This seminar reflects on the experience of convening a series of Social Dreaming matrices for psychoanalysts and candidates in the aftermath of the 2024 U.S. election. What began as a NAPsaC town hall to help analysts decompress election-related anxieties evolved into a space for exploring deeper collective concerns about the global rise of destructive and self-destructive impulses.
In the Social Dreaming matrix, dreams and associations circulate and begin to speak to one another, allowing participants to approach shared anxieties and defences without the pressure to interpret or resolve them too quickly. As the gatherings unfolded, unexpected connections emerged, illuminating aspects of the social unconscious and supporting the transformation of raw emotional experience into thought.
The seminar will also reflect on the task of hosting such matrices—creating a space safe enough for participants to encounter the intensity of both inner and external realities— and on the experience of working together as a hosting pair in the convening and holding of a Social Dreaming matrix.
Facilitated by Dr. Maria Pia Conte, Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst. Full Member Società Psicoanalitica Italiana. Past President Centro Psicoanalitico di Genova. Guest Member British Psychoanalytical Society. Member of the Violence Committee of IPA. Member of Social Dreaming International Network.
And by Carlos Remotti-Breton, Psychoanalyst member of the British Psychoanalytic Association and IPA. Organisational, Group Relations Consultant. Executive Director of OPUS an Organisation Promoting Understanding of Society. Member of Social Dreaming International Network and, since 2020, The London Social Dreaming Hub host.
