustration, was derived from such understanding.

The opposite emotions of passion and tenderness are relevant to the theme of this conference, to emphasize the important healing function that tenderness brings to suffering, pain, hatred, and violence in our divided world. It allows us to illuminate ambivalence, a necessary condition for any practice of nonviolence. Tenderness, unlike hatred, promotes connection, empathy, and compassion. Unlike passion or cruelty, tenderness is supportive, rejecting the omnipotence of hatred in favor of hospitality and acceptance.

Deadline for Proposal Submissions is January 31st, 2026.

The conference invites psychoanalytic colleagues, trauma specialists, neuroscientists, and academics to submit proposals to be considered in the sessions of the Madrid encounter. Both clinical and theoretical papers are encouraged. Presenters, as all participants, must register for the conference.

Each submission should include the title of the presentation, name, email addresses, phone number and professional affiliation (association, society, institute, organization, etc.) of the presenter.

Abstracts for individual presentations should be maximum 400 words. The conference presentations should be no longer than 3,000 words (for a 20-minute presentation).

Panel proposals (with 3 panelists) should outline the main theme of the panel in 150 words. In addition, include the names, email addresses, professional affiliations (association, society, institute, organization, etc.) and a 400-word abstract for each individual presenter of the panel. Each presentation should be no longer than 3,000 words (20 minutes) within the panel.