The Young Professionals Section has just started an exciting new journey with the newly elected IAGP Board! In Sapporo, we were thrilled to meet inspiring young professionals from Japan and across the World. We are delighted to announce that, following the Sapporo Congress, we will start an online group for young professionals, a space to connect, share experiences, and continue building our community together. In addition, we are preparing to start a Young Professionals InterVision Group, where participants can reflect on their professional practice and address their personal and professional needs in a supportive environment.
Within the Young Professionals Section, we will also keep exploring the favorite question: “Who is truly young?”, a question we hear more than any other! It’s asked with curiosity, humor, and sometimes even a bit of relief. After all, being “young” in our community is not just about age, it’s about spirit, curiosity and spark that keeps us moving forward together. Stay tuned & young with us!
For further information and to be involved in the projects of YPS, please email [email protected]
This section was officially established in September 2013. The aim of the section was to create a space for young professionals to meet, to think, and to produce together for IAGP. The section collaborates with other sections and creates projects, webinars, workshops, and fundraising events and invites all young professionals to join in these events. IAGP values and supports young professionals and calls them to become a part of the association, to share about their research and case studies in our discussion list, and to participate and present their works in the regional and international conferences.
A Milestone for Young Professionals: IAGP YP Section at ARCA
We are delighted to share an exciting development from the Young Professionals (YP)
Section. Following a productive and inspiring planning meeting, a panel has been proposed
for ARCA, an online conference dedicated to psychodrama and group psychotherapies. The
panel will focus on the inclusion and active engagement of young professionals within group
therapy organizations, as well as the broader themes of connection, collaboration, and peace-
building through group work.
We are especially proud to announce that YP Section Chair and members of the YP
Coordinating Committee —Nilüfer Demirhan, Ana Albushivili, and Marcello Paltrinieri have
been invited to take part in this panel. Their involvement reflects the growing recognition of
the YP Section’s contributions to the field.
As a section, we are truly excited about this opportunity and the meaningful discussions it will
foster. We are also looking forward to extending a wider invitation to colleagues and students
to join us and welcoming you all in the autumn and sharing this enriching experience
together.
Ayten
Welcome 2026 Together – Wishes for Peace, Creativity, and Renewal
Just one week before the online event Welcome 2026 Together – Wishes for Peace, Creativity, and Renewal, Roberta Mineo, President of IAGP, sent out a call that felt less like an invitation and more like a spark. Hosted by Ayten Bölükbaşı and co-hosted by Marcello Paltrinieri and IAGP Secretary Konstantinos Liolios, the gathering consciously stepped into the charged ambiguity of the threshold between years, a moment when time itself seems to hold its breath.
By January 4th, more than 60 colleagues from around the world had arrived, unsure of what awaited them. Then something unique and memorable happened. IAGP succeeded in creating a shared online space where participants could think, feel, create, and reflect together in real time. The atmosphere filled like the air before lightning – tense, alive, expectant. Analysts and psychodramatists faced both the world’s wounds and its fragile promises side by side.
The following three reflections offer personal and poetic testimonies of how this event was experienced from Norway, Israel, and Serbia. They remind us that within a group this diverse, there are as many inner landscapes as there are participants, each shaped by distinct social, cultural, and emotional realities.
Photo: Screenshots from the New Year online event Welcome 2026 Together, January 4, 2026. Hosted by Ayten Bölükbaşı and co-chaired by Marcello Paltrinieri and IAGP Secretary Konstantinos Liolios.
As the first IAGP event of the New Year, we were invited by the Young Professionals Section to an online event to wish each other a Happy New Year in our own national languages, while simultaneously sharing hopes and wishes for the year ahead. Although much joy was expressed at seeing one another again, the start of the new year is also filled with concern and, in part, fear of what the future may bring, given the significant unrest, conflicts and wars occurring around the world.
As it was said: “We sail in different boats, but we sail in the same sea.” Though the sea is likely experienced differently depending on where in the world you are located. For some, it is experienced as a stormy hurricane, while for others, it is like sailing in calm, smooth waters. But regardless of where we are in the world, we must not give up hope. And we must always remind ourselves that IAGP is an organization where you can find a creative community, as the initiative from YPS reminded us of.
Thor Kristian Island
We were invited to celebrate together!
To share our thoughts, feelings, dreams and wishes for the coming year.
I was not prepared for a joyful celebration, rather
to find a shoulder, or an open heart
to accept me with my deep anxiety at these uncertain times of
pain, loss, worry for the future of the world.
When I heard greetings in so many languages,
suggested by smiling Ayten and Marcello,
my heart broadened and set my dark feelings aside.
I felt a joyful moment of celebration,
a loving group in my breakout room.
We shared midnight snacks and toasted together
wishing each other and the world a piece of bread (baked by Marcia)
and peace upon earth, for all.
All the other smiling faces coming back to the screen
filled my heart with warmth, global friendship and hope.
Thank you for the invitation!
Ofra Faiman
When I saw that dear Ayten was presenting together with Marcello and Konstantinos, I knew I had to attend. This is an amazing space that we share – a gathering of analysts and psychodramatists from all over the world, bringing together such a wealth of experience. We are able to reflect on the epicentres of the world’s evils and goods right at the moment they are unfolding. That sense of shared presence – thinking and feeling together in real time, and trying to live and celebrate in spite of all the evil – feels rare and deeply meaningful. I was especially touched when dear Carla Penna mentioned Earl Hopper’s concept of Mature Hope. I felt compelled to read about it immediately after the meeting. Hopper contrasts infantile hope with mature hope. It seems that, for this new year, we will need a great deal of mature hope. I wish you all a very good year, full of it.
Violeta Goldman
New Year, New Hopes: Young Professionals Bloom
As the year comes to an end, this period has always felt to me like one of the most hopeful yet most challenging times in the field of psychotherapy – as well as in our lives. At times, clients arrive with new goals, filled with excitement about beginning again, busy preparing a crowded table for celebration. Hope enters the room alongside future plans. At other times, unresolved chapters, unfinished relationships, and the sorrow of approaching another New Year to be spent alone sit quietly across from us, carried by our clients or group members.
Because I work primarily with university students, I find myself deeply resonating with the gentle, hope-seeking anticipation of senior group therapists within IAGP as they look toward us, young professionals. As members of the Young Professionals Coordinating Committee, we sometimes notice ourselves comparing our position with “wiser” members – a contrast already embedded in the word young. At times, being a young professional seems to pull us into a more adolescent stance. It is a place where we provoke one another and insist on being seen, heard, and understood more fully. Yet there is also vitality in this position. The lively energy of rebellion can become a genuine force for transformation.
Certain phrases circulate among us:
“We are young, but we need to work harder to grow.”
“Being young does not necessarily mean having more time or energy.”
“Compared to senior professionals, we are often paid less and expected to work more.”
“We want to be heard, even though our experience is still limited.”
As the New Year approaches, existential perspectives come to my mind. These reflections feel timeless and continue to resonate across generations. Human beings tend to prefer the pain they know to an unknown happiness, because familiarity mostly provides a sense of safety, even when what is familiar is painful. What is new, by contrast, carries uncertainty. Uncertainty remains one of the greatest threats to the human mind. At times, this discomfort is projected onto new generations themselves. The New Year reminds us repeatedly that change is difficult.
Change requires responsibility, and change demands choice. Attempting to change the world may be one of the hardest tasks of all. Nearly every society creates its own heroes. Yet waiting for a hero often may indicate a weakened belief in our collective potential and, over time, risks turning us into bystanders of our own lives and the world we are meant to shape.
The wisdom passed down by those who came before us, including our ancestors, families, leaders, mentors, and the highly experienced group therapists within IAGP, offers valuable guidance at both vocational and existential levels. Still, this guidance becomes truly meaningful only when it is accompanied by trust in the new generation. A lack of recognition can easily turn into an internalized, critical, and destructive parental voice within younger generations. Such a voice may limit creativity, agency, and productivity. In contrast, a voice that offers encouragement gives young people the strength to begin, even if that beginning consists of only a single step.
Perhaps this is what it feels like to be a young professional, walking alongside wiser and supportive generations:
My friend, my dear friend, what a cruel line this is, what a maddening balance. One side of us sheds its leaves, One side of us is spring, a garden in bloom…
Ayten Bölükbasi,
Chair Young Professionals Section
As the Young Professionals Section Coordinating Committee — Marcello Paltrinieri, Rebeca Azambuja, Nilüfer Demirhan, and Ana Albutashvili — we held our meeting and decided to develop initiatives to support young professionals as they choose their therapeutic modalities in the coming terms.
We discussed how young professionals, especially those entering therapeutic group work, often struggle to decide which path to follow. Our opportunities are often shaped by the professionals we encounter in our careers and by our financial circumstances, as therapy training is not free of charge which is a bitter truth. While there is no single “perfect” group therapy approach, common therapeutic factors remain essential. We will discover this topic together soon.
The Young Professionals Section wishes everyone a happy new year!
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