NPSI SPECIAL EVENT
“Making a Home Together in a Warring World:
Two American Psychoanalysts - a Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli - Bearing Witness and Imagining a Future”
Karim G. Dajani, PsyD and Eyal Rozmarin, PhD, Presenters
Carolyn Steinberg, MD, FRCPC, FIPA, Interlocutor
Can we remain in conversation when the differences between us feel impossible to bridge?
Since late 2023, Karim G. Dajani and Eyal Rozmarin—a Palestinian and a Jewish-Israeli psychoanalyst, respectively, both living and working in the United States—have been engaged in an ongoing conversation about Israel-Palestine, their personal and collective histories, and the conscious and unconscious forces that shape sociopolitical life. Their dialogue has unfolded through written correspondence, a filmed conversation titled Speaking of Home, public conversations, and a forthcoming coauthored book.
For many psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, the Israel-Palestine conflict has become a subject that can evoke profound grief, fear, anger, loyalty, identification, and a painful sense that one’s own history or suffering is not being heard. At a time when respectful conversation across these divides can feel nearly impossible, Dajani and Rozmarin offer an opportunity to experience what becomes possible when two psychoanalysts with profoundly different histories remain willing to listen to one another without requiring agreement.
In this special event, the presenters will engage in a spontaneous conversation rather than deliver formal presentations. Carolyn Steinberg, serving as Interlocutor, will pose questions to open and deepen their exchange, inviting them to follow what emerges between them. The conversation will explore how trauma, identity, belonging, and attachment can shape what we hear in one another, and what we cannot yet hear.
At the heart of the encounter is a psychoanalytic question: What happens when our experience of the other—especially the other who seems most different from us—becomes a mirror in which we may encounter something of ourselves? Can uncertainty and curiosity about another individual’s experience create room for something new without requiring us to relinquish our own histories, convictions, or identities?
This event is not intended to resolve the profound political and historical differences surrounding Israel-Palestine. Rather, it invites participants into an experience of dialogue that remains open in the presence of those differences, and to imagine together where such openness might lead.
Learning Objectives
By the conclusion of this event, participants will be able to:
1. Explore how trauma, collective identity, attachment, belonging, and the social unconscious can shape individual and group responses to sociopolitical conflict and influence what becomes possible to hear in dialogue with those who hold profoundly different perspectives.
2. Examine the psychoanalytic challenges and possibilities of sustaining curiosity, recognition, and relational connection across deeply felt political, cultural, and historical differences without requiring agreement or the relinquishing of one’s own experience.
3. Reflect on how psychoanalytic dialogue, including the capacity to tolerate uncertainty, difference, and emotional complexity, can contribute to new ways of imagining relationship, responsibility, and coexistence in the face of seemingly intractable conflict.
About the Presenters
Karim G. Dajani, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst specializing in issues related to cultural dislocation and displacement. His research and writing explore the links between cultural systems and the unconscious of individuals and groups. He serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. His recent publications include a special issue dedicated to the social unconscious and a chapter in a textbook on psychoanalysis addressing race and ethnicity in contemporary psychoanalytic theories and practice.
Eyal Rozmarin, PhD is a psychoanalyst and writer. He was born in Israel-Palestine and now lives in New York. He writes at the intersection of the psychological and the social, about the relations between subjects and collectives, and about belonging. Eyal is Co-Editor of the book series Third Way Psychoanalysis, and on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Dialogues. He teaches at various venues, and keeps a psychoanalytic practice in New York. His upcoming book is titled Belonging and its Discontents.
About the Interlocutor
Carolyn Steinberg, MD, FRCPC, FIPA is a psychoanalyst and Fellow of the International Psychoanalytical Association. She is a full member of Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NPSI) and currently serves as President of its Board of Directors. A psychiatrist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine, she has been engaged in psychoanalytic teaching, leadership, and organizational work for many years. She is also the current Secretary for the North American Psychoanalytic Confederation (NAPsaC) and a Discussion Group facilitator for the IPA Presidents’ Meeting Process.
About the Moderator
Drew Tillotson, PsyD, FIPA, BCPsa is a board-certified psychoanalyst and maintains a full-time private practice in San Francisco, California. He is a graduate, Personal and Supervising Analyst, faculty member, and Past President of the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC), and a Training and Supervising Analyst on the faculty of the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NPSI). He is a Past Vice-President of the North American Psychoanalytic Confederation and currently serves as a board director for both the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies and the North American Psychoanalytic Confederation.
